Rivanna IDPA and Weapons Master Match

The biennial Weapons Master match was held this past weekend at Rivanna Rifle and Pistol Club in Charlottesville. The match consists of 3 pistol stages, 2 shotgun, and 2 rifle stages. Shooters can compete in just the pistol portion or the complete match. I have shot neither my shotgun nor rifle in quite some time, preferring to focus my time with pistol shooting, so I opted to just shoot the handgun stages.

It was a somewhat cool morning, with scattered rain showers as I drove to the range. Fortunately the rain clouds dispersed before the shooting started, giving us quite a pleasant morning for shooting.

The first pistol stage was a "standards" stage, with one long string of fire that required freestyle, strong hand and weak hand shooting. We started at 15 yards and engaged three targets with two rounds each. Advancing to 10 yards, the targets were engaged again SHO. Finally we moved to 7 yards and repeated the engagement WHO. I ended up 7 points down, one jerked SHO shot into the -3 some contribution significantly to that score.

The next two stages were fun adaptations of stages we shot last weekend at the Potomac Grail. On the  first we started facing a wall with a narrow gap in the center. There targets were shot from retention with our wrists held to our chest. We then moved to both ends of the wall to find six more targets shot from cover. A few low shots saw me -3 for the stage.

The final stage had us pinned in a corner and shooting two targets from strong hand from retention. There were three more arrays of three targets each placed further back that we then engaged in priority. Two of the arrays presented some tight shots due to non-threats centered in front of the target pairs.

Though the pistol match was brief, requiring about as much time to shoot as I spent driving to the range, I was glad I went. I enjoyed the shooting, and as always the camaraderie with other shooters. I finished 6th of 40 in the pistol portion and 2nd of 16 in SSP.

This match is likely the final one of my shooting season. I was a fun wind down. Now I look forward to preparing for next year with dry fire and range visits.