South Mississippi Practical Shooting

Our first night match of the season was held on the sultry evening of June 23. If you haven’t shot a match at night, then you don’t know what you are missing. We all think we are prepared to defend our home in the middle of the night, but without actually shooting at night where you in a strange environment, you probably aren’t ready. Low light, no light, blinding flashes, treacherous movement, inability to see your shots or results, all go into making a night match the most challenging type of shooting we do.

Tonight, we shot four stages under occasionally threatening skies, but the weather held, and we finished by Midnight. The match was close and the overall winner failed to win a single stage. On top this evening was Wayne Alcock, with a steady performance that featured no real mistakes, other than a rifle jam in complete darkness. Joe Jones won two stages and was a very close second. Lawson Beach suffered a horrible rifle jam to start one stage and that cost him the match win, as he struggled for almost a minute to get his rifle even running.

We will hold night matches during the Summer, in lieu of the day 3-gun matches. If you are interested in shooting, you must have some day 3-gun match experience before trying it in the dark. This is due to the difficulty in operating and clearing firearms in complete darkness. It is great training, but not a place to begin your training. We will resume daytime 3-gun in September.