I shot the S&W IDPA Winter Championships Thursday afternoon (CDP/SS). Here’s a quick After Action Report:
Admin: Very smoothly run. At registration, you pick up the packet and the freebies (fleece vest and pistol bag), and wait for the shooters meeting. You also pick up a sheet of nine labels for the eight scoresheets. More on that later. Big Kudo’s also to the entire RO staff on the ranges. Professional, friendly and well-versed in the stage they were running. Very efficiently run; the longest we had to wait at any stage (back-up) was 5-10 minutes, and that was only on one stage. Every other stage was empty or emptying as my squad walked up. Another added plus was that the RO's taped and "brassed" on almost every stage. What a luxury that was!
A lot of the stages were advertised as "low light," and they were. Only one "flashlight" stage, but a lot of the stages intentionally had very little light. Different for an "outside" match shooter like me. I have a fiber optic front sight on my 1911, and had no problems. In fact, I was impressed by how much light the fiber optic was able to “reflect” back at me. Certainly better and easier to use than a normal “white dot” front sight would have. It positively glowed on all stages. I shoot the HiViz .110 green tube, and that big, shiny “green dot” on the front was easy to find.
Highlights of the stages (CoF Descriptions):
Stage 1: Started with your gun in a box. Not just any box, of course, but the “IDPA box,” so there’s the first “gun check” without being intrusive. Low-light for both strings. String 2 had me leaning way out from the “Harley” to hit targets without shooting through and hitting a no-shoot. An important lesson, as well: we tend to shoot almost all of our Tactical Priority targets by “slicing the pie,” and almost never have near-far Tactical Priority targets. This stage had near-far, and it wasn’t left-to-right, i.e. you had to shoot left, right, then center. Oops. Lesson relearned.
Stage 2: Another “low-light” scenario. Instructions were: "Gently push over the tree at P3 to expose the Drop-Turner." Yeah, right: Gently. People were Conan-ing that thing down. WHAM! Almost missed seeing T8 because it was in shadow.
Stage 3: May have been my favorite. Only light was the red/blue flashing lights from the cruisers. Lots of moving and shooting, and meanwhile the mover T2 just goes slowly back and forth above the back of the scenario. It can be engaged at any point, so as you’re moving along, if it looks good, stop engaging “down” and engage “up.”
Stage 4: This stage was a little strange in that you shot from cover, but for range safety reasons, you reloaded in the open. Boy, is that hard to convince yourself to do. Slice the pie, then lean out into the portal to reload, then back to cover. On portal 2, those yellow dots on the CoF description are high-beam headlights that shine in your face. They completely blank out the targets until you turn on your flashlight to overpower the headlights. Cool effect.
Stage 5: Remember that extra label you got? At Stage 5, they give you a little baggy and ask for a sample. No, not that kind. They take 6 rounds to chrono and put that extra label on the bag. They said “Put the label on and write down the weight bullet you’re using.” I think I’ll be OK for PF since I put down “500gr.” Stage is very straight-forward: grab your gun and ammo from the drawer, load up as you’re heading to the spot between the door and window, shoot those who need to be shot.
Stage 6: Ended up being a little different than the published CoF for range requirements. A good stage, but it’s in a range that feels like it’s all of 5’ wide. I was afraid my brass was going to ricochet off the walls and hit me. 6 rounds into that first bad dude in the center, then left or right, your choice, to deal with the others through a door (left) and a portal (right) that felt like a mail-slot at the time, although I’m sure it was much bigger.
Stage 7: Lots to remember here, or it’s procedural-city. I think we had 3 in our squad (not me, thankfully). You have to 1) engage 3 targets, 2 rounds each; 2) crouch and reload; 3) step forward and pick up stuffed dog; 4) reengage 3 targets with 2 each while moving forward to cover (Procedural 1); set the dog down gently (Procedural 2); and re-engage the 3 targets again in tactical priority order (Procedural 3). I was all ready to carry the dog by the tail so I could shoot 2 handed (naughty gamer that I am), but during the stage walk-through the RO said, “And, no, you can’t carry it by it’s tail, or it’s ears, or it’s leg.” Guess I’m not the only one thinking ahead! At the end of my run, the RO gave me a compliment, “Procedurally, that’s the best run I’ve seen today.” Of course, I was horrified because all I heard was the word “Procedural” in the sentence! It's like The Bedford Incident.
Stage 8: Good stage, with lots of hard-to-see/find targets (“I know there’s one more here somewhere.”). The “taxi” was a truck cab that was a little tight for us long-legged boys.
BTW, I also got to meet and speak with Jim Scoutten (host of the TV shows "Shooting USA" and "American Shooter") while waiting for the shooter’s meeting. The retail store has a little mini-museum of S&W products, and we shot the BS for a few minutes. He was very cordial and approachable. A real gentleman of the old school.
Great match, and I'm glad I got to shoot it. And I probably only got to shoot because they went to a true "first-come-first-served" procedure, instead of the "favorite son" version of years past.
Admin: Very smoothly run. At registration, you pick up the packet and the freebies (fleece vest and pistol bag), and wait for the shooters meeting. You also pick up a sheet of nine labels for the eight scoresheets. More on that later. Big Kudo’s also to the entire RO staff on the ranges. Professional, friendly and well-versed in the stage they were running. Very efficiently run; the longest we had to wait at any stage (back-up) was 5-10 minutes, and that was only on one stage. Every other stage was empty or emptying as my squad walked up. Another added plus was that the RO's taped and "brassed" on almost every stage. What a luxury that was!
A lot of the stages were advertised as "low light," and they were. Only one "flashlight" stage, but a lot of the stages intentionally had very little light. Different for an "outside" match shooter like me. I have a fiber optic front sight on my 1911, and had no problems. In fact, I was impressed by how much light the fiber optic was able to “reflect” back at me. Certainly better and easier to use than a normal “white dot” front sight would have. It positively glowed on all stages. I shoot the HiViz .110 green tube, and that big, shiny “green dot” on the front was easy to find.
Highlights of the stages (CoF Descriptions):
Stage 1: Started with your gun in a box. Not just any box, of course, but the “IDPA box,” so there’s the first “gun check” without being intrusive. Low-light for both strings. String 2 had me leaning way out from the “Harley” to hit targets without shooting through and hitting a no-shoot. An important lesson, as well: we tend to shoot almost all of our Tactical Priority targets by “slicing the pie,” and almost never have near-far Tactical Priority targets. This stage had near-far, and it wasn’t left-to-right, i.e. you had to shoot left, right, then center. Oops. Lesson relearned.
Stage 2: Another “low-light” scenario. Instructions were: "Gently push over the tree at P3 to expose the Drop-Turner." Yeah, right: Gently. People were Conan-ing that thing down. WHAM! Almost missed seeing T8 because it was in shadow.
Stage 3: May have been my favorite. Only light was the red/blue flashing lights from the cruisers. Lots of moving and shooting, and meanwhile the mover T2 just goes slowly back and forth above the back of the scenario. It can be engaged at any point, so as you’re moving along, if it looks good, stop engaging “down” and engage “up.”
Stage 4: This stage was a little strange in that you shot from cover, but for range safety reasons, you reloaded in the open. Boy, is that hard to convince yourself to do. Slice the pie, then lean out into the portal to reload, then back to cover. On portal 2, those yellow dots on the CoF description are high-beam headlights that shine in your face. They completely blank out the targets until you turn on your flashlight to overpower the headlights. Cool effect.
Stage 5: Remember that extra label you got? At Stage 5, they give you a little baggy and ask for a sample. No, not that kind. They take 6 rounds to chrono and put that extra label on the bag. They said “Put the label on and write down the weight bullet you’re using.” I think I’ll be OK for PF since I put down “500gr.” Stage is very straight-forward: grab your gun and ammo from the drawer, load up as you’re heading to the spot between the door and window, shoot those who need to be shot.
Stage 6: Ended up being a little different than the published CoF for range requirements. A good stage, but it’s in a range that feels like it’s all of 5’ wide. I was afraid my brass was going to ricochet off the walls and hit me. 6 rounds into that first bad dude in the center, then left or right, your choice, to deal with the others through a door (left) and a portal (right) that felt like a mail-slot at the time, although I’m sure it was much bigger.
Stage 7: Lots to remember here, or it’s procedural-city. I think we had 3 in our squad (not me, thankfully). You have to 1) engage 3 targets, 2 rounds each; 2) crouch and reload; 3) step forward and pick up stuffed dog; 4) reengage 3 targets with 2 each while moving forward to cover (Procedural 1); set the dog down gently (Procedural 2); and re-engage the 3 targets again in tactical priority order (Procedural 3). I was all ready to carry the dog by the tail so I could shoot 2 handed (naughty gamer that I am), but during the stage walk-through the RO said, “And, no, you can’t carry it by it’s tail, or it’s ears, or it’s leg.” Guess I’m not the only one thinking ahead! At the end of my run, the RO gave me a compliment, “Procedurally, that’s the best run I’ve seen today.” Of course, I was horrified because all I heard was the word “Procedural” in the sentence! It's like The Bedford Incident.
Stage 8: Good stage, with lots of hard-to-see/find targets (“I know there’s one more here somewhere.”). The “taxi” was a truck cab that was a little tight for us long-legged boys.
BTW, I also got to meet and speak with Jim Scoutten (host of the TV shows "Shooting USA" and "American Shooter") while waiting for the shooter’s meeting. The retail store has a little mini-museum of S&W products, and we shot the BS for a few minutes. He was very cordial and approachable. A real gentleman of the old school.
Great match, and I'm glad I got to shoot it. And I probably only got to shoot because they went to a true "first-come-first-served" procedure, instead of the "favorite son" version of years past.
