Shootout at WestLance
Written by Randy Mays
On October 4th, several of the Piedmont NRA Instructors went over to Mark Ewing's Westlance Arms Firearms Training Center in West Virginia to accept the challenge of the local shooters.  When the smoke cleared, and there was a lot of smoke, Elton Sanders won the grand prize.  Second place went to a shy modest introverted shooter, an older person who never expected to place that high in the competition.  OK, it was me.  I was runner-up, a good loser, but a loser nevertheless.  We all like going over to Westlance, because if you shoot well you get not only the satisfaction of shooting well, but also get prizes.  One of the prizes is money.

In the picture shown above, you see one of the competitors shooting a Taurus .45 with a compensated barrel.  He is right handed so this shot was taken during the weak hand only stage.  This seemed like a good picture to lead off this story.  Before discussing the crucial weak hand stage, here is some background on the match.

We held the match at Westlance.  Here is a picture of the range club house.  Inside you'll find all sorts of goodies, from an extensive and working display of Dillon reloading equipment, to all sorts of shooting accessories.  Mark Ewing holds classes in trapshooting, rifle, and pistol shooting.

Here is the main part of the course setup for our match.  From left to right you can see one of the tables with bowling pins.  Then there are six Pepper poppers and a stop plate.  The poppers are black and white.  The stop plate is white.  Right next to the stop plate is another one, then six poppers and another table with pins.  The three unused white squares are used for a separate competition called "El Presidente," an IPSC type exercise.  The two round white plates were not used in today's match either, except when they got in the way of someone shooting at a designated target.

In the first stage, we all had to start with 5 rounds in the first magazine, gun on the table with the slide closed.  At the start signal, we had to load the first magazine and start firing at the poppers.  As soon as the last popper was down, we shot at the stop plates.  The first stop plate to fall after the poppers are all down determines the winner.  After the first 5 round magazine, the other magazines could have as many rounds as desired.  Magazines of incorrect political correctness were encouraged and today these high capacity magazines may have been a significant factor in determining who won and who came in second.

The second stage was the same as the first, but this time the shooter had to use his or her weak hand.  Some of the people who did well strong handed didn't do as well weak handed.  Because I practice shooting weak handed a lot, I was able to win this stage.

John and Sandy are going at it here.  This was the stage where 6 bowling pins were added to the target list.  Notice that John is shooting a .45 pistol with lots of spare magazines and Sandy is shooting a Glock 17 with just a couple of spare high capacity magazines.  Once the first 5 shots have been made, it helps to be able to reload with a 17 round magazine or a 15 round magazine in the case of the Beretta 92.

With everything else being equal, reloading was often the key to winning.  One competitor is reloading while another is still shooting.  Both of these shooters were using single stack .45s.
Here is a close-up of John shooting a 1911.  Sandy is in the background.  John is using a Weaver stance.
At the end of every match there is a prize ceremony.  Here is a picture of Mark Ewing giving the grand prize to Elton "Sandy" Sanders while Nancy Sanders looks on.  Today's match prizes included free bullets for reloading, a cap, and checks for stage winners and the match winner.

For more information on shooting at Westlance, contact Mark at (304) 754-7100 or (800) 327-9282 from DC, VA, MD, and area code 717 in PA.  For more information on the Piedmont NRA Instructors, call (540) 341-7261.