2011 Vermont State USPSA Championship

[MFP4073]

I didn't see any posts on it so I thought I would start one up.

The guys at Green Mountain Practical Shooters really go all out when they put on a match and this one was not any different. I want to thank them all for their tremendous effort!

Ten stages (12 with the two re-shoots) filled the day and the weather was awesome. The props were elaborate, the stages had a good level of difficulty and they were mentally challenging. Lack of focus and poor execution stuck with me the entire day. I was disappointed with my performance but I still managed to have a great time. Had a great squad too... you know you are among friends when they say "man you looked horrible on that stage!"

I have photo evidence of MAShooter sneaking a grab on the pistol toating, she-demon from stage 8.

Anyway... Some vids of the stages are up if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/user/whitey627?feature=mhee#p/u/6/xzBX9aYVwlc

Hats off to GMPS! I hope you do this again next year. It was as fun as the 2007 Aware / A-7 match. Thank you!!

 

[Lugnut]

Agree with you 100% Matt. I hope they do it again next year too. Made some mental mistakes as there were some tough stages but I faired well even after a pretty disastrous start.

 

[Rob Boudrie]

My thoughts:

Stages: 5 Stars

Range Officers: 5 Stars. There were all polite, and made the right calls even when inconvenient to do so (mandating reshoots when a plate fell without being hit, etc)

Squadding: 2.5 Stars. They had 2 stages in each pit, 10 shooters per squad, assuring that a minimum of 50% of the stages were unused at any time. Combined with relatively large squads, this made for a 8:30-5PM day to shoot 10 stages. Some of it may have been limits on the number of RO's, but 8 ranges, with one stage each would have supported 56 shooters per day instead of 50, gotten everyone out earlier, and had a better "shoot time to wait time" ratio. The "long day" squadding would have been disasterous in heavy rain.

 

[9X21]

Great match as usual from GMPS! (I wish I shot better)
A BIG THANK YOU!
The Guys & Gals of GMPS did an AWESOME JOB!
however,
Rob's observations are correct, as much as I love the 4.5 hour ride to the beautiful mountains of VT,
GMPS need to understand the long rides some of us take to enjoy their matches, really suck when you finish at 5PM.
A long drive to a major match in anticipation is fun!, A long ride home after 9 hours in 90 degree heat, not so much!
Most can afford to stay over the night before, staying over after is usually impractical.
Lessons of major matches in the past, such as Summer Blast, show that smaller squads, 1/2 day formats can be successful.
That way the shooters can choose AM or PM squads & their ride home fate........

 

[Lugnut]

My thoughts:

Squadding: 2.5 Stars. They had 2 stages in each pit, 10 shooters per squad, assuring that a minimum of 50% of the stages were unused at any time. Combined with relatively large squads, this made for a 8:30-5PM day to shoot 10 stages. Some of it may have been limits on the number of RO's, but 8 ranges, with one stage each would have supported 56 shooters per day instead of 50, gotten everyone out earlier, and had a better "shoot time to wait time" ratio. The "long day" squadding would have been disasterous in heavy rain.

Rob I must say I'm baffled by the time it took. 10 people/squad is not much... actually about half the size of the squads we had at the last HSC match. We got twice as many people thru 6 stages at HSC in much less time- roughly equivalent to 10 people thru 12 stages right? Less the extra walk thru.

However there was no scoring until the shooter was finished. The RO scored the entire stage at the end of the ULSC. Could that have added that much time?

I'd still go again in a heart beat. And in all fairness they told us ahead of time to be prepared to shoot until about 5PM... and they were right... even though myself and the shooters in my squad figured otherwise.

 

[gamingoddess]

Looking at Google Maps prior to coming to the match, I just didn't know how they would be able to support 10 stages. Nevertheless, I loved how they put the stages together. It kinda reminds me of Monson matches, some indoor USPSA matches, or IDPA matches. If you got a big enough pit, you can easily put two stages into it. Just like everyone else, I was pretty surprised that this went past the time it did. Considering how we literally flew through the MA State IDPA match (with the same 2 stages in one pit format) I was thinking we would be done at 2PM tops. Boy was I wrong.

Lugnut, you're 100% correct. The reason why this extended longer was because they weren't scoring until the entire course of fire was finished. Plus a couple of ROs had problems using the palm. Of course how they score is completely their decision. I've seen it go both ways during major matches. I think one of the reasons they try to avoid scoring on the spot is because the 2nd RO is usually the one designated to watch foot placement and all.

This is not about large squads either. 10 people in a squad is actually pretty small. 8 people is usually a 1/2 day type squad so 10 people is really not much more than that. I think we would have been done at 3ish if we started @ 8AM (first shots). I don't think we started shooting until 915 or so.

Either way, didn't have any problems with ROs, loved the stages, and was in a fantastic squad. Well worth the trip.

 

[Chuck Z]

It was a great match. Physically demanding. I remember being able to squat low enough to get the two buried plates on the "pirate" stage during our preview on Friday, but not being able to get them without taking a knee at the end of Saturday. Those stages were good to shoot but a nightmare to score.

Lugnut-sorry I got in your head on stage 1. I'll never forget the look on your face as you said "why did you do that to me?" And then you bought me lunch! I don't care what they say - you're alright.

 

[10mmdave]

If someone will tell me how to post pics here I have 8 of the 10 stages.
I'm uploading the files (I think ??) but then I don't see them attached to the msg.
Or do I need one of those photo accounts ??

So, back to the match.....
Some really inventive stages, hated stage 1 (can you say "re-shoot" !)
Squad sizes should be no less than 8 and no more than ?? maybe 12 ?
The problem is getting everyone to help (as always !!!)
u know who u are !
To me it looked like the folks tried to put this on with a minimum of help,
a stage like stg1 needed a 3rd or 4th range worker and they certainly could have
started scoring before the shooter finished. Same goes for Stg 8. although they
did have a 3rd or 4th there.
(See a vid of the great Fred R’s re-shoot of Stg 8 below, 3rd times a charm I think this was)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk5EQ9PFgLg

BUT ! ! ! from what Elye’s Dad mentioned the folks showed up on Friday to BUILD
all the stages and they were back at dawn on Sat. to finish a stage or 2 before the
shooters started.

A great big THANK YOU to the crew that pulled this off.
Even though stg1 bit me in my back side I know I wasn’t the only one.

 

[M1911]

If someone will tell me how to post pics here I have 8 of the 10 stages.
I'm uploading the files (I think ??) but then I don't see them attached to the msg.
Or do I need one of those photo accounts ??

You need to upload your photos to a photosharing web site like Flickr, photobucket, google photos, etc. Once you do that, you can then get a link to that photo from that web site, and in your post here paste in that link, but put img tags around the link:

[ img ] your link here [ / img ]

But remove the spaces between the brackets and img.