Collage of Manliness (Click to enlarge)
We pretty closely followed these plans, with the exception of turning the Shotgun Press course into a two man event by orienting all targets to one side to avoid crossfire. We also did not get to the Sledgehammer. Most courses come from or were inspired by the excellent weapons and shooting guru, Nutnfancy.The first course was a combination handgun/rifle course. A 20 yard dash to the orange cones, followed by five handgun shots on the silhouettes at 10 yards. Then, a dash to the next station where you would swap your handgun for a .22 rifle to fire 10 rounds at steel targets at a range of about 25-30 yards. We had a total of 30 points possible on this run, with shots inside the "A-zone" worth 2 points each, and shots inside the "B-zone" worth 1 point each. The group started off strong on this run with five of the nine shooters earning perfect 30s. But the winner--with a perfect score and the shortest time of 40.23 seconds--was Scott C (yours truly)! Second place was Jon at 45.23, third was Jared H. at 1:03.00, fourth was Dwight C. at 1:52.28, and fifth was Nathan H. at 2:10.00.
We then adapted the course for use with shotguns. A 15 yard dash to the orange cones, followed by five handgun shots at 15 yards. Then, a dash to the next station where you would fire two shotgun rounds at cans, reload, and fire a final round at a can on the fencepost. The reloading aspect really separated contenders, though this was only a shadow of difficulties to come. Only one contender shot a perfect 16 on this course: Daniel H. Four other contenders shot 15s: Scott C. (31.47), Gabe C. (33.00), Steve H. (37.68), and Jon (39.84).
Our third course involved a 100 yard engagement with firing at four different stations. A sprint to the 75 yard cone where contenders would shoot 5 rounds of .22 rifle onto the silhouette down range. Then, while running to the 50 yard cone, contenders would perform a moving reload (ideally) and then put five more .22 rounds onto the target. Then they would swap their rifle for a handgun and run to a 25 yard cone to fire 5 rounds on target. Then, a final moving reload down to the 10 yard cone at which point they would close in on the target firing their final 5 shots on the move. Overall, I was really quite amazed at how well everyone did. Almost everyone landed 18-19 of the 20 shots on target. No timing was involved for safety reasons (to avoid having one contender moving down range while another was still firing). Out of a possible 40 points, the high scorer on this course was...Scott C with 36! Second place was Jon with 35, and third was Gabe C. with 33.
Our fourth and final course of the day was a running shotgun course. Two shots were to be fired at each station. For the first three stations the contender had to choose one of two cans to shoot before firing on a nearby milk jug filled with water. For the final station the contender would close on a flat metal target firing two shots. This is where reloading really became a problem for people. Having to reload a shotgun on the move is something almost no one had had any experience doing, and it showed for many of them. There were two perfect scores on this run, but the one with the shorter time of 37.28 seconds was Jared H. Second place was Daniel H. at 41.23, and third place was Ryan B. with 9 points (at 1:48.55 - he had some reloading troubles, but made his shots count).
Overall, the winner for the day with 88 points was Jon. Scott C. and Daniel H. tied for second with 87, but Scott C. had the fastest time for the day with 110.13 total seconds. Below is attached the score sheet for any who want to see the breakdown for themselves.
Here's a video mash-up I made of all of the runs I recorded during the day. I apologize to Steve H. who I didn't get any video footage of, though I did get some good still photos. The video is about 7:30 long. Enjoy!Thanks to everyone who came out with us! We're sorry that not everyone could make it who wanted to. We'll see you next Manrichment!
