Make Ready means Make Ready

[allen-1]

I always think of "Make Ready" as step to the position, chamber a round, settle myself and I'm ready.

I shot a USPSA match in South Carolina yesterday and I learned a couple of things. I had the pleasure of watching a GrandMaster shoot, and the even greater pleasure of talking to him about how he shot and why he did things a certain way. Really nice guy, and simply watching him was eye-opening. His approach to the stages was a learning experience for me.

And I screwed the pooch on a classifier stage. It was four separate strings, all starting with hands above shoulders, gun holstered. First string was to draw and fire six shots into T1 using your left hand only. I'm right-handed. Which means draw, transition and shoot. With a par of 4.5 seconds.

I hadn't done that type of transition before, any time I'd shot weak hand only, I'd started from a low-ready. So I prepped at a safe table. And then when it was my turn, I stepped up, made ready, and beep, transition and $#!@ - the trigger doesn't feel right and I'm looking at the slide - and the round's not chambered fully. With a 4.5 second par there's no way to clear it.

Yeah. That's a zero on the first string. "make ready" means "make ready". Dumbass.

And then I fell apart. Shot the second string using the instructions from the third string, so went for an unnecessary reload. Parred out.

Shot the third and fourth string correctly.

Lesson #2.
FIDO. Drive on. What's done is done. Focus on the current task.

 

[Supermoto]

Where in SC did you shoot?

 

[allen-1]

Where in SC did you shoot?

Palmetto Gun Club

 

[Supermoto]

You ever shoot at pinetucky in GA

 

[allen-1]

You ever shoot at pinetucky in GA

I shot a match there in December. It's a really nice range, but it's almost four hours from me. GA's a big state, and I'm on the coast just outside of Savannah.

Funny thing, I took the USPSA RO course a couple of weeks ago in SC, and the match director from Pinetucky was there getting his certification.

 

[Supermoto]

I shot a match there in December. It's a really nice range, but it's almost four hours from me. GA's a big state, and I'm on the coast just outside of Savannah.

Funny thing, I took the USPSA RO course a couple of weeks ago in SC, and the match director from Pinetucky was there getting his certification.

Good to know, its only 45 min from me. thinking of joining there since it has USPSA and sporting clays

 

[allen-1]

Good to know, its only 45 min from me. thinking of joining there since it has USPSA and sporting clays

I've only been there once, but was impressed. About 50 shooters, including a couple I know from Georgia. 5 stages including a classifier. The rangemaster is young, energetic. Plenty of equipment, and innovative thinking. One thing I've not seen before - they use very long screws instead of spikes to stake targets down - and is indicative of the thought processes. Stages were fun to shoot. Decent mix of close/distant, paper/steel.

Well organized. Since I hadn't shot there before, I listened to the new shooter's brief just to make sure they didn't have any rules particular to that range. Brief was thorough and well done.

I haven't heard anything negative from the guys I know down here about it.

 

[Fixxah]

Good to know, its only 45 min from me. thinking of joining there since it has USPSA and sporting clays

You have a .38 Super clay pistol? I am not surprised.