South Mississippi Practical Shooting

The day dawned overcast and misty but shaped up to be a beautiful May Saturday for 62 shooters at the May Brothers N Arms USPSA Pistol Match.  I’ll have to check, but that may be a tie for the highest attendance at the club so far!  I’ll get to the results shortly, but please indulge me for a short personal observation.

In the short 18 months or so that I have been involved in this sport, I have learned an incredible amount.  Most of this knowledge has come from being around you, the shooters, and by keeping my ears open.  One thing I heard some time ago that stuck with me came from a much admired friend and mentor, Bob Brandt.  It was a casual comment in a group of people…”There are two kinds of shooters – those that have been DQ’d and those that are going to be”.  I don’t know why it stuck with me, but it did.  Fast forward to today and I find myself on a squad with my friend Bob and 12 other outstanding shooters.  After I completed shooting the first stage, he paid me a very high compliment.  He said “You definitely deserve the most improved shooter award!  When I first saw you shoot, man, it was painful to watch!  Now, you got it down, that was text book!”.  Or something close to that.

I received my first disqualification on the very next stage.

I RO’d for the rest of the day and still had a ton of fun, but it gave me a lot of time to think.  What went wrong?  Was it really my fault (YES!!)?  How could I have avoided it?  How could I prevent it in the future?  The most important realization?  This is what the rules are there for!  I knew this before today, but I actually understand it now.  Our sport is one of the safest of it’s kind for a reason.  A DQ is specifically designed to make the competitor think about the circumstances that removed him or her from competition and to find ways to avoid it in the future.  This will make you a safer, and therefore, a better competitor!!  If you were one of the competitors besides myself that this happened to today, I ask you to consider my comments and not be discouraged.  If you are like I was before today and have never been “10.6’d”, it will happen.  How you handle it when it does, will likely define you as a competitor.

On to the match results!  PCC ruled the day, taking 5 of the top 10 ten slots, including the top two.  Bryant Willet was the winner of both the match overall and the PCC division, with David Martian taking second in the match and PCC.  John Nguyen took top honors in Carry Optics as well as the number three spot overall.  Jacob Thomas was first in Production and Michael McDonald was the decisive winner in Limited.  Rounding out the divisions was the father and son duo of Bob and Nick Brandt, who finished first in Limited 10 and Single Stack, respectively.  Complete scores can be found by clicking either here – Practiscore – or here – USPSA.

One last note – we had a lot of shooters today along with several that were registered last minute and a couple of folks that shot the classifier in more than one division.  If there is an issue with the scoring, forgive me, notify me, and I will do my best to rectify.

Thank a Service Member for the freedoms that you enjoy!  Happy Memorial Day!!