Just made the trip home from Rockcastle Pro-Am.  I do enjoy this match.  I find the number of folks that I have met through the shooting sports to be pretty amazing, and running into them at this and other events is always a pleasant surprise, and experience.  The match itself was well run, and with one exception, I think that we ended up starting and finishing every stage early or on schedule.  In the past, that has rarely been the case.  While we did get caught up in some significant rain as the match was ending, we were fortunate to have nearly ideal weather of this time of year.  It was warm but not as hot as we have seen in previous years.

The stages were well constructed and provided some challenges without being too difficult.  As is common in these events consistency is the key to success, and I was the poster child for inconsistency this year.  My goal of a Top 25 finish will have to wait until next year.

Stage 1 was the killer for me this year.  On this stage my shotgun went south on me.  The lifter spring somehow went “sproing” and the gun was just not able to feed.  So after a 12th place finish on the stage immediately preceding, for this one I turned in 156th place finish, and that was all she wrote.  I had a couple of really awesome stages with a 12th and 19th place finish.  A couple that were a bit lower in the standings and the total disaster of having my shotgun fail on an all shotgun stage.  In any sport stuff happens that is out of your control, and equipment failure is one of those.  Still the good out weighs the bad, I had the opportunity to get into the match at the last minute and slide into a slot that was pretty much the same group of folks that I shot with last year.  I had a really great time and still finished higher than I think that I ever have at this match.  So, I am getting better at this sport and if I actually practiced a bit I might actually start meeting some performance goals.

A big thanks to Rockcastle Shooting Center for hosting and delivering a great event.  A bigger thanks to the ROs for getting everyone through the stages safely.  And a huge tip of the hat to the rest of AM Squad 9, thanks for welcoming me to the fold again this year.

For those that are interested 66th out of 165 was my final finish in Tac Optics.  I finished in the top half, which is another step in the right direction.

2016 is here, and I still failed miserably at posting “stuff” in 2015.  So, I think that we are going to leave 2015 in the past and crank thing up for the 2016 season.

The quick update to everything is, after shooting the last match of my 2015 3 Gun season at Polo 3 Gun in October I took some time off.  I shot a little bit of pistol at local indoor matches this winter to keep my hand in but, I just haven’t been cranking in the practice reps or the work to improve.  I suspect that this will show immensely as I begin to spin up for the season.  I have a feeling that I am going to be fat, and slow (what else is new) until I can get more reps in, and get the rust off.

I did have a chance to shoot an indoor, pistol caliber carbine, 2 gun match yesterday.  There were some good things, and there were some less than good things that took place.  I did have one awesome stage where everything worked right, and things came together.  I also had five less than awesome stages where mags fell out of guns, mags fell out of mag pouches, safeties got stuck, etc.  All that said, I did not DQ and I was pleased with my shooting, just not my ability to work the guns.  Only two people shot the match “clean” and one of them was me.  Which is my one of my three overriding goals every time I shoot.  Shoot safely, have fun, and shoot a clean match.  To top it off, one stage was fast.  I will take that every time.

I think it may be time to invest in a “Go Pro” or something similar as I seem to always forget to ask people to shoot video for me.

In any case, the season is started.  Time to start getting some practice in, and start concentrating of some respectable performances.