Goblins to the Left of Me, Zombies to the Right

Updated! No holiday lends itself to a fun day of shooting like Halloween, my favorite night of the year. For this month's 4th Sunday 3-Gun Practice Match, Jon and I mixed up a warlock's brew of devilish stages to challenge and amuse the goblin-slayers of the Cactus Match League. At publishing time, these are the stages as designed. The Course of Fire Committee greatly improved and adjusted them to club standards; I adjusted the descriptions to the actual stages after the match, what I could remember, anyway.

Vampires, Zombies, and Werewolves...Oh, My!

Pistol
Starting Position: Standing normal ready in Box A with stakes in hand, loaded pistol in holster. On start signal, engage V1 with one stake and enage zombies P1 through P3 and T1 through T4 while standing in V1 so he can't pull out the stake. Engage V2 with one stake and engage P4 through P8 while standing on V2. Stakes must remain in cans for hits to count.

After the zombies are zapped, engage werevolves (T5 and T6) only with ammunition prepostioned on table...these are the silver bullets!

Riotgun
Starting Position: Standing normal ready in Box A with stakes in hand, loaded pistol in holster, loaded shotgun grounded on table with safety on. On start signal, engage V1 with stake and standing on V1 engage left array with pistol; ground unloaded pistol on table, grab stake and riotgun and enage V2 with stake, then engage right array with riotgun while standing on V2. After the zombies are zapped, engage werevolves (T5 and T6) with one slug each only with ammunition prepostioned on table. Shooters who elect not to use slugs may ground their unloaded shotgun on the table, and engage the werewolves (T5 and T6) with pistol, only with ammo prepositioned on the table.

Take THAT, Bela Lugosi!













Cowboy Blob shows a clear weapon after dispatching two werewolves smack in the A zones with two silver slugs! Though I was a bit slower than Jon and Chuck who shared a semi-auto Benelli, I shaved 2 seconds off my score by being accurate. The match used "Thursday Night scoring:" scoring total time minus a bonus one second each for "A" zone and steel hits and adding 5 seconds for misses, no-shoots, and procedural penalties. I placed second on this stage even ahead of two auto-gunners, but my slow Escape from the Lab later would put me in last place.




They're Coming!

Pistol
Starting Postition: Seated with unloaded pistol grounded at Table A, on start signal engage T1 through T5 and P1 through P3 through Barrel B. From Box C, engage T6 through T9. (The Course of Fire Committee moved T1 and T2 to be engaged through barrel.)

Rifle
Starting Position: Seated with unloaded pistol and unloaded rifle grounded at Table A, on start signal engage T1 through T5 and P1 through P3 through Barrel B. From Box C, engage T6 through T9 and PP1 through PP7. Paper requires two hits to score.

Rob "Zombie," a British expat, uses local Arizona technology to fight off the charging hordes of goblins. His Carbon-15 with two optical sighting systems would put him in the Open Class in real 3-Gun competition, even though his Glock pistol and Remington riotgun would fall in the Tactical Class.






Jon, shooting an M-1 Garand, a single-stack .45, and a 12 gauge riotgun limited to 8+1 shots, would qualify for Heavy Metal class. Jon tries on his Jack o' Lantern face after spraying down the last distant steel rifle targets.

He and his brother Chuckie (only a distant relation to the Jon Gruden doll) shot faster than I did with my SOCOM-16.


They've Got the Children!
Small no-shoot targets are white economy paper plates.

Pistol
Starting Position: Standing at Table A, normal ready. On start signal engage T1 through T8.

Rifle
Starting Postition: Standing at Table A, normal ready. On start signal engage T1 through T4 with pistol. Ground unloaded pistol on table. Engage T5 through T8 with rifle.





The Course of Fire Committee upped the number of "children" being carried off for demonic sacrifice; I put two of them out of their misery and missed a few of the cultists.










Not considered while we designed the stage, it turned out to be very Garand friendly. There were no cultists left alive to charge at the very recognizable sound of an M-1 going empty.











Escape from the Lab

Pistol
Starting Position: Standing straddling Cone A with fingers interlaced on top of head facing uprange (must hold onto brains!), loaded pistol grounded on Table B with safety on. On start signal, wreck the mad scientist's machine (Texas Star) and engage his two robotic minions, P1 and P2 (beware of the body on the slab). Carrying talisman/crucifix in hand, move to Box C and engage plate rack. Advance to Box D and engage zombies T1 through T3. All shots outside the lab must be made with talisman/crucifix in hand; it may be shifted out for reloading.

Riotgun
Starting Position: Standing straddling Cone A with fingers interlaced on top of head facing uprange, loaded riotgun and loaded pistol grounded on Table B with safeties on. On start signal, with riotgun, wreck the mad scientist's machine (Texas Star) and engage his two robotic minions, P1 and P2 (remove no-shoot for riotgun). Ground unloaded shotgun on table. Carrying talisman/crucifix in hand, move to Box C and engage plate rack with pistol. Advance to Box D and engage zombies T1 through T3. All shots outside the lab must be made with talisman/crucifix in hand; it may be shifted out for reloading.

Oops! Don't leave without the crucifix! They'll eat you alive without it! The range officer will eat you alive and DQ you if you violate the 180 rule as I almost did.











It's not easy to clear the plate rack with strong hand only (a stage requirement)! But hitting the no-shoot twice in the head while leaving the zombie alive makes their brain munching task so much easier! :)

My camera ran out of memory before I could film Jon, a real life laboratory "Igor."

Final update: Scores are up! Jon beat everybody in riotgun and scored 4th out of 9 riflemen (the top 3 used little girlie ARs). A bunch of Master class shooters and one Grand Master blazed through the course, but didn't have as much fun as we did!