3-Gun Fun

My club had a 3-gun match last weekend. It was fun and challenging, a real learning experience, so here’s what I learned:

1. Events that involve shooting and moving are an athletic endeavor. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Spending the day before the match with your feet up will improve your scores, especially if match day temps are running +100°. Working late the day before will drag you down

2. Having the only rifle in the match that didn’t carry a 20-round mag meant 2 extra reloads. This was a minimally annoying problem as reloads in a semi-auto don’t take all that long. NOTE: At very short ranges, a rifle with 2.5” of offset between the sight and the barrel will shoot 2.5” lower than the sights indicate. At these distances, aiming is counterproductive, just point and shoot. It helps you avoid giving the no-shoot stapled to the front of the target a new ½ bullet diameter part to his hairline.

3.The shotgun stage involved 23 rounds, the first six of which were slugs at 35 yards. Six slugs in quick succession and you’ll have a flinch that will stay with you the rest of the stage.  Also after 12 rounds in quick succession, reloading gets to be a challenge as the barrel is now really hot. It was interesting to note that the shotgun with slugs had a higher muzzle velocity (1600 fps) than my rifle (1300 fps).

4.Both stages were 2-gun stages, which meant using the long gun to get to your pistol and 1 magazine. You still have to carry spare mags for the pistol in addition to whatever ammo you carry for the long guns. In any case this is a weighty load of ammo, and in the case of the shotgun, cargo pant’s work well. Just put the open top box of shells in a cargo pocket, and off you go. It’s still heavy and clunky.

5.After shooting pistol matches all year long with an 8-round load limit, when you hear that the upcoming match will have no load limit for pistols, you should disassemble and clean your pistol mags to remove the dirt from the bottom of the mags before the match. The first few rounds will feed more smoothly.