Written and Photographed by Randy Mays
Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved
Graduate school is tough. You learn little known truths like "the law has nothing to do with justice," or "take out that soft human factors stuff; this is engineering," or "select the pictures first and make the words fit the remaining space." So, for this year's report on shooting matches in Montana, I selected the pictures first, and now I have to fill in the remaining spaces. What we didn't know back in 1987 was that on the Internet, you get pretty much all the space you want.
This year's stories started with stocking up on ammunition for two matches at the giant Sportsman's Warehouse store in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Sportsman's Warehouse is a Utah based company that has everything you could ever want for living outdoors, hunting, fishing, and camping. They have every caliber, every brand, and every bullet. This year, to save a little money, I decided to shoot Speer "Blazer" ammunition in both matches, .40 for IDPA and .45 for IPSC. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided that since the new Springfield XD40 may be the best IDPA Stock Service Pistol, the XD would be my choice for the match in Bigfork. The Missoula IPSC match was a "Single Stack Classic" so that mandated a 1911 style pistol, in this case an old reliable Springfield that had been worked over by Evolution Gun Works in Pennsylvania.
Here is a view from downrange at the Bigfork Gun Club. The area on the right is for shotguns. The area on the left shows storage containers, a shed over the rifle shooting positions, and a clubhouse in the background. This particular picture was taken on July 13, 2002 when record high temperatures were set throughout the Pacific Northwest.
It is a small world. Several of the Montana residents who were in the Memorial Day defensive handgun class at Front Sight were also at the Bigfork and Missoula matches. Lynn, shown above with Jerry (a "local") on the left, and an unidentified competitor on the right, was one of the Great Falls gang. It was interesting to see how our training translated into the world of competition. I didn't check every stage, but on the first stage we shot, my score and Lynn's were within one second and one point of each other. Schools like Front Sight don't cover every possible situation you might encounter in the real world or in a match, but you do learn the mechanics of shooting almost to the point of what is called unconscious competence
In this stage, Lynn is the safety officer. She is holding a timer while the competitor does a tactical reload behind drums taht simulate using an automobile for cover. The order in which IDPA targets are engages is often different from how this is done in IPSC shooting. In IDPA, you are expected to fire first at the target that represents the most immediate threat.
These pictures show some of the differences between shooters on the east and west coasts. On the left is someone wearing a kilt, standing right out in the open and using only one hand to shoot. On the right is someone using the classic Weaver stance in a proper kneeling position behind cover. Ok, this isn't a fair comparison because the person on the left was required to shoot that way for that stage, but there's no excuse for wearing a kilt to a shooting match.
The match at the Deer Creek Range near Missoula has gotten so big that three stages were separate from the main area. An ATV was needed to retrieve the score sheets. I suppose you could say that some of the scores were "far fetched."
Scoring the targets is a big part of an IPSC match. The range officer calls out the score and the score keeper records the A, B, C, and D zone hits, misses, and procedural errors. IPSC scoring is a little more complicated than IDPA scoring.
One of the stages at Missoula was called "Panic Room." The competitor had to get through a door then engage several targets through three different openings. Look close at the picture on the right. You can see the smoke from the pistol on the left and the dust from the shots going through the targets on the right.
Several years ago, I wrote about how Pat Kelly from Spokane was able to take a Glock 24 and go through stages so fast that it appeared to be easy. This year Pat had an old surplus .45 auto pistol with no sights on it. When I shot the stage through the bars, I moved the gun a couple of times to keep the slide from hitting some of the slats, or having an ejected case bounce back into the action. This is an example of conscious rather than unconscious competence. I hit all of the targets, but was thinking about it as I did it. When Pat shot this part of the stage, you saw what appeared to be some lateral movement of the pistol, heard 8 loud pops, and then he was gone to the next set of targets.
As always, it's tough to leave Montana. This year the route back to Idaho went through Hamilton and Darby up to the Lost Trails pass. From there the road over to I-15 near Dillon goes past the Big Hole National Battlefield. This is a very scenic area where the U.S. cavalry caught up to the Nez Perce and killed 30 warriors and 50 women and children in a night attack.
Tall mountains, summer thunderstorms, wild flowers, and history.