I usually post a pic of my scoresheet and analyze each issue, but as this was my first low light match, a lot of that doesn’t really compare with other matches. It’s not that I feel any embarrassment over it. I will reveal plenty of what went wrong. I’m just not going to waste the bandwidth with a pic of it. Total score was 172.28, earning me the lowest place in ESP.

Much more important to me is that it was a LOT of fun! Many present had never shot a low light match and as pointed out before we even started, a lot of what we would be doing was experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t. In that, I learned that I do best if I shoot strong hand only and wield the light well away from the pistol, keeping light trained downrange and using my night sights in relative darkness.

Numerically, my performance had an interesting trend. Each stage scored kinda alike. The four stages were 19, 23, 23 & 20 down respectively, an average of 21 down on each. Each of the four stages had either one Fail to Neutralize or one Hit on Non Threat, each worth 5 seconds. Even raw stage times were remarkably consistent, 24.71, 29.58, 34.15 & 21.34 for an average of 27.45.

My worst was probably Stage 3 where, somehow, I completely missed three shots on the same target. There’s nothin’ that makes you feel good like 15 down and FTN on one target! There were two targets in a tarp tunnel with a Non-Threat between them. There was a ficus tree soft covering both targets, but mostly covering the one on the left. My miss, however, was the one on the right. I engaged it. I just didn’t get any on it. I didn’t get the Non-Threat, either. Shrug. The rest of the stage was 1’s and 2’s. One issue that many people had with that part of that stage is that the tarp was hanging so that the edges were likely to be fairly near the gun. Muzzle blast frequently sucked the tarp into the line of sight if you covered with the gun near the edge. Those who stepped more forward but still remained in cover had less trouble with the tarp.

I had trouble with low cover last week. I did ok this week, even fumbling with the light.

In Stage 4, I finally figured out what worked for me, light-wise. For this stage, start was with pistol and light on a pedestal, four targets to get three rounds each. At the buzzer, pick up light and pistol and proceed. I picked up the light, turned it on, placed it between my left pinkie and ring fingers, facing off the back of my hand. I kept it low and shot (at) the first two targets on the move to P2. This felt pretty good and as planned, left me with fingers and thumb for the reload without parking the flashlight anywhere. I flat nailed the Non Threat, then proceeded to place only two on the first target and only one shot of three on the other. Regardless of my mental checklist to the contrary, I was shooting faster than I should have been. Once at P2, there were two more targets to take 3 rounds each. On on the 11th shot, I expected the slide to have locked open. When it didn’t, I tried and it just clicked. I reloaded and slingshotted the slide and took the last shot. I returned to the previous cover position and tried a makeup shot that apparently still missed.

I am looking forward to the next one!

We also have match in Weatherford tonight and I’m late to leave!