Not a full report card this time, more of a pass/fail.
I'm happy to report that this was a fail. See, you learn from failure so I was going with the mindset of failing and learning. Mission accomplished.
Here are some things I learned:
I'm happy to report that this was a fail. See, you learn from failure so I was going with the mindset of failing and learning. Mission accomplished.
Here are some things I learned:
- Shooting while hanging from a cargo net is even harder than it sounds
- If you mess up your dope card, you are going to have a bad stage. I wrote my card as if I was going to dial for the first distance and hold over for the other two distances. But I dialed instead of holding over and shot 2 feet under 7 of the targets. When I figured out what I had done, I couldn't do the math fast enough to recover so I just winged it. In the future I will write down the actual hold values and if I decide to hold instead of dial, I will dial back to zero first.
- Read the match directions, don't assume that something has to be shot a certain way if it isn't in the directions. This was actually a win for me. There was a triple roof top and you had to shoot from each roof top, switching to weak side on the middle roof top. The first guy shot it like you normally would, laying on the roof tops with nothing touching the ground, and he struggled. The match director was taking pictures and I asked him if we were allowed to touch the ground. He said "Does it say you have to touch the ground in the match book?" The rest of the squad shot standing on the ground with the rifles resting on the roof tops. Much easier.
- Shooting in, out of, through and on vehicles is kind of awesome. If you are shooting off of the hood or trunk of a vehicle, get the rifle all the way on there with some rear bag support, don't just stick the bipod up there and leave the back of the rifle flapping around in space. And go ahead and get your body up against the vehicle as well. Support is good.
- Shooting out to 250+ yards is not as bad as you think it will be. Shooting small targets at 150 yards is.
- If shooting a semi-auto, slow down. You have time, make better shots.
- Shooting from the windows and back door of a school bus has probably been a fantasy of anyone that rode a school bus. It's harder than you thought it would be when you were 10.
- Time spent planning before a stage is time well spent. Figure out where you are going and what you will do when you get there. Watch other people and see what they are doing right (or wrong). Have your mags loaded and write your dope down. Check the targets through a spotting scope, check the wind, have your scope and gear ready. There is time for ass-grabbery after you shoot. (This was another win for me. Except for my dope card snafu, I had a good plan for every stage and was prepared when it was my turn. I was one bad stage and a couple of bad shots away from being middle of the pack.)
- Don't wait too long to get lunch or it might be gone.
