Let me start by saying that this has got to be THE finest facility in America! Unbelievable! If you are within a day's drive of Moyock, NC, I strongly recommend that you make it a priority to get there for training. You IDPA shooters just may have the chance to get there next year for the Nationals.
Fourteen stages. Well over 150 rounds (closer to 200). Reactive steel. Clear houses. Shooting from the second story. Shooting from the driver's side of a van. Moving (that should be MOVING) targets. And then some of that plain old stuff that we IDPA types are used to shooting. The word of the day was: FUN! That was buoyed be the fact that there was nothing even vaguely resembling a serious injury, so safety was the big winner.
I personally had three or four absolutely terrible stages, but I still managed to finish in the top third of my class (SSP/SS), right behind jawper. You got me, buddy! And we both got beat in our class by a 13 year-old!
I had my best runs on the steel stages, it seemed. That's sort of understandable since I never had to hit one more than once to knock it down. That's the .45 ACP for ya! Several guys shooting 9mm had good hits that just didn't knock them down. I also did real well on the stages where we were shooting up close (2-5 yards) at multiple targets. Had one of the better times of all competitors (about 150 of them) on one stage, and got accused of sand-bagging when the scorer saw that I was shooting in SS class. I offered to show him the scores I had from a couple of other stages to let him see for himself that I was just averaging things out.
A couple of REALLY terrible stages (one where I didn't see a target and ended up scoring 35 seconds where everyone else was in the 15-20 range, and the FAST moving drive-by stage that I basically whiffed on by getting -28 down) tried to ruin the day for me, but I had more good stages than bad ones. But I'm really glad I don't have to do this for a living!
Unless I miss my guess, there's a REAL good chance that this will go on again next year. The only thing that might prevent it is if the Nationals are going to be held there, and they may not want to give everyone a crack at the courses before then. At any rate, my hat is off to the people who run Blackwater, and to Ron, Frank, and the range/safety officers who made this thing go. It was a hoot!
Fourteen stages. Well over 150 rounds (closer to 200). Reactive steel. Clear houses. Shooting from the second story. Shooting from the driver's side of a van. Moving (that should be MOVING) targets. And then some of that plain old stuff that we IDPA types are used to shooting. The word of the day was: FUN! That was buoyed be the fact that there was nothing even vaguely resembling a serious injury, so safety was the big winner.
I personally had three or four absolutely terrible stages, but I still managed to finish in the top third of my class (SSP/SS), right behind jawper. You got me, buddy! And we both got beat in our class by a 13 year-old!
I had my best runs on the steel stages, it seemed. That's sort of understandable since I never had to hit one more than once to knock it down. That's the .45 ACP for ya! Several guys shooting 9mm had good hits that just didn't knock them down. I also did real well on the stages where we were shooting up close (2-5 yards) at multiple targets. Had one of the better times of all competitors (about 150 of them) on one stage, and got accused of sand-bagging when the scorer saw that I was shooting in SS class. I offered to show him the scores I had from a couple of other stages to let him see for himself that I was just averaging things out.
A couple of REALLY terrible stages (one where I didn't see a target and ended up scoring 35 seconds where everyone else was in the 15-20 range, and the FAST moving drive-by stage that I basically whiffed on by getting -28 down) tried to ruin the day for me, but I had more good stages than bad ones. But I'm really glad I don't have to do this for a living!
Unless I miss my guess, there's a REAL good chance that this will go on again next year. The only thing that might prevent it is if the Nationals are going to be held there, and they may not want to give everyone a crack at the courses before then. At any rate, my hat is off to the people who run Blackwater, and to Ron, Frank, and the range/safety officers who made this thing go. It was a hoot!