I’m getting a little behind on my write-ups!
I attended another carbine event that had a lot of fun activities squeezed into a long day. The first thing we did was shoot at movers. Unlike the first time, I had my scope with me so I was able to play this round. I made a couple hits! I was pretty thrilled to get my first hit on a moving target (I haven’t been back to a shotgun event yet).
Next we went down to the short distance range and got in some serious close-quarters action. We started at 50 and advanced towards our targets doing different drills. Unfortunately I was already past the 20 yard mark when someone pointed out my shots were all low and reminded me that as you get closer, the zero isn’t going to work so great anymore. Uh, yeah. I took a sideways look at my rifle, I recalled the enormous gap between the red dot location and the barrel, and I switched my tactics to line that barrel right up with the center of the target. I did better then.
I’ve got to say that the red dot makes target acquisition ridiculously quick. It also looks like I have pretty good familiarity with my trigger now, at least in these nearly point-blank applications. Quick target acquisition followed by two smooth squeezes while taking advantage of the trigger reset led to consistently good timing.
There was one point where we had to work offhand, because we had to shoot from both sides of a barrier. Someone else on the line reassured me that everyone has this problem, where they are squishing their face around so that they can get their dominant eye on the sight, because, most people don’t train with off-hand work. I did the face-squish and pulled it off. It may be one of those cases where the raised rail gap worked to my advantage.
The last portion didn’t work out for me. We were really hot and during a water break I noticed my hands shaking. Calling that out resulted in a whole lot of well-intended scrutiny.
Anyway, things got a little confusing when it came down to the pistol drawing stage. I of course had to be there with my P22 with its weird mag release and external hammer and 50 safety features (I’ve at least taken care of some of these oddities now that my PPQ’s holster arrived). I decided not to take that round.
I find that in a stressful situation, having a half dozen people trying to give you uninformed directions is pretty stressful. I would recommend that the guy in charge be the one to deliver instructions and call it a day. I expect that people will feel safer all around.
Having the magazine release be part of the trigger guard really freaks people out. I will have to remember that when I am in these events in the future and clearly articulate when I’m going to drop my magazine.
Well that last part was embarrassing but overall it was a great day. This is the most fun event I’ve been in to date.