Bangity; PPC Edition

The weather today isn't exactly conducive for flying. It started out really foggy and then, once it burned off, the wind kicked up.

The local paper had a story about a fund-raiser at the local gun club for some charity. The fund-raiser was a PPC* match. The article said that you needed a handgun, a strong-side holster (no crossdraw or shoulder holsters), three magazines for an autoloader or two speedloaders for a revolver and 150 rounds of ammo.

I had that, so I loaded up the ammo along with two S&W revolvers (a M-10 and a M-19) and I went out to look. It looked like fun. The match director asked me if I was going to shoot. I said I had come out to watch and I had never even seen a PPC match before. Hell, I'd never fired a handgun from a draw before. He pointed out that I had never shot bowling pins until last month and I did all right.

So I signed up to shoot with my 4" Model 10.**

The first stage was at three yards: Three rounds from a draw, strong hand only, in five seconds. Then a reload of three rounds and three shots, weak hand only, from a ready-low position (the only time that we didn't shoot from a draw). That wasn't too difficult for me. In three relays, I kept all but two shots in the X-ring and those two went into the ten ring.

Second stage was at seven yards: Six rounds, strong hand only, ten second time limit. Then there is a reload and another six-round string. This wasn't too bad.

The third stage was at fifteen yards: Both hands, six rounds, reload, six more rounds and do that in twenty seconds. Piece of cake with an autoloader. It's a lot harder with a revolver. The first time I had the speedloader in a pocket and I fumbled it, leaving four shots unfired when time ran out. The second time through, I hung the speedloader on my belt and I didn't fumble it. I got the last shot off with about a half-second to spare. Third time around, I had maybe a second to spare.

If I do this regularly, I'll have to get a belt pouch for the speedloaders and try to fire the first six rounds faster. This is the only stage that come closest to "spray and pray", as it's better to hit the seven ring than to have rounds left over. The other thing I'll have to do is for every stage, even when it's the first six rounds, to load them from the speedloader so that I get used to doing that.

Fourth stage was at 25 yards: 18 rounds- From a standing position, two hand hold, fire six, reload, fire six more, reload, drop to a kneeling position and fire the last six, all in 90 seconds. If you're smooth about it, that's bags of time to carefully aim and fire and the last six are like shooting from a rest (and I shot the last six single-action). One of the guys gave me a tip and told me that this stage was the one to aim carefully and make hay in the scoring.

I don't know what my overall score was. But it was fun. As I said, I had never before fired from a draw, it was the first time I'd had to use a speedloader under time pressure, and I don't believe I had ever shot that much at one time.

It was a gas.

Most definitely, I'll do that again.
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* "Practical Pistol Competition" or "Police Pistol Competition".
** Whether it was a good idea or not to enter a match with a handgun that I had only shot twice before is a topic for another time. Or not.