11th Match: York Practical Shooters USPSA, April 21st, 2024
PCC Class, Sub2000 + Internals, Red Dot. (No changes since last match.)
Placement: 69th of 102 overall, 12th of 14 PCC entries.
Scores: https://practiscore.com/results/new/b42e8861-7661-4d71-bc00-7b1fc0e6a967
My first sanctioned USPSA match, and first outdoor match! I must say, even though I knew it already, these matches are a whole other level compared to our little indoor matches at MD arsenal. At the little match I look like I'm doing good, and then I come here an got a reality check. :) Really, I did know this was the case ahead of time, but it's wild to see just how good the "good" guys are. There were some top dogs at this match, including the Area 8 champion last year was in my squad, and a world champion was in the squad ahead of us. And like most competitive shooters I've met so far, they seem pretty chill and happy to chat or give tips, etc.
This match was 8 stages, with 7 squads. I was in squad 7, so we started on stage 7/8 which were back to back classifiers.
Stage 8: Classifier, single target, 6 shots. Pistol, strong hand only, fortunately for me on PCC that didn't mean anything different than normal.
Stage 7: Classifier, 3 paper, one mini-popper steel, best 2 shots on paper.
Lucky me, our squad decided to do alphabetical by first name, so lucky me was first shooter of the day. It is what it is, with the rotation that meant the rest of the day I was towards the end, so I could watch everyone else then. I would have preferred if that wasn't the classifier first thing, but oh well, it's all part of the game. Classifier scores were not great, D class technically. Only up from there right?
The rest of the stages were a nice mix. Stage 4 was a fixed time stage with a very tight time frame, 10 targets, 2 shots each, 8 seconds with a good bit of movement. Stage 3 had two swingers, first time attempting those. I didn't catch my exact results on the swinging targets, I think 1 was good and the other had a C and a D, not bad. By the last two stages for the day I felt like I was warming up more. I'm looking forward to next time at York Practical Shooters now that I know what to expect about the environment, etc. Also, compared to the indoor match, where there can only be one shooter at a time, once the event starts, it's almost non-stop shooting till everyone is done since all 7 squads are on bays not far apart. It was pretty hard to hear conversation, even with Walker headsets, etc.
Overall, great experience, can't wait for more!