Second of the losers...

A famous motor racing driver once said, "if you're not first, you're last." Hmm, well maybe he wasn't so famous at all...Or a motor racing driver...Or even a real person...OK, so to be honest Ricky Bobby said it in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and I'm not sure if it's completely true. I mean if you're not first, and you come second, and there is three people in the race, you are indeed not last. Right? Anyway, I think what he meant was that winning is everything and to some degree I agree with it. If you've been challenged to a duel to the death then winning would be everything, one would presume. However if you're not in a life and death scenario then winning is probably not *everything; Preferable yes, but not really everything.

Having said that however I certainly believe that unless you come first you haven't won. I mean how can a person in a running race who comes last actually win the race? Sure, they might have completed some sort of personal triumph in qualifying for the race however the winner won and a person who came last, or anything else other than first, did not. So, in fact, everyone who didn't indeed win the race, in fact lost it. Makes perfect sense really.

Last weekend I shot a practical handgun match at my gun club. The discipline is called IPSC and it's a practical shooting discipline that simulates real-world military and law enforcement scenarios and is shot competitively all over the world. Anyway, I didn't win. Considering everyone who didn't come first in the match actually lost the match to the winner, the second place-getter is essentially the first of the losers, and the third place-getter is the second of the losers and so on. I was the second of the losers, having actually placed third.

I shoot in the production division which means the gun cannot be modified; It's essentially a gun that has come out of the factory packaging, loaded and fired. There's a few different Divisions including: Production, Production Optics, Classic, Standard and Open. Open guns, or race guns as they are known, have pretty much no limit on modifications permitted. Below you can see a couple of my guns. One is a race gun (Open Division) and my Production gun. (STI Edge and CZ Shadow 2 respectively).

I like the idea of being proficient at the more basic handgun with open sites rather than the heavily modified race gun with the optics. They are both fun and challenging in their own ways though.

The results from last weekend for my Division are below. There was 15 shooters for the match, in my Division, so I'm not displeased with my result. My accuracy was pretty good but my elapsed time was a little pathetic. To be honest I always tend to focus on accuracy more than speed as I figure there's no point missing targets quickly. Considering this is practical discipline simulating what an operator may face in the field, well, I'd rather hit things accurately than not. Below I explain the way a target is scored but essentially the more A's (Alpha's) a person scores the better. The shorter the shooter takes to complete the stage the better.

Third: Second of the losers with a percentage of 64.79% of the winner.

The table below shows a snapshot of the overall results with all Divisions included for a combined overall result for the match. You can see I came in 13th overall (12th of the losers) which I was pretty happy with. There was 57 people in the match so I finished up well into the top 50%. Keeping in mind that many people of the 57 shooters don't shoot in my Division. I beat out many competitors who shoot in Divisions that use highly modified guns so I'm pretty pleased.

I've circled the A-C-D-M-PT headings in green below in the image. This is what I have actually hit in the entire match. Where on the actually targets I have landed bullets.

• A is Alpha (Centre-mass - A simulated chest/heart kill shot - Maximum points)
• C is Charlie (Off-centre-mass - A "serious wound" - Less points awarded))
• D is Delta (An arm or shoulder - The least amount of points
• M is Mike (A complete miss - 5 point deduction + no points gained for that shot)
• PT is a penalty target (Like hitting a hostage or bystander - Points are deducted)

You'll note that I shot the second-most Alpha's of the day (in the top 13 being 58 Alpha's. Equal top was 61 Alpha's. The times I took to do each stage is what let me down though. I was a little slower than the others.

Scoring is done by dividing the score on the targets by the elapsed time to complete the stage. This gives a hit factor which becomes the score for that stage. Obviously accuracy is equally important as a quick time however when scores on targets are close between shooters a faster time will trump better accuracy normally. It's a complex scoring system when explained, but at the range on the day makes perfect sense.

You'll also note I hit 2 PT's which minuses points from my score. These are costly as each is worth minus 25 points. I had no Mikes (misses) though which I was happy about. Have a look at the 9th placed guy. 3 Mikes and 2 PT's and still he finished ahead of me. Faster times simply blew me away.

So, here below you can see the overall club leaderboard for my Division. I have only screen captured down to where I sit on the annual standings. (Financial year so July 1 2018 - June 30 2019). I'm pretty happy with where I am situated although first would make me happier. You can see I'm coming third overall in my Division...That's second of the losers.

Anyway, I thought I'd share my results from last weekend for a change as I don't think I've done so before. I don't really get too hung-up on scores at my club because it's really just practice. It's at State Titles and inter-club matches where things get a little more serious...Even then, I do this for fun and so don't take myself too seriously.

This is a super-fun sport. It's like a video game for adults where one shoots a lot of rounds in scenarios including urban settings, open ranges and simulated vehicles, aircraft, towns, houses and so on. Targets move, swing, run along tracks and on cables...It's pretty cool. Of course, it's not the cheapest of hobbies. A Production gun will cost around $2,200, the holster rig and additional magazines some $600-$800 and then there's membership to IPSC and the club, firearms licensing and legal storage. That's before a shot is even fired. I shoot around 200-300 rounds a weekend most weekends. So, it's not cheap. But it's fun.

We actually have a shoot coming up which is taking place at night, under flood lights and also blacklight! The image below is one of the steel targets painted with glow-paint and lit by blacklight. The target is that green circular thing you can see in the lower left. When struck with a bullet it rings out loudly. Imagine a course of fire with 20-25 of these things hanging around hidden behind obstacles and out of sight and the shooter working (running) his/her way through shooting as they go. It's going to be an awesome shoot with a BBQ afterwards...A double win. I'm really looking forward to this shoot which is designed to be fun rather than competitive. As long as I'm not last in line for the BBQ and a brew at the end I'll be happy!

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope some of this made sense, and if not well...No one probably bothered reading all the way through anyway. 😳