River Bend Gun Club is an outstanding shooting complex Northeast of Atlanta. Among the various other matches they host, Paul is the Match Director for their monthly PCSL 2 Gun match. He mixes up the match the best he can using 5 action pistol bays with a maximum length of 50 yards. This match is currently held the Sunday after the Action Pistol match. Elsewhere on the range, another crew is busy setting up for USPSA Pistol the following weekend. The departure to PCSL happened recently as this was previously a 3-gun match using the USPSA rule set.
I needed to work on Sunday, the 18th so I opted to shoot this match with the set up crew in the afternoon of the 17th. This was my first experience shooting in what I assume it is like to shoot as staff. I will say that it is definitely more difficult to stay mentally focused when you switch back and forth between setting up stages and shooting them. I am also interested in getting into the support side of shooting in the next few years. This was overall a good experience for me.
PCSL
We started transitioning the stages after lunch from the Action Pistol Match, or about 12:30. This match uses PCSL targets and scoring as opposed to USPSA targets. While I understand why someone would design the PCSL targets, I think they are difficult to shoot. The key difference is the addition of the “K” zone in the face and a generally higher “A” zone. The targets are also slightly shorter length wise. The key here is that the highest scoring areas are not in the center of the available area as it is with USPSA targets. The highest scoring areas are much higher on the chest of the target extending into the face. The Match Director recommended making the neck the point of aim. This is contrary to most mainstream marksmanship instruction. However, I will agree that in a defensive scenario, this is a good place to aim.
Stages
The first stage of this match is on the plate rack bay. It was set up with three firing positions. The two outer positions each had a 6 steel rack and 2 additional steel to the outside, one hit on static and racks must fall. In the center, position was a dump barrel and an eight-target array. The odd thing to me, which carried throughout the day, was that the rifle had to start in the barrel. It was the shooter’s preference which position you started in. I guess this added some equity in that you had to pick up the rifle regardless of starting position. I ended up at just over 28 seconds. I could have shot the rifle faster, but only had two make ups on steel. Overall, I was very pleased with this stage.
Stage 2 was a pistol-rifle-pistol stage moving from one side to the other. The pistol was all steel while the rifle were paper targets. From left to right, the shooter stepped into the shooting area and drew on seven steel plates at various distances. From there, move to the center to ground pistol and retrieve rifle. The shooter engaged a six-target array and had to slide a step for the next, six-target array to become visible. The shooter grounded rifle and retrieved pistol before moving to the end of the shooting area for the final three steel pistol targets. This was a simple but fun stage.
Stage 3 was a fast-shooting stage for the most part. Shooter started with pistol engaging 2 papers at about 5 yards and 6 steel at about 20 yards. I have a feeling these mini-poppers were tough for some. Dump pistol and grab rifle while moving to the next shooting area. There were thirteen paper targets that had to be taken from three positions, shooter chose the order. I finished this strong. This was the last stage that was already set. Moving to four and five, we had to set up the stages before we shot them.
Stage 4 was where I began to tell it was hard to concentrate on stage planning. We messed around with the stage a lot to get the time down to not slow down the Sunday match. It was originally designed to cause a shooter to run around a center barrier twice. After adjustment, the shooter only had to retreat once and then return to the front of the shooting area. On start I sprinted to a point in the rear of the shooting area before drawing pistol and engaging two steel poppers on each side. From there sprint back to the front to engage four more poppers on each side. My stage plan fell apart somewhere around here. I dumped pistol and grabbed rifle with indecision on going to the right or left port first. Once in the ports, I had to get the rifle down to about my belly level to engage a close single target and then arrays of four on the back wall. The PCSL targets ate my lunch here. The targets were over lapping and with the all white, it was hard to see where one target stopped and the other began. Between the left and right arrays, I ended with a miss on two top targets by dropping them into the head of the overlapping target. Those misses crushed my hit factor.
After the redesign of stage 4, it was almost 5 in the evening before we started the 5th stage. Stage 5 had you start in the front engaging three tuxedo targets at 12-15 yards with pistol before dumping and sprinting back for your rifle. Once rifle was in hand, it was a fun left and right engaging targets as they appeared. The lack of stage planning got me here as well. I essentially had to build two extra positions due to poor planning and execution. I probably left three to five seconds on the clock that I could have shaved.
Despite all of that I still finished 15th of 50 in the match at 78% of the winner. Open division was less impressive at 8 of 21 shooters. I was happy with my overall performance and will shoot both matches in the same day again. The fact that it forces me to focus when tired and distracted is great. It will make me get better at my Mental Process. RBGC is a great venue in Northern, GA for a variety of matches.