Triangle Tactical Podcast and Blog on Guns, Gear, and Competition Shooting
I am just getting home from the low-light Action Pistol match at the Wake Co. Firearms Education and Training Center.
Tonights match consisted of two stages with low light, that were shot using either a handheld flashlight, or a weapon-light attached to the pistol. I prefer a weapon-light, so I attached my Streamlight TLR-1 to my Glock 24, and shot the match with that.
The first stage consisted of 3 IPSC targets at 7 yards. On the buzzer, we were to draw the pistol, strong hand only, and put 2 rounds into each target, reload, and repeat. Pretty simple stage in the daylight, but when you introduce the darkness, it made the stage a little more tricky, but still very fun.
The second stage consisted of an arrangement of barricades that had to be shot through. The barricades were arraigned in a way that you had to be very careful not to shoot them, while still maintaining good shots on the targets. Each of these targets required 2 shots to the body, and 1 to the head of the target. They were also surrounded by no shoot targets. Oh, and there was no light, except for a blue strobe, which was quickly giving me a headache, luckily I was one of the first few shooters to run the stage.
Stage 3 was well lit. There were again 3 IPSC targets, this time at 15 yards. Each target was engaged with 2 rounds. We then advanced to the 7 yard line, completed a reload, and engaged the targets again with 2 rounds. This was a pretty simple stage, but I ended up trying to go too fast on the 7 yard targets, and pulled a couple Charlies, and a Delta.
Stage 4 was my kind of stage. I really enjoy stages that challenge me as a shooter. This was a strong hand only stage, consisting of a swinging target at about 10 yards, that required 2 rounds, and two arrays of targets at 7 yards, each requiring 2 rounds. We were required to carry a weighted bag in our weak hand, which made the stage a little more challenging, as most shooters are not used to carrying something heavy in one hand, and shooting with the other.
I have a theory that if you throw a whole bunch of lead at a swinger, you will hit it eventually, and that is what I did. I fired 12 rounds, and ended up putting 12 holes in the swinger. I’ll take it.
Competition was good tonight, lots of trash talking amongst us, which if you have ever shot with me, you know I like to talk trash. As mentioned above, I shot my Glock 24, and I added the Lone Wolf 40-9 barrel, which allows the normally .40S&W pistol to shoot 9mm. In the past I had some reliability issues shooting 9mm, but I believe I have them sorted out now by switching to a 9mm extractor, and ejector, and a 13lb recoil spring. This combination shot 100% reliably tonight, and after looking at the video, it appears that my brass was ejecting a little better than in the past. I’m going to keep this combination for the Zombie Shooters Association pistol match on Saturday.
Huge thanks to Joel, and Larry for putting on the match tonight. I very much enjoyed the low-light shooting, lets do it again next month!
Anyways, here’s the video from the match below. The dark stages are a little hard to see, but I did the best I could with my video camera.
