South Mississippi Practical Shooting

The weather finally cut us some slack and we had a perfect day for 3-Gun. This was the last match of the first half of the year, and we will not resume until September, as we take a break for the Summer heat. Although the weather was fine, we had only 16 shooters make the trip. But they were treated to a special match that was something new for our club. Today the only division was “Anything Goes.” If it was safe and fit the description of the type of gun you were supposed to shoot, then you could use it. We allowed the competitors to change guns between stages to best fit the requirements of the stage at hand. Some folks took the opportunity to dig deep into the safe and find that dusty old rifle or shotgun that isn’t great at all-around 3-gun, but would be perfect for one stage, once and a while. We saw some cool stuff and the shooters seemed to enjoy taking the exotic stuff out for a nice Sunday drive.

The stages were broken down into two types. There were the quick, warm-up stages that we shot first, where it was close up and tight and every effort needed to be on speed. After that warm-up, thing proceeded to the more challenging aspects of the match, were those skills that challenge many of us were tested. I’m talking about long range rifle and shotgun reloading. We shot from a new location today that allowed a wide spread of rifle targets out to 350 yards. The wind came into play more than it normally does for long range rifle, but it was clear who has their gun dialed in and who doesn’t. The shotgun monster stage started with 4 seemingly easy rifle shots on auto poppers, and then moved to 24 bird shot targets and two medium range slug targets. Here, reloading the shotgun while moving was either your strength or weakness. No one seemed to be in the middle on this skill. Either you can do it, or you can’t.

But in the end, it was clear who ruled the day. Our overall winner and winner of all four stages was Kevin Leonhardt. He crushed the competition today with some blazing times. We may have to handicap Kevin in the future to give the rest of us a chance. Aaron Fitzgerald was second, but was almost 19% behind Kevin.

We got several favorable comments about the today’s stages, and that makes the hard work worth the effort. We also appreciate the help in getting everything picked up. But don’t forget to thank the match staff who set everything up. Wayne and Bill spent almost all of Friday schlepping everything out into the field. It’s hard work, especially for these old guys. If you enjoyed this match, let them know.

Remember that we are on vacation until September. USPSA pistol will continue on the second Sunday of every month, year round, so if you just need that weekend shooting fix, come on out for pistol, as well. Our next pistol match is one week from today, on May 13th.

The match scores from today can be accessed by clicking the score computer to the right.