OK here goes, my 1st match.
Before I get into all the stuff I did WRONG on my 1st let me give you some of my shooting history and exactly why I got into SASS.
I come from a long time as a competitive shooter. Started back in high school when JROTC was still a good thing and we were allowed to have an armory at school and a shooting range. I remember well the remmington 513T match masters. When I went to college, I carried my shooting to the college team. We graduated to the anshutz. What a piece of hardware. After I graduated and went into the Marines, I shot both rifle ( M-16 and M-14) and pistol (the ol reliable 1911A1) competitively. After a short lived carrer in the Marines (thank's Beriut '83) I retained my shooting skills with an older 1911 I had purchased and an M-1 grand from the DCM ( back when you could get one for less than a hundred dollars). I truly enjoyed the shoulder to shoulder competition. Something went wrong with the shooting sports somewhere around 1992 to 94. Maybe it was even farther than that but its when I took notice. It became no longer fun. It became an ordeal for absolute accuracy where nothing else mattered but the win, place or show. It no longer was a game of fun competition, but a serious event involving very expensive "techno" guns. The guy that came up to have fun, enjoy some comradship with his fellow shooters, and exhibit some of his marksmanship skills with the firearm he had was a think of the past. I know, I found myself caught up in it too. I spent thousands of dollars on the latest greatest custom noise maker that I forgot all about the important thing. Enjoyment. It got way too competitive that the average guy that had good marksmanship skills and was a good shot with his M-1, or M-1A, or springfield, or AR-15 (out of the box) didnt stand a chance against the super built star wars rifles. Not only that, folks at the range quit talking to each other and quit helping out each other for fear of giving away their "trade secrets". Not only that, but if you showed up without one of those fancy dancy shooting irons, you got laugh at with remarks like how do you expect to be competitive with that. It was just not fun anymore.
So I got into IPSC and found similar attitudes and expenses. I went to IDPA. That was fun and to more what I was looking for.
I got into CAS quite by accident. Guess you could call me a big kid at heart. I found at a pawn shop several years ago an older Ruger Vequero in 45 Colt for a penance. I purchased it and took it to the range. IT was heavy, it took about 40 pounds of pull on the hammer to cock it and about half that to squeeze the trigger. It kicked like a muel with full charge loads. And it shot way low and to the left. I loved IT! Fortunately for me there was a guy at the range sighting in his arms and asked me if I would be interested in CAS. He explained it to me and I was excited like a kid with a new toy. He also recommended to me a good gunsmith that could tune the ruger for me. At the time, All I could afford was to get the pistol sighted in.
Well about a year later, I finally collected my firearms, costume, handle and showed up. I purchased another vequero, bought leather of the internet, had me a winchester 94 (trapper AE) and a stoger dbl 20 gage.
My 1st match, here I show up with just about full charge loads ( near the high end of the rules on velocity both rifle and pistol) 45Colt 255 grain lyman cast RNFP. My costume was a hodge podge of my mountain man stuff I used with my boy scouts combined with some of my renaissance festible stuff. What a sight!. I got lost at the range, forgot what posse I was in, and had to have the instructions repeated to me about 4 times. here I am with this el chepo leather rig with cross draw holster (got called on the angle several times - the judges took pity on me being my first.) As I pull my pistols and start to shoot - BOOM! from the full charges. Did you knoe that some of the older Ruger vequeros back strap are so square that they actually will cut and shave your thumb if you hold it just right. OK I empty the second pistol and start moving before I holster it. WRONG. I get to my winchester 94 AE with an 18" barrel. (I forgot to tell you, I pick it up at a sporting goods going out of business sale. I didnt realize that until I got to the loading table, I could only get 9 rounds of 45 Colt in the tube......) So I fired the 9 rounds, and had to reload one from my pocket. Put the rifle down, went over to pick up the shotgun, dropped a shell on the ground, fumbled around, got 2 rounds off, missed one, fumbled around with the breach, removed the stuck casing, and got the next two off. Oh, I won the green horn award too. It was all in good fun. And the best thing I can say is that everyone came over to me to offer condolense and encouragement. A lot related to me their challenges on their 1st match. Also, a couple of the club officers and a couple of the great shooters informed me they were having a clinic for new shooters in about 6 weeks and I was invited. hmmmmm was I really that bad? anyway, I showed up and got a lot of great and free advice and help.
Where to go from there, I took both Rugers in to my gunsmith for a true tune up job, trigger jobs, springs. As an experiment, I bought a box of 45 scholfield and found they work perfectly in both the rugers and the winchester. I can get 10 of them in the tube and they function. I straighten out the cross draw holster and had the chamber of the stoger polished. My next matches were a lot better.
Now that I guess you could say I have graduated from green horn, over the last couple of years I have noticed CAS going the way of what I experienced in formal match shooting. Most of the clubs (and secernio's) are catering to speed and the light load. Though I have lighten my loads up myself, they still crono at 750 to 800 fps with a lee 200 grain bullet. Still pretty stout but a lot less than the 255 at 1000 fps. Now, am I one for a power factor to be incorporated in the rules, eh no. keep the for IPSC. But I would certainly like to see swinging targets and knock down targets come back. And pistol targets greater than 30 feet. Keep it fun guys and gals, thats whats its all about. When the enjoyment of the masses shrinks to the enjoyment of the few, we'll certainly see a lot more hang up their guns