Oregon Shooter

Course of fire and my performance in this my first match…

5 shooters at a time will shoot at the same time.  You will be assigned a target.  Start with mat on the ground weapon grounded unloaded.  Stand behind your weapon with 5 rounds in hand, and any other gear you may want.  At buzzed get into position and fire 5 carefully aimed shots.  Stop firing at the Par time buzzer.

MY RESULTS:
Unfortunately for me I did not have my know zero for this range.  I had been shooting at 600 yards two days earlier and making eyebox hits on a steel swinger but at the end of the day found my scope was loose and had moved back one inch.  I had to go to the match with a re-zeroed gun set for 100 yards and use a ballistic solution for my elevation.  I was surprised I hit the target at all and never did know where the bullets impacted. 

As would be the case all day, I feared not finishing under the par time and shot way too fast.  I still had 30 seconds remaining on this stage.

Scored 3 hits (8,5,5,0,0)
Placed: 10 of 25

Start with your rifle loaded with 5 rounds at low ready.  Once the mover has started, move into position on the berm and shoot 5 well aimed shots.  The shooter will have two passes of the mover.

MY RESULTS:
Since I had no bi-pod and there was no time to throw a ruck down, I opted to shoot with my Tactical Interventions Sling on this stage.  This worked well as I had a tight shooting platform very quickly.  I will likely stick with this format even after I get my bi-pod as its very fast.

I did not know what the lead should be on the target which was moving at 4ft/sec, but I did know that a few before me that ran bolt guns did not get all 5 shots off!  That made me shoot very fast and again I had time for another shot each direction on the target. 

I threw my last shot completely on the second exposure and still had time for another.  Slowing down would have helped.

Also discovered that I need to really work on manipulating the bolt AND keeping my target in the scope.  Lots of time wasted trying to find the mover again.

Scored 4 hits. (8,8,5,5,0)
Placed 13 of 25

Start with all gear in hand.  Rifle empty.  Five rounds are to be loose on body.  At buzzer get into any position at the barrel behind cover.  Start at first target.  Once the target has been hit the shooter can move on to the next target.  There is a 10sec penalty for failure to neutralize.  There is a 5sec penalty for failure to engage.  For example: the shooter shoots at the last target and misses.  There is a 10sec penalty for failure to neutralize.  2nd example:  Shooter misses all 5 rounds at the 1st target.  There are 5x10 second penalty for failure to neutralize and 4x5 second penalty for failure to engage.

MY RESULTS:
Shot with sling again, but would have liked a bi-pod.  This was actually shot off a berm instead of behind the barrel as the COF said.  Everyone before us did this so we kept it the same.

Very slow at finding targets as I had my scope turned up to 8X.  Need to learn to shoot at 4.5X for this type of shooting.  Smooth was fast on this stage and the time penalties killed me here.

Scored 4 hits with last shot a miss and FTN for a 15 sec penalty
Placed 17 of 25

Start with rifle empty and ten rounds on body.  Shooter must hold all gear.  At buzzer the shooter will take up one position using the barricade as cover.  Engage the 5 distant target.  The shooter must then move to a different position on the barricade and engage the close 5 targets. There is a 10 sec penalty for failure to neutralize.  There is a 5 sec penalty for failure to engage.  See stage 2 descriptions for examples. Note:  Prone can only be used once.

MY RESULTS:
Time was not bad on this stage, but throwing the ruck down hurt again.  This timed style competition is really biased towards a bi-pod.  Save the ruck for long par events and not for OAT stages like this one.

I think I missed one far target on this one and I know I had trouble when I went to the top of the barricade and fired a very unstable shot at the first close target that missed.  After going to the middle section of the barricade that allowed me to kneel I did fine.

Need to practice loading also.  My gun holds 4 and the trick of pushing down the rounds while cycling the 5th round in helps a lot.  I elected to just hand feed the last round to “save time” but forgot during the COF and wasted time loading the last one.

Scored 8 of 10 hits
Placed: 10 of 25

Start at the barrel at the bottom of the hill.  Rifle is empty.  You will be assigned a target. 5 rounds are in hand plus any other gear you may want.  At the buzzer, charge up the hill to the top of berm (4 stories).  Load rifle after you are in position.  Engage your target choosing which ring you think you will be ale to hit.

MY RESULTS:
This was my best stage and I know I could have done a lot better if I had AGAIN slowed down and not played it safe.  I fired one shot at the 6pt zone and was off (still breathing hard), then went to the medium ring for 2 safety shots, then went back to the small ring and landed the last two shots.

If I had just trusted myself and stayed in the small ring after my first flyer I would have gotten 8th 3rd or 4th on this stage.

Scored 5 hits (6,5,5,4,4)
Placed: 5 of 25

OVERALL:
On the whole I was elated to place in the top 10 (tied for 10th) in my first match and after only having shot 4 times with my rifle ever.  This is my first year and I see a lot to work on and know I can do better with practice.

The squad I was with was an interesting and friendly group of people, but there was some game faces on that day to be sure.  The experience of a match can not be qualified in print IMO, and like my experiences in IPSC/IDPA I found that competition works well to push you to your limits.  It also allows you to watch really good shooters and learn.

The match is a great one for first timers and experienced shooters alike.  I look forward to the next one!

The range home page is: http://www.tcgc.org