Every month, there’s an outlaw shooting match at the Fairfax Rod & Gun Club here in Virginia. Despite much cajoling from Everyday Marksman community members who live in the area, the scheduling never seems to work out. That’s usually a prioritization issue, admittedly, and one I’ll be working to address next year. That said, when the announcement for the December 2024 match came out, I had no conflicts to worry about and signed up as soon as I could. Usually these are two-gun matches, but this one was pistol only. Given my focus on pistol for this year and going into next year, it seemed like a great opportunity to see where I’m at in a competitive setting.
I signed up along with one of our local community members and squadded together.
Picking Divisions and Gear
These matches use simplified divisions with relatively few rules compared to something like IDPA or USPSA. Choices are semi-auto irons, semi-auto optics, revolvers, and PCCs. I selected semi-auto optics and brought along my CZ P10F with Trijicon SRO mounted on top. For supporting equipment, I had my standard battle belt with Dara level 2 duty holster mounted as the holster.
As a refresher, my P10F is not stock. Aside from the optic, I also installed the Cajun Gun Works P10 action kit and trigger. The factory slide stop is gone, replaced with an Apex extended version. It’s been 100% reliable with these upgrades.
Training & Run Up
To be honest, I showed up to the match cold (both literally and figuratively). I did not do any particular training regime leading up to it, with my only recent serious pistol session being the Project Appleseed Pistol Clinic I did back in October. Sure, there was a pinch of dry fire here and there to stay on top of some manipulations and fundamentals, but I can’t say I’ve been seriously training.
As much as I wanted to put a lot of effort into my pistol training this year (both live and dry fire), there have been a lot of conflicting priorities in personal and professional life.
Here’s a video overview I put together for the whole event
Match Day Review
I arrived to the match site at 7:40 AM. It was overcast and about 22 degrees Fahrenheit (about -5.5 C for you folks outside of the US). Check in and safety briefings started at 8:00 AM, and then squads disbursed to their starting stages to begin shooting at 9 AM. My squad started on stage 3 of 5, and I’ll go through each stage in the order that I shot them.
Kudos to the shoot staff, as it seemed like a well run event with a lot of camaraderie amongst the field.
Stage 3: Support Hand Only
This was one of two stages I was most worried about. It was also the stage I made a major procedural error on that cost me in the rankings for the day. I was mainly worried about it due to not practicing a lot with weak hand only (WHO) shooting, so whatever happened was going to happen.
The stage involved two shooting positions. Pistol shooters stood 10 yards from the target (PCC started further back at 20 yards). On start, you drew your pistol, transitioned it to your weak hand, then picked up a moderately heavy duffel bag in your strong hand. While keeping the bag on your body (i.e. in your hand or on a shoulder), you placed one hit each on two 10″ gongs. After those two hits, you traversed laterally to position two where there was a mini-mo target.
The mini-mo is a scaled down steel torso silhouette. The head is 4.5″ x 4.5″ and falls backwards when hit. To reset the head, you have to hit the 5″ vital-section circle in the middle of the torso. The position required you to shoot the head and then reset it before you could return back to position one and shoot the two gongs again.
The match instructions stated 12 hits were required in order to finish the stage. However, during the stage brief from the RO, I got the mistaken impression that one “hit” on the mini-mo meant doing both the head and torso shot. That meant 12 total “hits” required four total trips from position one to position two. It turns out my understanding was wrong, and it only required three trips.
I was the third shooter, and the two shooters in front of me both hit the par time cap of 120 seconds, so I didn’t see anyone complete the stage first and had no point of reference for only doing three trips. This is important because I completed the stage with all four trips in 77.95 seconds. The fourth trip also forced me into a reload, which I didn’t think through and also attempted weak hand. From fumbling with the mag release to fetching a new mag across the body, this was ugly.
The RO didn’t notice that I was doing more than required and didn’t stop me. On reviewing video, I completed the required three trips in about 53.37 seconds.
The dot on the pistol was an immense help for WHO shooting.
The time of 77.95 put me 26/51 for all shooters on the stage, or 15/23 for pistol optics. A time of 53.37 would have put me at 14/51 overall and 10/23 for pistol optics.
The lesson here is to make absolutely sure you understand the correct course of fire before saying you do.
Stage 4: Steps
This stage involved four shooting positions at 16 yards, 14 yards, 12 yards, and 10 yards from the target(s). The targets were a set of three static 3″ to 4″ plates. From each position, you had to place one hit on each plate before advancing to the next position. The catch was that if you missed any shot, you had to start over from the first plate again while staying at the same position.
This stage rewarded people who slowed down just enough to make clean hits. The shooters who rushed to go fast started missing on that second or third shot for each position and starting over repeatedly took a mental toll.
I was the second shooter and finished with a time of 28.06 seconds; good enough for 16/51 overall and 10/23 for pistol optics.
The guy running a PCC in the squad squashed everyone. By the time I turned around from the fire barrel where I was trying to het warm to see his run, he was already done (16.95 seconds). Looking at the scores, all of the winners on this stage were the PCC guys. Then the next batch is all pistol dots, and then pistol irons made up the rest.
I think this says something about what optics bring to the table in these kinds of no-misses-allowed scenarios.
Stage 5: Have Tire will Travel
This stage involved three shooting positions marked by tires sitting flat on the ground 20 yards away from the target. At the first position was another tire sitting perpendicular inside of the tire on the ground, making an opening to shoot through. The target(s) were three 5″ Duramax target balls placed in front of each position.
Starting at the first position, you got down to the ground and shot through the tire to hit one of the balls and knock it off a 2×4 platform. After making the hit, you got back on your feet and carried the tire to the next position, repeating the process back and forth hitting one target at a time and carrying the tire as you went.
I was the first shooter to go for my squad. Luckily, I was able to watch the squad in front of us finish up so I had an idea of what was working.
As I was going through the stage, I had a few errant shots hit the actual 2×4 platform and end up knocking all three balls down at once. Rather than stopping to reset, the rules were to just continue the stage as you normally would. If you returned to a position where you already knocked down the balls, then you got down into shooting position and simulated taking a shot as you normally would.
My final time for this stage was 80.13 seconds, good enough for 7/51 overall and 4/23 for pistol optics.
Stage 1: Spinner Challenge
This stage had a VTAC barrier set up 15 yards from a spinner target. To compete, you picked a port and placed one shot on each plate of the spinner before moving on to another port. You could not use the same port twice, and had to make 10 hits total from five ports. If you got the spinner to complete a full spin, then you received a 30 second bonus to your time.
I was the last shooter to go on this one. Something I noticed was that a lot of people finished the main part of the stage and then spent a ton of time trying to get the spinner to go around. Unfortunately, the lightweight 9mm just didn’t have a lot of oomph behind it, so it took a lot of shots and good timing to make it work, often more time than the bonus 30 seconds gave back. The two exceptions here were the guy shooting a PCC (which had more velocity and better accuracy) and the guy shooting a 45 ACP 1911, which certainly had more momentum behind it.
I shot this one well until the last port where I was holding the P10F sideways. I was putting the dot on target, but shots were going way to the left. After several missed shots, I realized this is the same height over bore issue you run into with dots on carbines. I paused, addressed the sights better, and finished the stage. I opted not to go for the bonus spin.
Final time was 37.15 seconds, good enough for 20/51 overall and 13/23 pistol optics.
Stage 2: Star Non-Threat
The final stage for me. By this point was was warmed up and feeling better about shooting. The stage involved one shooting position placed 20 yards from the berm.
The stage had multiple components to it. On start, you drew and fired one shot at a steel plate about 12 yards in front of you near the ground. When this plate fell, it allowed a swinger to start moving left and right in front of a Texas Star.
The swinger had a standard USPSA silhouette, and was designated as the no-shoot. After you triggered the swinger, there was a static steel silhouette positioned to the left.
You placed one hit on the static target, and then you shot one plate off of the Texas star (without hitting the no-shoot swinger). You then repeated this sequence of one hit on the static target and one plate on the star until all of the plates on the star were gone.
Hitting the no-shoot added a 30 second penalty.
My time here was 13.42 seconds, good enough for 2/51 overall and 2/23 for pistol optics. The big thing I kept in mind was advice I’ve picked up to lead with the eyes during target transitions.
Final Results & Observations
My overall final time was 236.71 seconds, and I had no penalties or DNFs for the day. That earned me a position of 16/51 overall and 10/23 for pistol optics division. Had I not made that procedural error on my first stage and run it an unnecessary fourth time, my final time would have been 212.13. That would have put me into 12/51 overall and 6/23 for pistol optics. In either case, this seems to continue the trend of me finishing in the top 25% to 30% or so of shooters at matches.
In all, I’d say it was a pretty successful day. I didn’t go in trying to win given how long it had been since doing any pistol competition shooting. I also wasn’t familiar with the rule sets and stage designs common at these outlaw events. Next year I will prioritize these events more frequently, and maybe try out some different divisions.
Now for some observations, either from my own performance or watching others.
First, optics on pistols are a huge benefit overall. They dramatically improved the results of “low probability” shots like WHO or odd angles. They also make transitions from target to target immensely easier. That said, my personal experience is that I’m still a little slower on that first shot at closer ranges (i.e. 10 yards or less) from the draw with a dot than I am with irons. The issue is finding the dot on that first shot when I’ve got so much time naturally indexing the iron sights. This is a practice issue I can work out.
PCCs were a huge advantage. The guy in my squad shooting a suppressed MP5 with a dot was smoking every run due to the increased stability given by the platform. The extra velocity it imparted also helped with things like the spinner.
The guy in my squad shooting a single stack mil spec 1911 in 45 ACP was at a distinct disadvantage. Not only from the low capacity magazines (which meant a lot of reloads), but the crappy old sights were an issue, too. Given the P10F’s capacity of 19+1, I almost never had to reload, whereas he was reloading 2-3 times per stage. It goes to show what a disadvantage a single stack is against modern designs.
Lastly, I saw a lot of 2011s in the field. The thing that stood out to me was how lightly sprung the seemed to be, to the point that they were racking them by jerking their arm back and forth to clear malfunctions. What malfunctions? The light springs seemed to hang up on any friction they ran into, especially on the tires of stage 5.
