Right, so. Had my first OFFICIAL match Saturday, with the Old North State Posse.
The important things first:
IT WAS AMAZING. I loved it, I can't wait for the April Match!
Anyway, so I went back in February to the match they had then, just to see what was what, get a feel for the stuff what'd be being used, all that good stuff. Got to shoot a couple of stage type things (not the actual stages, was at the end of all things-since I didn't even have my own leather at the time), got to see the difference between Colt/Clones and Rugers (I'm a Colt/Clone man, for the record), and try out a couple of different rifles (the 1873 is BEYOND AMAZING, ended up getting a steal on a '92 Rifle though, so went with that-more on that later). So, the guys were great, the game is beyond great, and I decided to gear up.
And gear up I did, boy HOWDY I tell ya what-got a Matched Pair of Uberti Cattlemen in .45 Colt, a Stoeger Coach Gun Supreme in 12 ga, and a Rossi R92 in .44 Mag/Special... All for $1200.
My leather (well, most of it-I STILL don't have a shotgun belt/slide yet) arrived the day before the match.
Anyway, day of, I've got the jitters, on account of I've seen the times a lot of them fellas put up-we're talking QUICK. Right, sorry... Anyway, I end up on Posse 1, I think it was (we started on the first berm anyway, so yeah), and I'm second from last on the list. That's good, as I was am new to the whole thing. They paired me up with a fella what goes by Layden, showed me the ropes right proper, even let my borrow his shotgun belt when he wasn't on the line.
Moving right along-first stage comes up, and uh, yeah... I uh... Including the misses from my pistols (OK, I had no idea there was such a difference between handload recoil and factory recoil-I was shooting Remington 250 Gr FACTORY loads-the ones in the yellow and green box-those things KICK LIKE A MULE), the miss from my rifle throwing out a round, and the time it took to clear the multiple stovepipes my rifle gave me (see? I told you I'd come back to that!), I wrapped up with 101.77. Not great. Not great at ALL.
The NEXT round was even worse-somewhere along the line, still not sure if it was loading my rifle (very sharp edges 'round the loading gate), or from hammer bite, but I ended up bleeding all over my vest (OK, OK, a major splotch between the buttons, and some near the pocket I was carrying extra shells in, on account of I figured I may miss SOMETHING), my rifle, and well, pretty much everything else. Wasn't even a bad cut-just a little ol' triangle jobbie on my thumb. Even missed a shotgun target and had to do a FOURTH reload on it (6 shotgun targets). 110.86. Also had a round thrown out, AND started off with 9 instead of 10, since I only had 18 rounds of .44 Special with me (I was in such a hurry to get out the door, and had taken a pain pill the night before [bad back, shoulders, yadda yadda], I forgot nearly my ENTIRE box of ammo-only had what was on my gun belt, on account of I'd stuffed it with .44 for pictures that never got taken)! So several misses on that stage...
ON TO THE NEXT BERM, I'm out of ammo for my rifle, but Layden lets me use his 1873 for the remainder of the day (again, when he wasn't using it himself!), and suddenly my times start dropping quite a bit. Stage 3 had some misses (them darn factory loads, having never shot ANYTHING that powerful from a handgun... Yeah, threw me off a bit), but I shaved more'n 40 seconds off my previous time. Clocked in at 67.72
Stage 4, I had two misses with the pistol, and a procedural (double tap Nevada Sweeps, I only hit the first target ONCE and then moved on), so I ended it with 57.58-IF I'd been shooting straight, and REMEMBERED the proper order, I'd have ended up with my fastest time of the day. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, but didn't. Still, more'n 10 seconds faster'n my PREVIOUS time. As y'all can see, the trend for the day was, I was getting faster.
Unfortunately, that went to my head a goodly bit. Was shooting so well on the rifle, Hubris caught up with me, and for the first time with a levergun, I had not ONE miss, but two. That's never happened before. So there was 10 extra seconds right there. ON THE POSITIVE side, Layden hooked me up with some handloads for my .45, and for the rest of the day, I didn't have a miss with my pistols! Final time was 53.53. So again, getting faster.
FINAL stage...
38.28.
CLEAN.
Everyone clapped, cheered, or hooted/hollered. It was one of the most amazing feelings. Sure, I was shooting against all of these people, and yet when it all came together for me, we were all on the same team. Ya don't see that in other sports!
After it was all said and done, I helped 'em break down the stages, pack 'em and headed back up to the clubhouse for the awards, and was stopped by a fella who's name I cannot (to my everlasting shame) remember, who up and gave me a made BY HIM leather brass pouch!
I get back to the clubhouse, and have reserved myself to dead last, dead last, and DEAD LAST (Match, Category, and Clean).
And what should happen, but I placed THIRD in my Category! Sure, it was a technicality, as there were only three of us shooting Cowboy, but STILL! So I ended up with a Poker Chip to toss in my brass pouch until I get home. I also came in 40th out of 42!
Needless to say, I WILL be back!
And one day sometime either this fall or next spring, I'll have myself an 1873 Uberti Rifle.