Responsible Firearms Ownership 

Gee, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow will be here early, it was 2:47 a.m. and I could finally go to bed and maybe go to sleep. I set the alarm, I thought!

Well, the alarm didn’t go off but I had awakened 15 minutes early anyway. I lay in bed quietly thinking about the day ahead. Michele, my wife, asked me when I had to be there.  Well, in about two hours. “Do you need me to help you do something?” No, but thanks.

I spent the next 45 minutes getting my stuff ready and loaded. Then, I told the girls and my wife goodbye, and headed to McDonalds for breakfast.  I stopped at a gas station to fill up and get a-bag-a-ice then settled in for the 35 mile drive.

I thought to myself, it will be nice if this cloud cover sticks around. (IT DIDN’T)  I arrived at Central Arkansas Shooters Association (CASA) with Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride playing on the CD player, telling myself to relax and be smooth watch the front sight and PRESS the trigger. It was 9:49 AM, on Friday June 28, 2002. I was there to shoot the Arkansas State IDPA Pistol match.  I would be shooting the match the day before the competitors would descend on the area to do the same. I was lucky enough to be the Chief Safety Officer (CSO) for stages One, Two, and the Chronograph.  I would have two Safety Officers, Max Spurgeon and Reg Barner, working with me on these stages and in the end both our SOing efforts and my shooting would go very well, but I am getting ahead of myself.  I spent the next hour or so helping with whatever was needed. I checked my stages to make sure they were straightforward and that I knew what, if any, pitfalls to look for.

I then went to my car and took off my trusty little Glock 23 that rides there about 80% of the time and replaced it with my favorite pistol, a well worn, accurate and reliable Norinco 1911 in 45acp that I “built” myself.  I checked my equipment at the car making sure everything was where it should be, and then headed to range 7, Stage 12.  For some reason we started backwards!

Stage 12 “Parents Worst Nightmare” (10 rounds from 5 – 15yds) someone gave us a quick course description.  Open the door, engage two targets with two rounds each and don’t shoot the innocent bystander that’s standing between them.  Move to the end of the room’s wall and engage a target that is moving away from you with your child in its arms, pie the corner and engage the last two threats.  It was a rather straightforward stage to start on, thankfully.  Mike Plato was the first shooter, and at the beep the SO portion of the 2002 Arkansas State IDPA Pistol match had begun!

Stage 11 “Yard Work” (6 rounds from 2 – 10yds) would be a stage where you were required to hit a dummy with a PVC pipe (simulating a rake handle) to make him drop his gun (Amazingly, he appeared to have a twin to my Norinco.) you then shot his three accomplices in Tactical Order/Priority (for IDPA purposes this is always closest to most distant) with 2 rounds each while retreating. I made a small mistake here and it cost me a quite a bit of time, I engaged the closest target and in the swing to the next I mistakenly engaged a target out of order. I corrected my mistake and went on, which cost me time but I also incurred a Procedural Error (PE), which is 3 seconds! Not much, but the whole stage should have taken me about 6 seconds but ended up taking 11.09 seconds, OUCH!

Stage 10 “Get Out of My Face” (6 rounds, 3yds) was very simple. Started with you standing in front of a boxing dummy, on signal hit him in the face with your strong hand and knock him to the ground. Begin backing away and engage three targets behind the dummy, two shots each in Tactical Sequence (For IDPA this means that every target gets one round before you can shoot the second!) This stage bit a few people and got them PE’s for not moving or not engaging the targets correctly.

Stage 9 “Car Repair Rip-Off” (6 rounds from 3 – 10yds) began with you standing in front of a counter with your hands flat on it. On the signal you turned 100 degrees to engage three targets while moving parallel to them. Short, quick and simple!

Stage 8 “The High Price of Gas” (12 rounds from 2 – 6yds) was run at the same counter but this time you simply engaged one target to the right of the counter then moving around the counter engaged one over the hood of a Chevy P/U, another through the window then moved to the rear of the truck and engaged two more, last but not least there was a target laying down that had to be engaged from the ground by shooting under the truck! Well this took me back to football and belly flops, lots a fun holding a loaded .45 with a 3 pound trigger! All went well except I dropped my partial mag on the reload.  (In IDPA if you reload before your gun is empty you must retain your magazine) Oh well move on, descriptive adjective deleted! Add another 2+ seconds to that OUCH time!

Stage 7 “Bad Banking” (14 rounds from 4 – 16yds) had the only other mover in the match. This one  would be slightly harder, as it not only ran at increasing speed perpendicular to the shooters position, but also disappeared in short order. You started at a table, and on the signal you pushed a button on the counter, which started the mover.  You engaged two targets then the mover and did a Reload With Retention (RWR) or a Tactical Reload (TL). (The RWR and TL differ slightly in how they’re done but accomplish the same end results.  You reload before your gun is empty and retain the partial magazine on your person.) You then moved from behind cover and picked up a moneybox (ice chest) that activated both the mover (again) and a flopper, which put two new targets in your face at a distance of about 4 feet. Both of these had to be engaged strong hand only (one handed). Now you dropped the moneybox and engaged the mover again, this time in the opposite direction.  Last but not least you engaged a 10-yard target!

At this point, John and I decided we would go get some food for everyone. Well, really I twisted his arm into it! It was just after 1:00 PM and the sun was now beating down on us. I welcomed the break and volunteered to go with him to Subway. They would not take a phone in order so we had to wait on them to make ten, foot long club sandwiches!

While we were gone the SO’s continued and shot Stage 6 (36 rounds, from 5 – 18yds), which was a Standards Course consisting of three targets.

String 1.  You begin by engaging the three targets in tactical order/priority (TO/TP), two rounds on each, do a Slide Lock Reload (SLR) also called an Emergency Reload (the gun is empty, dump the mag and get a new one in it. Pronto! ), re-engage TP each target with one round to the body and then re-engage each TP with one round to the head.

String 2.  You engage in TP two rounds on each.  Strong hand only.

String 3.  You engage each target with two rounds in TP, do a Slide Lock Reload, then re-engage each target with two rounds in TP.

String 4.  You engage each target with two rounds in TP

On stages 1-5 I SO’d competitors at one time or another so I semi-remember the scenario.

Stage 5 “Stick’em Up” (6 rounds, 3yds) You’re being robbed and are forced to your knees, your attackers comment that maybe they should just kill you! Start kneeling facing three targets and a non-threat (innocent person) with your hands at surrender (above your head)! On signal engage each target with two rounds! Very simple and very fast! Under four seconds was the norm for the more experienced! A revolver shooter did it in 2.66 seconds!

Stage 4 “Party Gone Bad” (12 rounds from 2 – 12yds) began with you seated at a table holding a plastic soft drink bottle in your strong hand. On signal engage two targets in front of the table with two rounds each, move left about 20 feet and go through (your now outside) a door where you find two more targets just outside then pieing a corner you find two more behind a plywood cutout of a vehicle.  While watching the upper level competitors I learned a new way to open a door that does not latch; I kicked it open and went to work but they used their gun muzzles to push it open!  Never would have thought of that!

Stage 3 “Bathroom Two Step” (8 rounds from 2 – 8yds) Hmm, not for the faint of heart, this one started you out seated on a toilet in a restaurant, where you had apparently been for some extended time! On your sign of “ready” the door was kicked in by a bad guy, you picked up your gun from a stool and shot him then headed out of the stall and engaged three other bad guys two on the left and one on the right.
 

Stage 2 “Bad Directions” (12 rounds from 2 – 18yds) You're  in a bad part of town and someone shoots and kills your car, you then have to shoot it out.  The car was an old Escort and it was hard on the egress for even a little guy like me (6’ 195#).  Yes there were some comments on the car choice, all bad! You started seated in the car, hand on the steering wheel, on signal you engaged two targets out the passenger window, exited the vehicle as best you could, you then moved to the front of the vehicle and went to one knee and engaged four more targets around an old Honda Accord. Many people found out that a car is sometimes good cover and sometimes not depending on where its hit. The most distant target was behind the trunk (about 15 yards) and many people got the trunk but not the target.

Stage 1 “Dog Daze” (9 rounds from 3 – 10yds) It was now almost 5:00 PM and everyone was TIRED! This stage started out with you seated in a chair in front of a camp fire and three downsized targets; there was no –3 zone, it was a –0 and –1 and they were on their sides, laying horizontal. These downsized targets were to simulate Wild Dogs that had smelled your food and wanted it, and you! On signal move behind the chair and engage targets in tactical order with 3 rounds each. The last target was about 10 yds out. This stage bit quite a few people that were going just a little to fast and they dropped a bunch of points!
 

By now it was almost 5:30 and the SO’s that couldn’t get there until after work began to trickle in.  I ran three late arriving SO’s through the courses they had missed and left at 7:00 PM.   I headed to the Ramada Inn where CASA had room reservations for the competitors, and a meeting hall reserved to use as the sign-in point for the match the next day. What a mess that turned out to be. In good conscious I would NEVER recommend that anyone use that Ramada again!  That place needs a SERIOUS course in customer service!

In spite of that, all had a good time, even the guys that thought they might have to sleep in the middle!  No names Ben!  SO meeting was at 7:00 PM, which ended up being about 8:30 PM.  There was one thing new this year.  Last year we had some problems with people jumping from stage to stage and leaving a score sheet behind to try and save time, THAT created a mess of major proportions.  This year our former Club Presidents’ wife said “Why don’t you make them sign in when they get to the stage.  Thank you Vicky K! It worked great.  The MD and current CASA President (John May) went over how that would work and told us to just “be careful, keep them moving, make sure you and they have a good time.  If you have a problem call me or the CASA IDPA director (Robert Ray) and we will be the bad guys”!  CSOs have to be there by 7:30AM!

I left the hotel at around 11:00 PM and when I got home I went directly to the shower!
I ate and was in bed at 12:45AM. The alarm went off at 5:45AM!

I arrived at the range at 7:40 AM. Max S. and Reg B. were already there and setting up. They would be troopers throughout!  I had to run around the range and get the Chronograph, which turned out to be a waste of time.  In the future, I will recommend that only the guns & ammo that are questionable be tested.  At 12 PM we broke for lunch.  Hamburgers and Hotdogs were served and some great fruit salad, beans and potato salad etc.  I talked a little and then checked my SO’s to make sure they were done eating and when I yelled "Range one is open for business", it was 12:50 PM.  The day ran without a hitch until we had a shooter that didn’t make power factor – he wasn’t close, he was around 100-125 fps low – hard to believe for a sanctioned match. I called John on the radio, “ I need your assistance on range one please”. While he was sorting out the chrono, (it was giving erroneous readings and was finally just removed from the match) I had another shooter question a call on a shot that left about 1/8” between the scoring ring and the bullet hole. For .5 second he made an ass of himself.

At about 2:45PM we were done, THEN a call on the radio “Range 2 needs HELP!” Off Max and I go. I think we finished around 3:30PM.  We walked around the divider expecting to have to pick up range one.  Reg had been working his rear off while we were helping out on range 2 and our pick up detail was done!  Thanks Reg!  Then I saw John coming down the hill, when he finally got to me he greeted me with “I want to be the first to shake the hand of a new Master Class CDP shooter!  You won Expert and are moving up!”  I thought he was messing with me because it’s something we have done with each other before. Thirty minutes later when I finally got to the scores I found he was serious!

The trophies were given out. Stories were told. Congratulations given. People mingled.
Adult beverages consumed. Then all was quiet and only a few remained. Everyone took a break for the first time.  I walked down to range one last time to find Steve Mack, one of the Texas contingent, giving an impromptu lesson on shooting to a fellow shooter. Steve and I talked for a little while, he gave me a couple pointers on my stance and grip and then he headed back to Texas. I went back to help finish the pick up. After that was over, I went in the building to get a Coke for the ride home.   I stayed talking to a fellow shooter/ SO; we left at 12:00 AM!
 
I reflected on the day’s events on the drive home.  We had run competitors from all over the U.S.  We had enjoyed the camaraderie and the competition of fellow shooters.  I had finally become a Master Class pistol shooter.  Reflecting on becoming a Master I realized that it had been much more fun getting there, than it is being there!  As I put the top up on my car in the driveway my CD player started a familiar song,  “I like to dream…….”

The match results are at http://www.casarange.com/entry_form.htm

Stay Safe and Shoot Straight

Larry G. Pogue Jr.

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