Fredericksburg USPSA Match

The monthly USPSA match by Fredericksburg Practical Shooters was held on Sunday over the Labor Day weekend. The match consisted of 6 field courses and one classifier. The field courses made good use of the walls that had been set up for last month's Area 8 match. Since I missed the Area match this year it was fun to play on some similar courses. (Flikr album with stage photos here.)

Our squad started on Stage 5, appropriately called "Row By Row," which had 8 paper targets, 9 steel poppers, as well as two small steel plates, spread along a fairly straight line, but restricted by numerous barriers. It was good straightforward stage on which to start. Stage 6, labeled "Jump, Jive" made use of two movers that were activated by hitting falling steel. One target was a swinger that came out from behind some no shoot targets, the other popping up from behind a low wall before falling back down. That was a fun stage to shoot and challenged the shooter to hit the steel and then move into position to hit the moving target while it still had the most exposure.

The next stage we shot, Stage 7, "Can You See Me" also had a popper activated swinger target, followed by a fast run down the right side of the bay hitting a series of targets hidden among no shoots. This was a chance to shoot on the move for an extended string. I did okay on that run, but did have one miss on the swinger.

Stage 1, "Draw Your Hand,"offered a unique challenge. Throughout the course of fire were targets that had the head portion painted black or red. After the start, the shooter flipped the top card from a stack of playing cards on the table. The color of the card with the color of target the shooter was not to shoot. There were also unmarked targets in the course. Despite shooting well on the course, I managed to overlook one target. That mistake cost me 2 Mikes plus the penalty for failure to engage (FTE). Ouch!

Stage 2, "This Or That," combined the walls of two courses from Area 8 that were set up in a single bay, offering a fast run with just a couple of tight shots in the middle that required hitting the brakes. Stage 3, titled "Barrels of Fun 2" had a fun combination of long shots at the start, then shots that required squatting to see through a low part followed by some fast targets over a low wall and through ports, and finishing up with more long shots on steel and a paper target partially covered by a no shoot. (The way I shot it anyway.) This was a stage that folks seem to have decided to "go for broke" on. I went a bit too fast and racked up three D hits, but at least had no misses. Not the best score, but I came away with a smile after a fun run.

We ended with the classifier "Triple Choice" (#99-47). This was three strings of 5 shots each; freestyle, strong hand, and weak hand only. The targets were restricted with varying amounts of black "hard cover" areas. Even though I placed 8th out of 40 in my division on this course (my best stage finish of the match) my time probably wasn't fast enough to boost my overall classification score.

Although rain was expected, the only precipitation was a brief sprinkle before the sun broke through the clouds. Frankly I would have preferred the cloud cover. It was a humid but extremely fun day of shooting. The preliminary results show I finished in my customary middle position, 20th out of the 40 Production shooters. A few weaker runs, going too fast and pulling in those "D" hits and some misses, dragged me down. But, I let those bad runs go and shot each stage on it's own, something I had a hard time doing in the past. It's much more fun this way!

"This Or That"