There are some differences between shooting an IPSC match in Montana and back here in Virginia.  As you may have read on other pages, to get to a match in Montana you have to fly across the U.S., landing in strange places like Minneapolis or Great Falls.  Here in Virginia, you just drive to the match.  To get to a match in the Shenandoah Valley, you have the choice of taking Interstate highways (I-66 and I-81) or following an older and far more interesting highway - Route 55.  Route 55 goes through Linden, Front Royal, and Strasburg.  Just past Strasburg, you cross over I-81, a major north-south freeway in "these parts," and then start watching the odometer.  About 3.5 miles from the Interstate, Route 55 veers off to the left toward the wilds of West Virginia.  State road 628 goes to the right.  There's an IPSC target at that intersection with "Match" and an arrow pointing in the right direction.  A few curves later, there's another IPSC target sign directing you to turn off the main road into an apple orchard.

    After winding around a dirt road, you come into a clearing in the middle of the apple orchard.  This is where the matches are held.  It's just a big open area with a sloping hillside up behind the shooting positions.  Because of our forecast for very hot temperatures today, there were makeshift tents set up for shade.  One of the tents had all the sign up information.  Some things are the same throughout the IPSC universe.  In Virginia and Maryland there are so many IPSC shooters that you have to reserve a time slot at a match, either 8:30, 11, or 1 on Sundays.  One of the topics of discussion under the sign-up tent is what happens to people who call, but don't show up and thereby make it impossible for someone else to shoot.  Hint:  don't do this.  Records are kept on people who do this their names go on a special list.

    The clearing in the orchard has room for four stages.  From left to right today we had one complicated stage, a qualifier, where you started from a sitting position to shoot three IPSC targets.  Then you got up, moved to a door, opened the door, and had three more targets.  The last part of the stage involved shooting through a barrel at other targets.

    The middle two stages were "speed" stages.  The first one required free style and weak hand shooting.  The second one involved three shots per target, plus a reload and a couple of poppers.  The last stage was very elaborate and included poppers, barriers, a swinging target, and shooting through an opening in a wall.

    I wound up in a four person squad.  The other squads had more people.  Each squad started on a stage.  One stage would shoot, then another, then the third, and then the last stage.  We kept track of which stage was "hot" and scored and taped whenever it was safe to do so.  This seemed to work all right.  Here in Virginia, they still use squads rather than the more efficient methods used in Montana where you go from a completed stage to another stage which has fewer people waiting.

    In my squad we had several types of guns, a Glock 19 (9 mm), Colt .45, .38 Super "race gun," and my Glock 20 (10 mm).  The three other shooters were more experienced than I am so I learned a lot from watching them.  There were times when the .38 Super pistol sounded like a sub-machine gun.  I continue to aim each shot and always have the highest elapsed time.  This is similar to what the law enforcement officers were doing at the Al Kimery match in Montana:  making sure of the sight picture and the shot, thinking about keeping the shots on the targets.  A miss in an IPSC match costs on the final score.  A miss on the street may mean an innocent bystander getting hurt.

    Everyone was safe today.  We were fortunate to have an experienced Range Officer in our squad and he was teaching as well as supervising.  One of today's lessons is that the type of gun matters far less than the mental aspect of the sport.  As always, the stress of competition can lead to mental errors.  The real value of competition is that it can help reduce the number of mental errors.  The stress never goes away, but it can be an asset if you know it's there.  Stress leads to heightened awareness, but can also lead to "tunnel vision," and if you think about these things are you're experiencing them, it improves your skill at maintaining situational awareness.

    During today's match the temperatures climbed close to 100 degrees, and we were in the 8:30 a.m. group!  I have no idea what it might have been like for the 11 and 1:30 shooters, and didn't stick around to find out.  I hope someone replace the water jugs because we were already taking in a lot of water even before noon.  Fluid replacement is essential in that kind of weather.  Today's official high temperature was 105 degrees, and that was still one degree short of the all time record.

    The saga of the Glock 20 continues.  Between shooting the match this morning and a session at the indoor, and very cool, NRA range this afternoon, I managed to shoot a couple of hundred rounds of 10 mm ammunition, including 50 rounds of PMC higher powered jacketed hollow point ammunition.  Even in the temperature extremes, the Glock worked fine.  Although it has always been interesting to use different guns in matches, I think I'm going to stick with the Glock 20.  For one thing, it's broken in now.  The failed extractor has been replaced.  All the magazines work.  The holster(s) fit ok.  I'm even used to the "isn't ever going to get any better so live with it" trigger on the Glock.

    This doesn't mean I won't every go back to the Colt Combat Target Model, which I now have to admit I like more than the Kimber, once in awhile.  After all, I need a single action semi-auto for NRA safety classes and that's a classic.  But for now I'm going to stick with the Glock 20 in most IPSC matches.

    In addition to shooting in the Shenandoah Valley, our weekend matches are also held in places like the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia and at the site of last year's Limited Nationals in Fredricksburg, Virginia.