December 2008 South Florida Defensive Carbine Match
Tropical Sport Shooting Association again held the monthly South Florida Defensive Carbine match on the 5th Tuesday, the 30th, of November 2008 at the Markham Park Target Range in western Broward County, Florida. Set up began at approximately 17:30, with sign-in beginning at 18:00 and shots fired at 19:30. All shooters were complete and props and targets off the range by 22:00.
Course Description This stage was a team stage involving two shooter teams. At the buzzer, the shooters converged on a central point with Condition 3 carbines. The shooter on the left engaged, using a "found" Sig P226, two small pepper poppers at 20 yards and two paper targets while the shooter on the right packed a dummy into a large Rubbermaid container simulating a "boat". Once the handgun targets were engaged and the slide locked on the pistol, both shooters advanced to low cover approximately 15 yards away, arranged themselves and the dummy in the "boat" behind the cover, and began engaging an array of steel targets 100 yards away. The steel targets were, from left to right, an 8" steel square, a steel silhouette, two 4" steel squares, and another 8" steel plate. Each shooter was required to engage each steel with 3 rounds each.
Intent This stage was a "story" stage involving your downed comrade (the dummy), his "dropped" pistol (the Sig P226), and a "boat" (the rubbermaid container).
Gaming The handgun targets at 20 yards proved difficult for many, as well as the 4" steel plates, at which at least one shooter emptied 4 magazines. First and foremost to "game" this stage you needed to have your equipment figured out and either be zeroed at 100 or have taken the time to find your hold over/under at that distance. Since far too many shooters lacked even this base, there was little "gaming" to be had. The only other way was to either show up with a magnified optic (something that still relies on zero and some ability) or to select a partner that either exceeds or at least meets your own ability. Many teams had one shooter finishing in better than half the time of the other.
Personal Lessons Once I got my hold-under figured out on the 4" steel plates I was able to ring them with just about every other shot. I would have liked to have done better. More and more I'm beginning to think that the best zero for the AK is at 100 yards, and once I settle on a sighting setup for the gun that's where I'm going to "set it and forget it".
Match Lessons This proved to be a rather time consuming stage both in setup and in operation. The biggest problem was shooters taking multiple magazines to even attempt to hit the 100 yard targets. In future a stage like this will have a one-magazine limit in order to keep people moving at a decent pace. Similarly, reducing the required number of hits from 3 to 1 on each steel would have sped things up considerably.
Start positions, shooter on the left, shooter on the right.
Loading the "downed man" into the "boat" while your partner engages with the "dropped" handgun.
The handgun, a Sig P226. Only 8 rounds were loaded in the magazine, giving the shooter exactly the number of rounds that they needed to clear the handgun targets.
Advancing to cover with the "downed man" in the "boat".
Some teams chose to help one another towing the "boat".
Stages like these require a lot of help. Two safety officers, one scorekeeper/spotter, and one spotter. The stages can't work without the help of our volunteers.
SBRs are often mistakenly thought of as being incapable of shooting at distance. While 100 yards is hardly distant, this shooter had no trouble clearing the stage with an SBR and 1x red dot sight.
At long range matches you can always spot the COF designer by looking for the guy with the magnified optic.
Good use of cover. Notice the muzzle is not protruding past cover.
Irony abounds when the world's biggest AK proponent (often citing the infallible reliability of the platform) has a malfunction. If only I had been taking video...
Nice optic Tim! Nice stock decoration too.
Father and son run the stage with iron-sighted AKs.
ARs and AKs can work together too.
Shooting around the left side of cover.
Me, shooting around the right side. Muzzle sticking a bit too far forward.
My partner clearing targets from the left side. I thought that I'd be "gaming" it by picking the only satan-hander to shoot around the left side. Boy was I wrong!
Course Description This stage consisted of a Bianchi Barricade, an array of two barrels (one vertical and one horizontal), and a similar steel target array to the stage above with the 4" plates omitted. To this was added 3 paper targets and an array of 4 additional paper targets on a moving cart which was pulled, via a series of ropes and pulleys, a truck that was behind the line of fire. Finally two steel poppers were set up to engage with the handgun. The course of fire was to engage all of the paper targets from behind the wall, move to the barrels and engage all of the steel targets at 100 yards with three shots each, transition to handgun and engage the two poppers.
Intent This was another "story" stage, but it had a good mix of near and far targets, movers, paper, steel, etc.
Gaming The key here was to move to the barricade and begin engaging the stationary paper targets quickly since the moving targets took awhile to come into view. Shooters had plenty of time to fire 4-5 shots on each stationary target before being required to engage the movers. Once the movers came into view, continue firing at them until empty so that you could perform a speed reload before advancing to the barrels.
Personal Lessons I essentially gamed it as above, with a few minor twists. Overall I was happy with my performance but again my pistol skills need work and one shooter commented on my "spray and pray" method of neutralizing the pepper poppers.
Match Lessons Much like above, limiting hits to 1 each on the far targets would have helped. We actually ran out of time and only got through half the shooters, which meant that 10 guys stood around for over an hour just to watch the rest of us shoot. Not good.
Also, when setting up paper that moves past handgun-only targets, we need to make sure that there is not the possibility of shoot-throughs on the pepper poppers. One shooter managed a shoot through and essentially ruined the popper. Yes, it's the shooter's responsibility to observe all the safety rules, including Rule 4 (Always be sure of your target and WHAT'S BEYOND!), but it's our responsibility as course designers not to set them up to fail in a way that damages club materials.
Engaging from P1.
Note how the movers on the rolling cart have moved past the poppers.
This is what happens when you engage the mover with 5.56 when it's still in front of the poppers.
