Marketing is an important part of any business. Glock sells handguns to law enforcement officers and to the rest of us, and they have been very effective in marketing their products to a wide variety of customers. One way Glock generates business is through the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation (GSSF). The GSSF holds weekend matches around the U.S. during the good weather months. On the May 30-31 weekend, they held a match at the Cavalier Rifle and Pistol Club near Richmond, Virginia. Several members of the 43rd Rifle and Pistol Club and the Piedmont NRA Instructors drove down to Richmond on Sunday to compete in the match. We were safe. We had fun. I don't think we won anything.
The Cavalier Rifle and Pistol Club is incredible. It's far enough out of town to keep from disturbing the neighbors, and far enough out so that nearby land development won't be a problem for many years to come, if ever. The club includes several ranges, and a good sized lake.
A GSSF match has elements of other action shooting matches, but does not require the competitors to draw from a holster. Stages are similar at each match, like IPSC qualifier stages. Here is an example of a GSSF stage:
"Glock 'M"
This stage is fired in three strings. Each string requires the shooter to fire two shots at each paper target and to knock down one of the poppers. All poppers should be down at the end of the three strings.
Another stage is called "Glock 5-7-9." In this stage, there are targets at 7, 14, 21, and 28 yards and the competitor has 9 seconds to fire each string. The other stages involve steel plates and a moving target. We didn't have the moving target at Richmond.
After we arrived and registered for the match, we went for a mandatory safety briefing. This was presented by Chris Edwards who is the director of GSSF. Chris provided a thorough safety briefing, using a "red gun" (non-firing Glock) to demonstrate proper and safe gun handling during the match. The safety rules and "cold range" procedures were similar to those at most IDPA and all IPSC matches. Chris may have grown tired of giving the same briefing to small groups all day, but he stuck to the script and made it interesting. Loaded guns are not drawn from holsters at a GSSF match, and there aren't any timed reloads, or movement between positions so some of the rules covering those activities at an IDPA or IPSC match are not needed at a GSSF match.
In general, I think Glock has come up with a good format for a match, a format which minimizes risks, but provides a lot of opportunity for new shooters to sample the action shooting sports like shooting steel, using basic tactics, and being aware of time constraints. There are also several classes so that people with custom guns and stock guns are in separate categories.
Because our friends went to the GSSF match in Richmond last year, I knew that a expert gunsmith would be on site so I brought along the Model 31 to get adjustable sights. Neither the factory gunsmith or one of the dealers there brought any adjustable sights. They did have extended slide release levers, so now both the Glock 19 and the Glock 31 have those, and they do make it a lot easier to release the slide in a hurry.
People make the difference at events like this. The Glock staff were helpful, safety conscious, and we look forward to seeing them again next year, or maybe even sooner. There are lots of matches left around the U.S. this year. Maybe it will be possible to get to one or more of those.
The GSSF doesn't have a Web site yet. You can reach them by telephone at (770) 432-1202. It costs $20 a year to join the GSSF. That's a bargain.