July 13 Action/Jungle Walk Match Report

 

WOW, what another GREAT turn out!  We had close to twenty shooters and a large number of bystanders.  Each match seems to be getting larger and larger, that’s wonderful!

We had three stations running at this match.  There was another Jungle Walk in the woods, A “Real Life…Draw from Concealment” Drill, and two “Two Real Life…Bad Timing Drills.”  No one could stop talking about any of the different stations.

 

The “Jungle Walk”

 

We set up a short jungle walk. The course span about 100 yards.  There were sixteen targets to be engaged.  The targets ranged from “camouflaged” pepper poppers (camouflaged by cover or by paint) to “colored” bowling pins were used as targets.

Shooters found themselves in many different situations. At times there were a lot of “YOU’RE BEING SHOT!  YOU’RE BEING SHOT!” comments coming from the range officer, as the shooter would walk by a target.  Sometimes, shooters found themselves in a “firefight” (with many targets at once) to a nerve raking lulls that made them wonder if they were missing something.  Wow, they even found some targets in trees “sniping” them!  Again the range officer could be heard saying, “YOU’RE BEING SHOT!  YOU’RE BEING SHOT!”

All shooters performed well including the novices that missed a few targets at first. Everyone did a FANTASTIC JOB! 

 

The “Real Life…Draw from Concealment Drill”

 

The shooters found themselves in a very “sticky” situation.  They had to draw from concealment on their person and engage seven targets (ranging from pepper poppers to paper targets) immediately.  There was “zero” time to find cover…it was” shoot and move shoot and move.”  Some of the shooters remarks were; “Wow there wasn’t any time to “pie” the corners, you just had to “shoot and move.” “How could I have missed the targets, they were so close.”  “I never knew that I was stopping and then shooting, that could get me killed.” Many shooters wanted to stop and shoot at the targets, but this met with the range officer saying “MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, don’t stand still…still targets get shot.”  Needless to say, the shooters found that they were “battling” yet another “BAD GUY…adrenalin.

 

“#1…Bad Timing Drill”

 

Shooters found themselves coming out of the “grocery store”, in the rain (shooters wore shooting glasses that were sprayed with Pam Cooking Spray to impair their vision as if they were really in the rain), carrying two bags of groceries (one in each arm) when suddenly they were attacked by a street gang.  Shooters found themselves confronted with five hostile targets and two non-hostile targets.  The non-hostile targets posed a problem, in that they were in front of two of the hostel targets.  Shooters had to decide what to do on there feet.  Many of the shooters decided to move and confront the hostiles to the rear…others tried to shoot over top of the non-hostile targets.  At this time the range officer reminded the shooters that in “real life” none of these targets would be standing still once the first gunshot was fired.  So, shooting over the non-hostiles wasn’t the best choice to apply.  Shooters ran through this drill at seven and fifteen yards.  After this drill it was amazing what I was told to do with my set of “rain glasses.”  Oh well, sorry guys sometimes-real life deals us a bunch of lemons.

 

“#2…Bad Timing Drill”

 

Shooters found themselves on a walk with their granddaughter (my daughters doll played a part in this situation) when a “drugged out” hostile attacks them.  The shooter had to draw and confront the hostile with their shooting hand while protecting their granddaughter with the other hand.  This drill was run at three different distances…once at seven, ten and fifteen yards.  After this drill, most people shook my hand thanking me for giving them something to think about when they are walking with loved ones.

 

ALL of the range officers want me to THANK everyone for their GREAT self-control and SAFE gun handling skills that were used through out the whole day!  Well enough about this shoot.  It’s time to start preparing for the next Action Shoot

(August 3).   Please remember to always bring a shotgun, rifle, and pistol to the actions shoots; you never know what you might have to be shooting.

May all of your shoots hit their target!

 

Sincerely,

 

Todd R. Fritz, R.O.

 

PS…Our next shoot will be a pin shoot (July 27 at 1:00pm)