Monday Match #9

Al took the Pink Spurs for the Monday Match Number Nine.  Aided by a blazing fast reshoot of the Bandido Stage #2, Al's final total time came in at 83.10.  Al also took the honors for Most Accurate Shooter, logging a mere 7 Points Down.  Congratulations and WAY TO GO, Al!

Everyone shot very well during Match Number 9.  Each and every shooter had both great stages and some awesome targets within each stage.  Brad gets the Most Improved Award for the reshoot of Stage #2, dropping his time by a whopping 16.77 seconds!  Al took runner up in Most Improved by shooting 9.84 seconds faster on his second attempt.

Such great leaps faster in shooting times are proof positive that practice pays off.
Al, Brad and Tony get extra mention because they each put at least two shots onto target of the Texas Good Ol' Boy Stage.  Tony and John were a mere .76 one-hundreths of a second apart on the BBQ stage and both scored zero Points Down.

Tom harked back to his rootin' tootin' Dance Hall Days by taking first place in the Texas Two-Step.  That was HOT shootin' Tom!

In keeping with our match traditions, we used the lowest time in two attempts of Stage #2 to calculate the Match Total Time.

Although it is not on the spreadsheet below, here are the times for the first shot in the Texas Good Ol' Boy:
Al--4.82
Tony--6.66
John--6.84
Tom--7.88
Brad--9.27
Michael--9.46

Thank You all for making this Match so much fun.  Thanks also for your $20 in donations.  We will try to get some new target tape delivered prior to the next match.

There are only two more matches for this season--April Fool's Day and April 15th.  We look forward to your participation in the final upcoming matches.  Happy Shooting & Many Cheers, jp

As always, you can click on the graphic below to see a larger, more readable version.

Yellow Rose of Texas Two Step

Greetings, Montezuma Marksmen!  You already heard we were planning a Mystery Stage called "The Yellow Rose of Texas Two Step" for our "All Texas" Monday Match #8 on March 18.

We call it a Mystery Stage because it's a Mystery to us, too, at least until we get it designed. Today on March 15, it's no longer a Mystery Stage--it's put together and ready to go.

First, allow me to introduce you to Bearverly, your date for the Big Dance in Lubbuck, Texas.

You are in the Elk's Lodge doing the Two Step as the South Side Locos perform a stirring rendition of "The Yellow Rose of Texas."  It's your and Bearverly's favorite song!

Suddenly, the revenge-minded Brazos Boyz burst through the Elk's Lodge front doors intend on wrecking havoc and causing much mayhem.

You cannot let your date down and must hold Bearverly tight while continuing to do the two-step as you engage the Brazos Boys.

Facing downrange, shooter loads with eight rounds and makes ready.  The Safety Office then hands Bearverly to the shooter. Shooter must hold Bearverly's hand as shown above.

At the buzzer, shooter must take to steps to the left for left-handed shooters or two steps to the right for right handed shooters.  After second step, Shooter will stop and then fire two rounds at T1.  Shooter then takes two more steps, stops and fires two rounds at T2; two steps, stop and two rounds at T3; two steps and stop and two rounds at T4.  Targets are spaced at 5-7-10-12 yards from the "two-step-line."

(NOTE:  Range will be marked so that targets can easily be moved left or right according to the "left or right handedness" of the shooter.)

Foot fault lines will be clearly marked. The shooter will receive a procedural for doing the two-step procedural incorrectly or for dropping Bearverly.

At this time, the shooter holds their pistol in the low ready position while Safety Office removes Bearverly from the shooter's grasp.  Then and only then may the shooter show clear, etc. according to the Safety Officer's instructions.

This is a Limited Vickers stage.  If Nancy comes with her revolver, everyone will load with six rounds and we will use three targets instead of four.

Monday Match #8

There's a New Winner of The Pink Spurs!  Gary will be the proud custodian and wearer of the coveted Pink Spurs after his razor thin win of Monday Match #8.  Congratulations, Gary, you were shooting "in the zone" during that match and reduced your Points Down.

Gary edged out John by .28 one-hundredths of a second to lay claim to The Pink Spurs.

It was a very fun and interesting match.Michael totally smoked everyone in the Support Hand Shooting.  His raw average shooting time for five shots was an incredible 1.36 seconds, well over a half second better than the next nearest shooter. (See scoring note about Stage #1 at end of post.)

For Stage #2, we used the 2nd attempt at this stage with the six targets.  This equalized everyone's shooting on this stage.  Gary finished first in this stage, edging Tony by 42 one-hundredths of a second.

Gary really leaped out ahead on Stage #3, shooting it in 17.43, more than seconds faster that Tony's 19.78.  Tony was the only shooter to record zero Points Down on Stage #3.

As you know, we shot Stage #4 twice.  For the purposes of the match score, I took each shooters best time whether it was recorded on Attempte #1 or #2.  Everyone shot this stages very accurately.  Three shooters managed to shoot this stages with zero points down and the other shooter only had one point down.

Stage #1 Scoring Note.  For the purposes of the individual stage, we used the fastest average time.  For the purposes of the total match score, we used the total time of all five attempts, plus the total points down.  WHY?  Well, the points down were accumulated during five shots so they should be added to the total time.  Adding them to the best average presents a somewhat skewed perspective of the time.  The match standings remain the same no matter which way we added the scores for Stage #1.  We just thought that using the full shooting time was more representative of the overall match, however, the results are the same.

We may not be able to process the GoPro video footage because of the camera setting we used.  The file sizes are too large.  One file, for example, is over 1,5 GIGS!  The smaller file was 200 Megabytes!  Next time we will set the video down to a lower resolution and hopefully produce files that won't crash our computer.

Thanks for making Monday Match #8 such a great success!

Monday Match #7

Monday Match #7 took place under perfect weather conditions February 18th at the Donga Din shooting range.  Gary, Al, Brad and John shot three stages a total of 7 times.

Stage 1 was 8 numbered targets and one six-inch steel plate.  The targets were 10 yards from the shooter box.  The plate was 13 yards. As the shooter faced uprange, the targets were randomly reshuffled.  Three random numbers were drawn from a coffee can.  At the buzzer, as the shooter turned, the numbers were called out.  The shooter had to shot the targets in order of the numbers called and then shoot them in reverse order before shooting the plate until down.

Stage 2 was four targets at 20 yards from a Bianchi cover structure.  At the buzzer, the shooter could shoot from either side of the cover with one round in each target as they became visible.  Then the shooter switched to the other side of cover and placed one round in each target and they became visible.  Procedural penalties were given if the shooter's foot overstepped the cover line.

Stage 3 was entitled "The Powerball."  At the buzzer the shooter had to kneel beside the "bed" and then grab the winning ticket from beneath the "mattress" and then run to the doorway and then down the hall to the front door.  Shooters were loaded to 8 rounds each so there would be a mandatory reload from slide lock on this stage, equalizing the difference between the CDP and SSP division pistols.  (A full description of The Powerball is at the end of this long blog post.

Note that there are three slideshow videos here: Gary, Al and Brad shooting Stage 1.  We took 4,000 photos with the GoPro camera on a one second time lapse interval.  For whatever reason, the photo sequences for Stages @ and 3 were uninteresting when converted to video.  Therefore we picked out four photos from each of the three stages to show here.  Believe it or not, it only took 3 hours to process 4,000 photos! Additional still photos were emailed to each shooter.  Thank You for your $15 in donations received.

Gary Shooting Stage #1


Below is Al Shooting Stage #1



Brad Shooting Stage 1

Below are 12 still photos, one each of four shooters in three stages.

 Al Stage 1

 Brad Stage 1

 Gary Stage 1

John Stage 1

 Al Stage 2

 Brad Stage 2

Gary Stage 2

John Stage 2

 Al Stage 3

 Brad Stage 3

 Gary Stage 3

John Stage 3

Here is a description of "The Powerball."  This is the same stage we did last spring.  Herman plays the same numbers each week.  He finally wins.  The c-store clerk recognizes Herman's numbers and tells her boyfriend who gets gang together to rob the ticket and burn down Herman's house.  Herman, meanwhile, can't sleep and has been sitting beside his bed all night.  The Powerball ticket is tucked under his mattress.  Two gang bangers break into Herman's bedroom while two more thugs work in the hallway to begin to set fire to the place as another thug stands guard outside.  What the gang bangers don't know is that Herman has used his annual vacation time each year to go to Front Sight in Las Vegas to keep his defensive pistol skills sharp.  The thugs have met their match!

Monday Match #5

 Brad

 Al

 Al

 John

 Gary

 Gary

 Nancy

 Michael

 Nancy

Tony

Plans C-D-E

Our Plan A range is now unavailable unless we had carry match materials a fairly long haul.

Our Plan B range is a great spot and we're looking forward to shooting there on January 21.

 However, we needed a Plan C, D, and E. Why? One word: cattle.

Our Plan B range sits on prime grazing land that has been in the "rest-rotation" cycle this year. Right now, this pasture is covered with prime food for cattle. It's not a matter of "if" cattle are going to return, simply a matter of "when." Although we will inquire with the Forest Service as to when cattle might be authorized to return to the Plan B area, they may or may not tell us.

It's up to us to have a Plan C, D and E should we should up at the Plan B range only to find ourselves holster deep in cow-calf pairs. That's why we went out Saturday to find other potential shooting spots. We found three.

Each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, as do practically all public land shooting spots. Unless and until we have a gated private range, we simply have to live with the pros and cons each spot brings.

The Plan C Range is actually a legal and quasi-developed shooting range maintained by the 1st Regiment of the Beaverhead Brigade, whoever the heck they are. It's in an old borrow pit on Forest Service land south of the Beaverhead Road (Yavapai County #78) perhaps a mile west of Highway 179.

The Plan D Range is on Old Hwy 179 maybe a half mile from the Stage Stop Day Use Area which is also known to historians as the "Beaverhead Stage Station."

The Plan E Range is along the same Old Hwy 179 not far from this road's southern intersection with the new Hwy 179.

Discussion of the Plan C, D and E Ranges continues with notes accompanying the photos below.

 We don't know this range has a formal name but we're giving it one--The Beaverhead Borrow Pit. (BBP). This is a view looking from the east end toward Yavapai Cty. Road # 78 (AKA: The Beaverhead Road).  Note the other shooter's vehicle in the background.  When we use this area, we will line all our trucks across the area at the bottom of the photo so all the trucks face east.  We have sufficient vehicles to essentially block off the east end of this area.

This area will be our first choice when cattle reappear at the Plan B Range.It's certainly going to be easy to get the trailer in and out of here.  Parking and the backstop are perfect and there is ample space  to set up at least three stages at once.

Here's a view of the BBP looking east from the approximate area out trucks would be parked.  This is a wonderfully, wide-open area to set up a pistol match.  The last time we looked at this place was years ago and is was a mess.  Obviously, someone has graded and shaped the area for use by shooters.  There's even a sign that says "Pick Up Your Targets."  We will attempt to contact the Beaverhead Brigade to find out the "back story" on this shooting area.  There's no doubt whatsoever that this place has the official blessing of the Forest Service to be used as a range.  

The two primary disadvantages to this location are the presence of other shooters as well as an abundance of pallet nails everywhere.  We believe our match set up will clearly separate ourselves from other shooters.  Likewise, we do have a magnetic sweeper and we will try to remove as many nails as possible before we use this area.

Here is the Plan D area not far from the Stage Stop.  We suspect the area is actually closed but,as of right now, it has an official road number sign and so we would use it until someone tells us we can't.  There's a nice shooting area in the middle top of this photo.  We would be shooting somewhat to the left so the range would be sloped to our right.  Parking and backstop are fine.  Any moisture will turn the parking area into slick snot and the shooting area to goo.

 The Plan E Range offer OK parking.  It's not optimal but it will work with a little careful jockeying of the vehicles alongside the road.

If there's any moisture in the shooting area, this is the kind of stuff that will attached 3-5 pound gobs of weird mud to each of your boots or shoes.  Likewise, the area is filled with rocks so any movement within a stage would have to be carefully managed to avoiding tripping hazards.  This would also be one of the dustiest areas in which to shoot.  The Plan E Range is what we call a "deep backup" and only to be used when all other alternatives are unavailable.

In closing, we wish to note that we will continue an aggressive search for additional alternative shooting spots.  Ideally, someday we will find a permanent location with many advantages and few, if any, liabilities.
Until then, let's just be thankful that we actually now have four potential shooting spots to use while we look for other suitable locations.

Jewelry Store Stage Videos

OK, here's the first one.  Each one takes 30-40 minutes to upload and process so it's going to be a long night.  I apologize for not getting everyone to star in their own video.  We promise to get better at this.  Thanks for your patience. Here's Tony's video Here's Josh's video.