This last weekend I had the opportunity to shoot my first IDPA nationals, the S&W Indoor Nationals in Springfield, MA. It was a great time and an incredible experience. The match is really hard to get into, so I was just happy to be offered a spot. I think I was notified sometime in December and started training for it as much as I could. Nothing quite prepared me for what I would see there though
My wife and I drove up to Springfield (16 hours
) and stayed at the match hotel. It was cool getting to meet some new shooters and later some guys that I've always wanted to meet like Jerry Miculek (kind of cool sharing an elevator with him). At registration, we got some cool stuff
I took along some practice targets and dummy rounds to the hotel room and did some dryfire practice getting ready for the match. Come Friday morning I was on the range, ready to go. This in and of itself was a neat experience. My squad was paired up with a "Squad Mom" who did a great job. She took care of all our scoresheets, guided us through the maze that is S&W, and generally encouraged us all day long. When we came to a black-out stage, my flashlight looked a bit dim and she let me borrow her 511 light (it was great, I'll be getting one of those). We had to do no pasting or reseting all day and could concentrate completely on the match.
So we came to the first stage and I did reasonably well. The second stage was also in that bay- this was not shot well. It was a stage called "Cosmic Bowling" and I really believed my match was over after that stage. It was bad, real bad. Why was it bad you ask? Because the targets looked like this!
That isn't paint- that's a moving lazer show- in the dark. If you look closely, you'll see that's a Non-Threat target. Hard to see, isn't it. It was so hard for me to see, I decided to put a round through it. Miculek told me on the elevator that this stage offered him "the best opportunity for point shooting in a long time" He also decided to give that NT a round, so I didn't feel so bad
So, I blew that stage and then one after it. I knew I was in bad shape, but in retrospect, those stages were probably the very best thing that could have happened. I knew I had to fight back hard and whatever mental level I had on those stages was increased several fold from there on out. I only slightly messed up another stage- a stage that we all had to shoot an M&P Shield on. Yeah, it's little and it's a 9, but when you're use to shooting a 40 ounce+ gun, that little dude is downright snappy Other than that, the match went really well. I think I was able to secure 4 stage wins, which was enough to keep me at the top of my class and put me at 5th in the division.
My goals for the match were:
1.) Perform well/Don't Get DQ'ed
2.) Win My Class
3.) Best Miculek on at least one stage
As Meatloaf said, "2 out of 3 ain't bad" Closest I came to Jerry was a little over 1 second.
I would have liked to got more pictures and maybe some vid, but things were tense at S&W. They were installing a rising metal barrier around the entire facility and had security both armed and unarmed everywhere. General gossip consensus is that S&W wasn't so much concerned about eastern terrorism as some anti's doing something there.
On Saturday night the awards ceremony was held. IDPA announced so really cool stuff coming down the pipe for us shooters! At the top of the list is the new rulebook- word has it that we're looking at around 6 weeks. This will go hand in hand with a new IDPA website, which they previewed that evening. It looks great and is highly interactive. It will become the Facebook of IDPA. Clubs can now host their website directly from IDPA.com. Rangelog will also offer shooters a way to keep and track their scores, practice drills, and so forth on the website. When the new book comes out, we can review it and make comments on it directly to IDPA.com. It will then be reviewed and finalized. Pretty cool stuff.
Also, S&W announced that they will hold the first sanctioned BUG match in November.
I might have to get the snubs out and start practicing.
IDPA now has a membership of over 21,000 and is the fastest growing competitive shooting sport in the world- for the last three years.
Looking forward to returning to Springfield!
My wife and I drove up to Springfield (16 hours
) and stayed at the match hotel. It was cool getting to meet some new shooters and later some guys that I've always wanted to meet like Jerry Miculek (kind of cool sharing an elevator with him). At registration, we got some cool stuff
I took along some practice targets and dummy rounds to the hotel room and did some dryfire practice getting ready for the match. Come Friday morning I was on the range, ready to go. This in and of itself was a neat experience. My squad was paired up with a "Squad Mom" who did a great job. She took care of all our scoresheets, guided us through the maze that is S&W, and generally encouraged us all day long. When we came to a black-out stage, my flashlight looked a bit dim and she let me borrow her 511 light (it was great, I'll be getting one of those). We had to do no pasting or reseting all day and could concentrate completely on the match.
So we came to the first stage and I did reasonably well. The second stage was also in that bay- this was not shot well. It was a stage called "Cosmic Bowling" and I really believed my match was over after that stage. It was bad, real bad. Why was it bad you ask? Because the targets looked like this!
That isn't paint- that's a moving lazer show- in the dark. If you look closely, you'll see that's a Non-Threat target. Hard to see, isn't it. It was so hard for me to see, I decided to put a round through it. Miculek told me on the elevator that this stage offered him "the best opportunity for point shooting in a long time"
He also decided to give that NT a round, so I didn't feel so badSo, I blew that stage and then one after it. I knew I was in bad shape, but in retrospect, those stages were probably the very best thing that could have happened. I knew I had to fight back hard and whatever mental level I had on those stages was increased several fold from there on out. I only slightly messed up another stage- a stage that we all had to shoot an M&P Shield on. Yeah, it's little and it's a 9, but when you're use to shooting a 40 ounce+ gun, that little dude is downright snappy
Other than that, the match went really well. I think I was able to secure 4 stage wins, which was enough to keep me at the top of my class and put me at 5th in the division.
My goals for the match were:
1.) Perform well/Don't Get DQ'ed
2.) Win My Class
3.) Best Miculek on at least one stage
As Meatloaf said, "2 out of 3 ain't bad"
Closest I came to Jerry was a little over 1 second.I would have liked to got more pictures and maybe some vid, but things were tense at S&W. They were installing a rising metal barrier around the entire facility and had security both armed and unarmed everywhere. General gossip consensus is that S&W wasn't so much concerned about eastern terrorism as some anti's doing something there.
On Saturday night the awards ceremony was held. IDPA announced so really cool stuff coming down the pipe for us shooters! At the top of the list is the new rulebook- word has it that we're looking at around 6 weeks. This will go hand in hand with a new IDPA website, which they previewed that evening. It looks great and is highly interactive. It will become the Facebook of IDPA. Clubs can now host their website directly from IDPA.com. Rangelog will also offer shooters a way to keep and track their scores, practice drills, and so forth on the website. When the new book comes out, we can review it and make comments on it directly to IDPA.com. It will then be reviewed and finalized. Pretty cool stuff.
Also, S&W announced that they will hold the first sanctioned BUG match in November.
I might have to get the snubs out and start practicing. IDPA now has a membership of over 21,000 and is the fastest growing competitive shooting sport in the world- for the last three years.
Looking forward to returning to Springfield!
We actually had to sign a waiver saying that we wouldn't do certain things like taunt other competitors. It was tough for me, but I signed it anyway
