Reports from 3 Gun

[Rob Pincus]

Okay, here's some info from day one:

Team TFL and SWAT are scheduled to shoot the stages together, with TFL going first.

Our first stage consisted of two mover targets with a hostage in between. The shooter had to move laterally with the targets and score as manyhits as possible on the bad guys. Total rounds for the stage was limited to 30 and the shooter had to clear 12 steel targets from cover after the movers phase. Obvisouly, it was smart to not throw 18 rounds at the movers. Most of us played it conservatively and saved plenty of lead for the steel. I know that I only had one round left at the end!
Yes, the hostage took some shots.

The second stage was a rifle stage that got a littel "gamey." Altough the course of fire called for a set number of shots to be fired from various ranges as the line closed in on our targets, we found out after the phase that the scoring system alllowed "pick-up" shots. In other words, if you had too many rounds in the target the lowest scoring ones were dropped. I have no doubt that some of the "gamers" took full advantage of this by saving shots for the closer ranges and blazing from close in. Oh well. I tried to "spread the love" bby shooting Flint's target. The score keeper actually held the target up to his face to try to figure out why two holes were .30 caliber! They counted (for Flint, of course!).

The third stage was a shooting and moving, run & gun battle with several steel targets spread out in the desert scrub. The shooter had to move down a trail engagin targets in small groups, with stations to engage pairs of targets at farther distances. Team SWAT was plagued with malfunctions on this stage. It wasn't pretty, but we got through it.

We also shot the night Team event on Wednesday. The rifle phase was tough. The shooters had to fire as a group, without lights, at bad guys who were represented by strobe lights that turned on and off. The strobes were supposed o be "muzzle flash". The shooter had to decide if the bad guy was right or left handed and blaze away wherever they thought the body might be. We were not told our scores on this phass. I was relieved!
Then the teams split up, with one pair shooting pistols and the other becoming a pistol/shotgun team. Denny and Flint took on a filed of steel with their weapons, clearing bad guys from good while using their flashlights to scan the crowd. Brent and I took on two more movers as they traversed between cover and and bystanders.

More Later...

 

[Schmit]

More Later?

What is this Lord of the Rings? A Soap Opera?

Those of us that are back here holding down the fort need a complete after action report seeing as we can't be there to watch. Play by Play, Player by Player... we wait (patiently) with baited breath hanging around in the Lounge on the edge of our seats!

Alllllllllllll I want to know is how the loaner guns I've got out are running. My biggest fear is that Scott or George will have a malfunction that causes Team TFL not to take first (or at least kick Team SWATs arse).

 

[Tamara]

(or at least kick Team SWATs arse).

I dunno, the plan to pick up some last-minute ringe... er, "volunteers" for Team TFL seems to have gone okay...

 

[4V50 Gary]

Ave Ricardo! Salutante te morituri!

 

[TheBluesMan]

Thanks for the report, Rob. Sounds like a LOT of fun.

I didn't see any scores or "head-to-head" comparison of how Team TFL did against Team S.W.A.T. I assume all scores will be posted tomorrow (at the range). Please relay them to the Lounge A.S.A.P. Can't wait to hear how Scott, George et al are doing. Sounds like Team S.W.A.T. is holding their own too...

 

[Rob Pincus]

Sorry, I did not copy the scores down, but they were posted. I don't remember anyone on either team being any better than in the 40's when it came to overall ratings. Of course, those were just partial results, as not every one had shot certain stages. The scores today were mostly irrelevant to the big picture, as only about a third of the shooters would have shot any given stage. That means our rankings could only get worse as future shooters out do our scores, those scoring worse would have no effect. Considering that the 40'ish rankings were out of about 70 shooters on those stages, no members of the home team should be expecting big money on Saturday.

Besides, it's not about the score, it's about trying your best and learning from your mistakes.

As for malfunctions... I don't think that there have been any problems with the shotgun, but there have been some issues with several handguns and at least two rifles:
Flint is using plastic mags in his AR which may be causing a problem.
The FAL almost got tossed down the range today.
My Aimpoint did get tossed acrossed the staging area.

Oh well. Lesson learned: Get your gear straightened out. Shoot bunches of the ammo/weapon/mags/gear combo you plan on usnig. Of course, we all know that, had ample time and sufficient ammo, but not all of us devoted the time necessary.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that this has been more challenging than we thought it would be. I now that I have been surprised with the difficulty level. While "gaming" some stages coul help, the truth is that the course is tough no matter what your mindset/approach/configuration.

_________________________________
Today's stages:

Rifle line with 10 shooters at once. Team TFL and Team SWAT were all represented. a shooters number was called out and he was given the command "left," "right," or "middle." The shooter then had to engage his paper target, the appropriate (L,R,M) steel target and the paper target once more. This was done 6 times from a sitting position and 6 times from prone. Time was a factor and the amount was less for the prone shots (I think 8 and 6 seconds respectively.)
This is were the FAL and Flint's AR really caused problems. Several shot opportunities were missed.

"Black Hawk Down"
This was a scenario based stage with all sorts of psuedo-wreckage strewn about the shooting area. The shooter moved through 6 shooting positions from standing to prone using various objects for cover. From each stage the shooter engaged a target at 100, 200 and 300 yards. Total rounds 18. I think that Pvtpyle and Brent did better than the rest of us with around 10 hits (don't hold me to that). Most of us did significantly worse. Shortly after I completed this stage my aimpoint went for a ride. I turned it off about halfway through the stage and made more hits with my iron sights. Scores here were based on hits and total time.
__________________________________________


The team competition scores were not posted today. I plan on being able to provide a #1-#8 ranking for all our participants in the general area as well as telling you how the teams ranked relative to one another in the Team Event. The latter should be available tomorrow, but the former may have to wait until Saturday.
In addition to overall rankings, some of us are in side-matches such as "first time shooters," "Reserve LEO" and "LEO." I suggested that Denny enter the Senior bracket, but he didn't seem to excited about the opportunity .
I'll try to get more score info for tomorrow's update.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Great reports, Rob. Thanks and keep 'em coming.

To the guys out there, I say again:
Have Fun.
Shoot Well

In that order.
Rich

 

[Rob Pincus]

Day Three:

Three more stages and much more of the same. Today was a little different in that we shot pistol and shotgun stages, no rifle at all. Several of us found a lot more rifle than we were expecting, particularly distance shooting. There was not a single "entry" or "CQB" rifle stage during the whole event, single or team competition.

Mortar Pit:
This stage was a "last stand at the Alamo" type deal. The shooter is at a mortar position being overun by the enemy armed with only a shotgun. The shooter moved between 5 shooting stations behind various cover engaging 4-5 targets per area. The targets were close, the skills involved in this stage were moving, using cover properly (which they were liberal on) and loading quickly. That last part was particularly important. The last two targets were out at 60 and 80 yards and were engaged with slug rounds.

The FBI Walk:
This stage was a pistol event with three bad guys mixed in with several bystander targets. The shooter walked between two lateral limits at three ranges (about 8, 10 and 12 yards) and engaged all three targets. The shooter had to move laterally at all ranges to get clear shots. As far as I know everyone hit at least one good guy. The shots were tough and the angles were slim, with innocents behind the targets also. 18 shots, 2 strings from each range.

The ******** alley (I forget the actual name):
THis was a shotgun stage. The shooter moved through 5 shooting stations which were doorways. 3-5 targets were engaged at each area. Again, the key to this was quick loading. The targets were relatively close, but there were no-shoot innocents mixed in to make the shooter slow down a little.

__________________

More scores were posted and it is clear that Team TFL brought in a ringer! James was leading our 8 representatives according to the scores posted so far. The final scores for individuals will be posted here tomorrow with the 1-8 rankings.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

In the Open/Marksman Team competition there were 10 teams. Team TFL and Team SWAT were both in this category. One team came in 5th with 169 points, the other 9th with 122 points.

 

[Rob Pincus]

Well, I showed up to the range during the shoot-offs this morning and found quite a surprise: Denny was in a shoot-off! Of course, Denny was more surprised than the I was when they told him! Denny made it into the shoot-off for one fo the side events, which was something in and of itself. They ended up only rewarding the top three shooters in the event, but it was nice to see Denny getting the chance to compete for an award.

Meanwhile, the final scores were posted and it wasn't all that pretty. I know I promised to post the results in a 1-8 fashion, but isn't the important thing that we tried and gave it our best?

I'll tell you this, James beat all 7 of us that knew we were going to the event for 6 months! He scored first of all the TFL and SWAT guys. Of course, he was still in the bottom third of the overall with the rest of us, but at least he gave a good showing as pertains to the home team. He came in 76 out of over 200 in one stage which featured some precision rifle work from various positions and I saw him doing it.. it was pretty impressive compared to what the rest of us had to offer on that stage!

Brent Wheat came in second of the eight, with a very consistent performance. Brent would've placed higher overall and maybe even caught James if he had not spilled all of his shotgun shells on the final stage... but that's a long story and you guys will never let him know that I told you, right?

I managed to eek out 3rd place for our group despite a particularly dismal showing on the Tactical Alley where I tiptoed around corners as if the steel plates might actually shoot back at me and earned a staggering 201st place out of 211 people who shot the stage!

I'll let the other guys share their own stories and rankings with you at their convenience.

 

[Schmit]

but isn't the important thing that we tried and gave it our best?

No that isn't the important thing... the important thing is that you learned from your experience and your tactics/weapon manipulation is now better for the experence. The second most important thing is that you had fun. The third thing is that you represented SWAT and TFL in a professional manner.

II know everyone learned something and how can you not have fun shooting this type of match. The third is a given by the caliber (pun intended) of individuals on the teams.

GOOD SHOW!

 

[George Hill]

The match was great and overall run very well. It was organized very well too. I just wish it wasn't 5 days of it. 3 Max. shoot 5 stages each day and then the dinner on the 3rd day.

Placing low in the rankings means nothing... We were going up against the Mike Jordans and Tiger Woods of the shooting sports. Some of these cats are running stages with time scores that are just unbelievable. We are all doing about a 100 average and these guys are cutting that in half.
If you ran the stage actually "Tactically" you just hosed yourself. These gun-game guys are running 2,000 SVI raceguns with the biggest mag-funnels I've ever seen. JP-Enterprises super tuned and tricked out AR-15s with all the bells and whistles... Guns that wouldn't last 5 hours in actual field use. IPSC arms race has nothing on the 3 gun. I know you can't buy skill - but you can buy some little expensive things that can shave time here and there. I was thinking "Where is the TACTICAL?" when I saw this guy with a pink and chrome AR with a muzzle break the size of a coffee can.
It's all just a game - but there are leasons to be learned. Each shooter knows each shot he or she took on each stage. Knows what they did wrong or what they could have done better. I know I am not that great with a 12, but I could probably have done better if I stuck with my pump isntead of switching to a semi (even a really nice semi) at the last minute. I didn't know the manual of arms as well as I should have and that cost me time on the night shoot. You have to really - really know your guns.
My best stage was the blackhawk down stage... I took 91st overall. I know I could have done much better... First two trigger pulls yeilded clicks, and a 3rd gave me a miss... That threw the mental game and I made up for it by just hustling my butt off. Then the transition to pistol to stop the clock by hitting a close range plate.

James, Correia and I are planning on coming back. We are also planning on using AK's and Siaga shotguns. Reloading 5 new shells is a simple rock and lock move... done. That would have helped in a huge way. At least me for sure, but I wasn't the only one that fumbled a reload. Two guns with the same manual of arms... We saw one shooter that had one and that is the ticket.

The rifle stages favored the scoped guns by far.
The shotgun stages were all just reload drills.
The pistol stages were the best. Loved them. "THE VIL" was the best. Fast and furious pistol work with close to far ranges that you had to find. Let me say that again... You had to FIND the targets. It was great.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Great reports, guys. Thanks.

I wonder if we shouldn't move this out to the Competition or Lock and Load forum? Might get people thinking in terms of next year. We might even see 3 or 4 TFL teams enter?
Rich

 

[George Hill]

My report is too long to post here. And when I did the copy paste thing it threw in a lot of underscore lines that I didn't type.
Anyways, if your interested, you can read mine at MadOgre.com.


Rob, if you could, I'd like a copy of the TFL Team photo... if you could email that to me. That would be great.

You guys should have seen Rob coming off the Blackhawk Down stage... He chucked that Aimpoint out there 50 yards. He was in the run and I guess it was about 1/2 way through it the sight failed and he had to switch to irons. Still had a good time on the clock and hit what? 8 targets?

Larry said that team for team we beat the SWAT team and also the Arizona Rangers. I don't know, I wasn't looking at the scores that close. I was just happy I wasn't last... and I beat Denny. So I could go home happy. Larry (being an accountant) said that if we were in the L catagory we would have won some nice prizes. T-Shirt, a hat, and a bottle of FP-10 oil.

Other things... Flint Hansen was running a Charles Daly. In the middle of the FBI Walk stage his gun broke and the firing pin shot out the back. Thanks to the Arizona Rangers, the gun was fixed and he was able to finish the stage. I don't think a CD handgun is worth consideration.

Gunny's old 1911 ran great. It was the only weapon that never gave me a blink of problems.

Scott's AR-10 - Judas Priest! I seemed to always be lined up right next to him on the line. That muzzle break was blowing the gasses from that little 16 incher right into my face. I actually had a bloodshot right eye since he was shooting on my right hand side. Thank heavens for safety glasses!
You guys should have seen him on the Mortar Pit stage... he can really scramble if he wants to! He was working that shotgun like an animal... Some fine shooting!

 

[Denny Hansen]

I came in dead last out of the SWAT/TFL shooters. Things like slowly slicing the pie and taking full use of cover are habits that are hard to break. The use of realistic tactics also had a negative effect on Rob, Brent and Flint in what is basically a speed contest. Not an excuse for our rather dismal performance, but it's the best reason our egos could come up with.

My worst stage was a rifle stage. I thought I was doing great with time to spare: Front sight on chest of target, press the trigger, follow through: piece of cake. As I walked off the line it hit me--300 yard battle zero, so I should have been holding low at 100. Sure enough only 3 hits on the target, all up around the head.

The shoot-off Rob mentioned earlier was mostly based on performance with one-handed and weak-hand performance. I practice weak-hand/backup gun shooting quite a bit so I did OK on that stage, coming in fourth.

We all had a great time and the support given by all members of the match staff and shooters for S.W.A.T.'s sponsorship was overwhelming. Gave a short talk at the banquet and received a standing ovation--at least from the table with the TFL and SWAT guys

Denny

 

[Rob Pincus]

Since Denny came out with his ranking, here's the scoop:

Team Competition:
Team TFL came in 9th out of 10 in the team competition, Team SWAT was 5th.


Individual Rankings
1-8 individually the rankings were:

James (21 spots above Brent and 25 spots above his next team mate!)
Brent
Rob
Scott
Larry
Flint
George
Denny


Team SWAT average overall ranking 189.7
Team TFL average overall ranking 182



Rich,

I will be copying this thread to competition and editing out certain aspects that are internal. (including this note)

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

slicing the pie,firing pin stops and various sundries

Frist off, I'd like to say that I really enjoyed attending and helping to run the Swat magazine 3-gun match this year.

As for using realistic tactics, I really like it when a shooter actually uses them instead of running through the stages like they're IPSC courses. (even though I wasn't working at the other stages, I heard about the SWAT magazine team's good use of tactics multiple times from the other RO's)

I'm currently working on a system that returns fire at the shooters in a nonlethal,yet painful manner so they actually do use cover and good tactics, but that will be rather far down the road.


As for way the stages were set up, the scoped rifles are scored separately from the iron sighted rifles, which means the iron sighted rifle guys are only competing against the iron sighted guys and the scope guys are only competeing against scope guys.
(the scores are figured from the top iron sighted scorer in each stage)

As for shotguns, most shotgun work of any duration is a reload drill, given the capacity of the weapon in question.

I'm going to run some ideas by my father about the mag funnels(which i find somewhat abhorrent), and what to do about them, as well as something to encourage tactics use more.

as for the "IPSC arms race has nothing on the 3 gun" I must say that i'm rather hurt by that statement (i really shouldn't be, beacause i understand fully what you mean). the rules we have in place are to encourage equipment that won't get the shooter killed if they were to actually be in the situations simulated in the match. many of the shooters in the match are shooting their carry guns (I know the arizona rangers did and I congratulate them on that) and in some cases, especially the law enforcement division (the L guys with the great prizes) those carry guns are STI raceguns with giant mag funnels.

I'm planning on shooting in the match next year, and i'd like to get a TFL california team together.

 

[Denny Hansen]

Other things... Flint Hansen was running a Charles Daly. In the middle of the FBI Walk stage his gun broke and the firing pin shot out the back. Thanks to the Arizona Rangers, the gun was fixed and he was able to finish the stage. I don't think a CD handgun is worth consideration.

Actually the Charles Daly was running pretty good until (unknown to me) a "gunsmith" friend asked to inspect it. Flint's friend replaced the stock firing pin spring with a "better, shorter" spring which resulted in the firing pin block not having enough pressure on it to keep the block, pin and spring in place. A Kimber it's not, but bad advice and a poor replacement part was the true culprit.

Denny

 

[Correia]

Got my butt handed to me. Here in local matches I'm a medium fish in a tiny pond, at the WC3gun I'm a guppy swimming with sharks.

For those of you wondering:
#155 James Bunten (TFL) 335.56
#176 Brent Wheat (SWAT) 308.09
#178 Rob Pincus (SWAT) 306.90
#183 Scott Evans (TFL) 299.14
#188 Larry Correia (TFL) 294.90
#200 Flint Hansen (SWAT) 260.35
#202 George Hill (TFL) 249.89
#205 Denny Hansen (SWAT) 235.37

As soon as Erick had to cancel, I knew exactly what TFLer to get. PvtPyle shoots rifle competitively for the Army with taxpayer funded ammo. He is one bad bad dude with a rifle. So I guess we did kind of have a ringer, but he is a TFLer. But he makes up for it by hating shotguns. To put our scores in perspective, Bruce Piatt finished with 706.57 points.

Most of us were in a pretty close pack, with Brent being 14 seconds ahead of me. On that Targets of Opportunity stage (from hell) after twenty minutes of sitting there in the sun, getting all sore and twitchy, and having to clear 12 (yes 12) malfunctions in one stage, that second day did me in. Day one and day three I did okay.

I'm still not sure what happened with my rifle, I've got several thousand rounds through it with no problem, come out to the big match, and choke non-stop. I even rechecked my zero that morning, and went through 60 rounds with no problems. (How come I can nail that 300 yard practice target no problem, but choke on the 300 yarder in Black Hawk Down? Go figure).

I am now a grand master of malfunction clearance drills though. On my last string I was able to fire at the paper, clear a jam, hit the steel, and clear the second jam all in six seconds! On the FBI walk I had the extractor of my 1911 pull clean through the rim of a cartridge, peeled my thumb nail off clearing it, but I managed to do pretty darn good on the other 5 strings of that one.

I'm not that concerned about the equipment race, face it George, the guys that won this match could have beat us with Hi-point carbines, a .25 Lorcin, and a NEF handi shotgun. Heck, Piatt could have beat me with a pointy stick and a rock. Even an SVI with a huge magwell is still a practical duty gun. They are reliable and shoot where they are pointed. Sounds good to me. I shot with my carry gun, my field rifle, and a pump shotgun I've had since I was 12. If I had another $3000 invested in my equipment, I still would have got smacked around by the competition. (except maybe I wouldn't have had so many rifle malfunctions D'Oh!)

I'm going to be running an ACOG next year. Playing with the demo models that Trijicon had set out sold me on them.

I want to thank Rich for making this all possible. Rich you are the man. Denny, Flint, Rob, Brent, it was great to shoot with you guys. Andy it was a pleasure to meet you.

And it was a blast to be on the same team as Jaime, Scott, and George. You guys are great.

Looks like TFL wins the 2002 Grudge Match, we figured that next year Denny is going to show up with Awerbuck and Clint Smith on his team and say "Hey they write for us too!" TFL vs. SWAT 2003 here we come baby! Bring it on!


And the greatest question of the match: "Where are you going with that big dangerous gun?"

You had to be there. Hopefully by next year the Arizona Rangers will have forgotten about it and quit teasing me.

 

[Schmit]

Gunny's old 1911 ran great. It was the only weapon that never gave me a blink of problems.

OLD? Hey, lets not start name calling!

It may not be all that pertty but it is reliable and hits where you point it. I have been thinking about getting it refinished, green bottom black upper, NP3 internals but I'm hesitant that by doing so it may screw up the reliablility.... if it ain't fixed don't break it (or somthing like that).

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Looks like TFL wins the 2002 Grudge Match

How do you figure? I thought it was 5th vs 9th, with SWAT taking 5th?

"we figured that next year Denny is going to show up with Awerbuck and Clint Smith on his team and say "Hey they write for us too!" Nope. Next year we're gonna really handicap Team S.W.A.T.....rumor has it the Publisher is shooting!

Rich