Yesterday I had the pleasure of shooting my third USPSA match. The match was held at Lower Providence Rod & Gun Club in Montgomery County, PA.
This was the second time I shot at this club and both experiences were great. The match director does a great job of mixing short and medium distance shots with angles, which makes for challenging stages.
After shooting each stage I walked away feeling great. My shooting felt like it was on, for the most part, and I was sure I did great. Since watching my video, I have downgraded my performance to “pretty good“.
Using my Contour HD Body Mounted Camera, I was able to see where simple mistakes were made. I have a very bad habit of dumping a magazine, inserting a new one, and racking the slide (when it isn’t required). This bad habit brought me to slide-lock, on more than one occasion, before I was ready to be out of ammo.
At any rate, I think I did very well for my experience level and can’t wait to do some more shooting. With the cold Pennsylvania Winter looming, matches are going to become few and far between. On the bright side, this should make November a busy month, the negative impact is that shooting multiple matches in a month tends to get rather expensive.
The video from my match can be found below. I left the clips long so that you could listen to the shots being scored. When the match results are posted I’ll put together another post breaking down the stage and how I performed in the grand scheme of things.
19 thoughts on “Shooting USPSA at Lower Providence Rod & Gun Club (11/05/2011)”
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Hey Walt great shooting love the video, the more I watch this the more I want to get into this type of shooting. It looks like your getting a lot better every time you go out. Keep those videos coming.
Corey,
I think every shooter goes through the same progression. First we buy or borrow a gun and go to the range. We have a blast shooting holes in paper while standing on the firing line. Before long we start to get a little bored with that and mix in more challenging aspects of shooting (drawing from a holster, etc).
Then one day we see USPSA or IDPA and we are in awe at how fun it looks. Going to a match is a bit intimidating but you wind up having so much fun.
I love the mixture of strategy and skill that comes along with practical shooting. On top of that, I’m amazed at how willing other shooters are at offering advice.
Thanks for checking out the video. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I reached my goal of being in the top 50% of shooters in my division (Production).
Hay Walt, looks like a lot of fun, also looks like you did good also, like the video, nice job, looking to the next one.
I had a great time and can;t wait to share more video (maybe in a couple of weeks I can manage another match).
Thanks for watching and leaving a comment.
Okay Walt, stop showing off!
Steve,
If you think I shot well, you should see some of the A and Master Class Shooters at a match sometime. They are fast as lightening and are amazingly accurate at that speed.
Thanks for checking out the video and leaving out a comment.
Walt you kicked my ass this match:) did you see the scores? I’m starting to think you might get c class right off the bat. Keep it up walt after a couple years hope to go to a sectional with you.
Scott,
I’ve been checking for the results since the day after the match. Last night I thought that I’d check one last time before going to bed and sure enough, they were posted.
I also got an email from Ted this morning that the results were posted, which I thought was very cool.
I think I shot pretty well. I was happy when I left the match and was confident that I would reach my goal of breaking into the top 50% of production shooters. I would have like to do a little better but I’m happy with 12th out of 24 shooters.
Comparing my score sheet to the top shooters of the match, it looks like it all comes down to stage time. I had a couple of Mikes and a Delta or two, but my raw score was fairly close in a lot of cases. It was the severe difference in time between my stage time and the top shooters.
With practice, speed will come. As long as I keep shooting plenty of A’s with some C’s mixed in and the occasional D, I’ll be happy.
I’m going to send an email over to York about shooting this weekend. They require anyone new to shooting York have a safety check. If they can do one on the day of the match, I’ll plan on shooting.
Did you tell them you got a safety check at topton? York and topton are sister clubs. You still can do it the day of the match and this one is early and shouldn’t take too long.
Scott,
The York Website says that anyone new to the club must go through a safety check. It isn;t a big deal and I don’t mind doing it, but I wanted to check with them via email to make sure I could do it before the match starts.
As it turns out, they don’t have time to do safety checks before the match. Because I have shot 3 matches already, they are going to squad me with one of the people running the match and consider my first stage my safety check.
I’m pre-registered (they have a hard-count on the number of shooters) and am all set to shoot this weekend. If you haven’t signed up via email, you might want to do that just in case they fill up before you get there to register.
Website is here –> http://yorkpistol.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-classifier-match.html
Walt try not to get trapped into the “i must go even faster mentality” Because if you do it fast and sloppy (not that you did) you will start missing alot and hitting no shoots. Next season I feel you will be a top ten shooter almost all the time. The two stages you did the worst on it seems you were trying to force more speed and you know what they say you can’t miss fast enough to win. Just try to clean the stages and your speed will pick up over time. You are a very accurate shooter and just make a clean sweep of the stages. I totally belive if you would have added a second or two on the two stages you got the mikes and got all your hits you would have placed better in those stages and also overall. The bigger matches are longer and more of an endurance test on how long you can shoot consistently. I hope to see you at york and mabye think about southern chester , did you get my forward of the invite?
Scott,
In the grand scheme of things, I think I did pretty good. I didn’t hit a single no shoot. Off of the top of my head, I think I had something like 2 Mikes and les than 5 D’s for the match.
Considering this is my third match, I’m pretty happy with my performance. But, no matter how well I do, I’ll always see places where I could have done better…. LOL
I got the email for South Chester but there was nothing in it. It looks like that match is going to be the day before Topton. I seriously doubt I’ll be able to shoot 2 matches in one weekend (Shooting 3 this month is hard enough).
I’m all set for York but I think I may pass on South Chester and shoot Topton. I spent some time shooting with Dean (Match Director at Topton) a few weeks ago and I’d like to get some hands-on experience with hm at a match.
If I can shoot both, I’d love to but I doubt I can. Do you happen to know what the round count and cost is for South Chester?
South chester is $20 like the rest unless they have a special classifier like york is that’s why it’s $25. Dean’s pretty badass with a pistol. Is he trying to get you into multi gun? Once you get bored with USPSA after a couple of years I could see you tackling 3 gun:) I’m glad you’re going to york and if you don’t make it to south chester this month there is always next season. I assume you are going to be doing another season since you seem to be really good at it. I can’t wait to see what you look like in a couple of years of doing this.
Scott,
You mentioned that South Chester was a smaller club, I was thinking fewer stages and possibly a smaller entry fee. I’d love to shoot both matches but it isn’t looking good right now.
Dean mentioned that if I start shooting with them I’ll probably get drawn into 3 Gun. It looks like a lot of fun and all but I’m just not in a financial position to shoot Multi-Gun matches. Not only is it a big investment to pick up a Shotgun and Rifle (I have the pistol) but it sounds like entry fees for matches is much higher than typical USPSA Pistol matches.
I might do the occasional Rifle & Pistol match at the Oley Informal Shoots, but that is about as far as I can see it going at this point.
If I get bored with USPSA maybe I’ll just start mixing in IDPA matches as well…. LOL
South chester is smaller compared to topton , york and lower prov but alot bigger then oley and south chester puts on just as good a match as the others but they tend to be closer targets that focuses more on speed and they have some big field stages. Multi gun the match fees and ammo cost is about equal to five USPSA matches. You just might want to think about multigun in the future , mabye next year pick yourself up a nice semi auto shotgun because the shotgun is the one most different from the other guns give yourself time to play with it and build your connection with it. I’m not saying jump right into it because of the cost but mabye start building up to it slowly over several years while you still compete with pistol. Most three gun matches come down to who did better with pistol anyway.
Scott,
I was messing around on Youtube earlier today and came across some video from someone recently shooting at South Chester. The stages look pretty compact with a lot of close range shots but it looks like a good time.
Next season I would like my rotation to be Lower Providence, York, and South Chester during the months when Topton doesn’t shoot pistol. With any luck I’ll be reloading by then and I can reduce the cost of ammo a little bit.
I figure that if I can load my own rounds for about $10.00 less per 250 Bulk Pack then the reloading equipment will pay for itself in a season or two.
At this point my focus is to shoot as much as I can afford to. I really enjoy the sport and hope to shoot for a long time.
Doesn’t hurt that you are damn good at it either:) If i was a betting man I would put money on you coming right into c-class of the bat even the guy who ROed you at the last stage said you would make C. Walt you have alot of natural talent with pistol shooting just don’t get to in your own head or take yourself to seriously as you progress to the top and it will be an easy ride.
Scott,
I’m curious to see how I did. The match didn’t feel as good as the one I shot at Lower Providence. I don’t think I did too good on a couple of those classifier stages (I did horrible on the par-time stage. I had more misses than hits).
I still can;t believe I went 5 for 5 on the Texas Star. It felt like that last plate was getting away from me and I just pulled the trigger before moving the gun (plates were coming to me due to the way I shot the first couple. I barely had to move the gun at all).
Thanks for the kind words. If you change your mind about shooting another match this month, I’ll be up at Topton this weekend. That will probably close out my season. I’ll let you know if/when my membership comes in from Topton and maybe we can get together for some practice (I’ll be putting a shot timer on my Christmas list….. LOL)