2007 DPMS Tri-Gun Challenge
By Larry Weeks
“I’m short a few shooters on Pete’s squad, you’re shooting.” Those were almost the first words Lea, the lady that does such a fantastic job of putting all the prizes together, signing up the shooters and taking care of every little detail, said to me after Jason Carrico and I stepped behind the tables to help her sign in the shooters. Folks, this is a huge match! For the fifth year it was at the Del Tone Range and DPMS factory outside of St. Cloud, Minnesota. The almost 200 shooters isn’t the “huge” part, it’s the prize table that makes it huge. The picture below doesn’t do it justice, on each of four different tables (for the four major classes) were ten new guns! The total amount of the prizes came to $186,000. That’s why folks want to shoot this match, everybody gets something. I finished 110th out of 116 in the Tactical Optics class and still ended up with a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff.
The prize tables were huge! Brownells is the co-sponsor of the event with DPMS.
I was just going to take some pictures of our guys: Jason Carrico, Pete Brownell, Matt Sheko, and Clayton Whipple were going to take care of shooting the guns. But, Lea changed that. To tell the truth, there really wasn’t much arm twisting involved. I’d brought my AR-15 along to have them work on it, it wasn’t functioning correctly – shooters say “My gun wouldn’t run.” Lea recommended “night-shift Justin” and she was dead on. Justin fixed my gun, then all I had to do was find guns for the handgun and shotgun stages. DPMS’s owner, Randy Luth didn’t hesitate a bit and loaned me a really slick STI double-stack, 1911 built by shooter Benny Hill (not the English comic) that was great! He also handed me his Benelli M2 and all the trick shotgun shell holders and magazine pouches I needed for the various stages.
I got to shoot Randy Luth’s STI 1911, awesome gun!
I found out I don’t know nearly enough about shooting a match that is a game, and that I should have practiced shooting from positions I never thought of. My first stage, Stage 4, involved shooting the AR-15, lying down, at steel targets almost 200 yards away. I couldn’t see through my scope lying down and spent too much time trying to hit all the targets. There’s a 5 second penalty for a miss, so, if it takes longer than 5 seconds to line up on each target, you’re better off to simply shoot in the general direction and keep moving. I got through the rifle part of the stage, unloaded the gun, dropped it in the safe box, picked up the shotgun and ran the 75 yards to the shotgun firing line – and promptly missed 5 of the 6 slug targets. Fat, old, out of shape men are in trouble at a “run-and-gun” Match! I put the empty shotgun in the box, grabbed the handgun ran the 20 yards to the firing line and started popping away at targets. My first thought was, “WOW, this gun shoots great!” I’d no more started shooting it and the Range Officer (RO) said, “I’ve got to stop you for time.” I’d wasted too much time on the rifle targets and had hit the 200 second time limit. How humiliating. Then I watched eventual open class winner Jerry Miculek shoot the stage. Holy bleep! He hit everything and did it in 47 seconds. That’s roughly fifty rounds of ammunition with a 75 yard run and another 20 yard dash in the middle! Jerry’s over 50, but is in great shape. What a treat to be on the same squad with him and watch him work, then talk to him afterwards.
Pete Brownell shows perfect form, finger outside the trigger guard, muzzle down-range as he gets ready to drop his empty shotgun in the red, safe box and move on. This is Stage 4, the first one that bit me so badly.
I made the same mistake of taking too long on each target on the next stage and timed out again. Mike Hughes, another shooter on our squad, explained the time vs. hits principle to me and I was feeling better about Stage 7, our last for the day. That was going to be standing up, rifle only. I watched several other relays shoot the stage and developed a plan. This is a game and you have to figure out the rules and how to play.
A couple of cold, nasty hot dogs for lunch, and I headed back to Stage 7. After the Range Officer gave us our briefing we had our 5 minute walk through time. I stuck close to Jerry and watched how he was planning to do it. Because of the barricades you couldn’t see all of the targets from one place, they were forcing you to move. Jerry said there’d be a sweet spot, one place where you could see most of the targets and another where you could see the rest. I found it and made my plan. Sometimes, when the RO says, “Shooter ready!” and the beep of the Timer goes off outside your earphones your plan goes out the window. I kept my head and stuck to mine, reloading on the run from position one to number two, and got everything hit, with two shots on each target. You can hit once in the “A” zone or twice anywhere so most folks just choose to double-tap each target. I was so proud of my 85 second time with all my double taps on target and no penalties and then Jerry went. Damn! He did this one in 25 seconds. That’s 52 shots fired at about 50 yards with a 25 yard run to boot! The rest of the shoot went that way. I did alright and watched in awe as Jerry and a couple of other members of our squad had some great runs. When we got to the shotgun stages I felt a bit lost. I’d never reloaded a shotgun on the run and had no idea how that would go! Since the Stages require up to 30 rounds or more you end up carrying lots of “stuff”. They make really neat nylon units with Velcro straps that wrap around the forearm and action of the gun, more that attach to your forearm and various boxes and hang off your belt and theres even a unit that straps to your chest and can hold a couple of boxes of shells. Ya gotta have the uniform if you want to play the game! I did see a couple of fellas that were stuffing shells into their pockets and loading from there; and I think they were having as much fun as anyone!
The age extremes were 16 year old Carly Alm, shooting in the open class who did one heck of a job, finishing in 37th, just ahead of Bruce and Debra Magstadt who I’d guess to be in their early 60s. Everyone took care of Carly while Bruce and Debra took care of everyone. Carly’s proud dad said she’d been shooting for 3 years, Carly said she almost never practices, the only time she shoots is at matches – now that’s some natural ability!
On Sunday three of our guys shot the team match and did alright. I think they ended up eleventh out of 20 teams. Not bad for amateurs against some darn good, experienced shooters with real “gaming” experience.
Match director Bob Mills gives the Brownells Team, Jason Carrico, Matt Sheko and Monte Crain instructions before they shoot the team match. That’s our Clayton Whipple with the video camera standing on the bench behind our guys.
Jason Carrico knocks ‘em down with his shotgun during the team event.
Randy Luth and the crew at DPMS are having problems with the neighbors objecting to shooting nearby – the area is growing and folks are building houses. As a result, they’d like for Brownells to host the match here, next year. There’s a lot of work and money to be spent before we’d be ready. Those of us that went are going to try to run a small three gun match here just to see what’s involved, we’ll let you know when that’s going to be. Come on out and see, or borrow some guns and shoot the event. You’ll be hooked. I have to buy two new guns so I can play the game. I don’t really need the excuse but it’s nice to have one.
One last thing; Jerry and I were talking while we waited to shoot Stage 8 and he told me how great he thinks Brownells is. He buys from us, and sells to us and said every invoice and every order is always correct and the people he talks to are friendly, he can tell they care about his orders. At least a dozen people told me the same thing. Congratulations to everyone here for making us winners before we ever pulled a trigger.
For more information, please contact Larry Weeks, at (641) 623-8071 or larryw@brownells.com