Zak Smith
Member
The MGM Ironman 3Gun match is run by MGM Targets (Mike Gibson Manufacturing) and Mike is the match director. It is held annually at the Parma Sportsmans Club near Parma, Idaho. The match is best known for its very high round count and use of the different MGM target types. This was my first time attending MGM.
For comparison purposes, I have shot RM3G in 2003 and 2004, SMM3G in 2004, the ITRC in 2004, and the Tiger Valley / CavArms 3Gun match in 2004, besides shooting 3Gun locally for almost 3 years now.
Earlier this year, I had made a decision to make as many major 3Gun matches as I could, money, schedule, and vacation-time allowing. The CavArms guys offered me a spot shooting with them at this match, so MGM was "in." M.A., a local, generously offered to let us stay at his place, so the cost for me to shoot this match was minimized: gas, ammo, some gear, and food.
Russell (SinistralRifleman) cajoled me into shooting Trooper Class. The rules for Trooper class are that you have to start the match with everything you'll use in the match in your pack, web gear, etc. You cannot add anything later except for the provided water and lunch (such as it was). You can shoot any guns you want, bring two rifles, whatever, the only catch is that you have to carry everything. A Trooper is not required to wear his pack while shooting, but he must carry everything from the "base camp" of the Cav van to every stage. Those of you who have been to large matches know that this can entail miles of hiking, just going around a shooting complex.
Because MGM is a notoriously high round-count match, Trooper class was even more challenging. At the ITRC in 2004, my partner and I were able to carry merely a pair of binocs, our LRF, and a couple hundred rounds on the field courses -- in short, no problem. At the MGM, the "minimum" round count was about 1100, split between pistol, rifle, and shotgun. When you add another 50-100% for taking extra shots, margin, etc, that's clearly a lot of ammo. And it weighs a lot. So CavArms decided to allow the use of a "staged" large 50 cal ammo can for extra ammo. Even so, the load of about 500 shotgun shells, about 500 pistol rounds, and about 500 rifle rounds, in addition to three guns, cleaning stuff, tools, water, food, mags, web gear, camera, etc, came to about 120 lbs on average for the Trooper shooters at MGM. That was not counting the weight of the loaded 50cal can.
My gear consisted of a Kifaru Marauder pack, with two external pockets from Killer Gear / Triad Tactical and a Tactical Tailor 2-piece MAV with 5 TT AR15 pouches, 7 6-per shotshell loop strips, a general purpose pouch, and a triple pistol mag pouch. Both long-guns were configured with CQBSolutions 3-point slings. My pistol stayed in a normal Blade-Tech belt loop kydex holster. I brought 8 30-round AR15 mags, and 7 18-20 round 40SW mags.
[ link to LARGER image ]
For this match, I used my Benelli M1S90 (18.5" bbl, straight stock, ghost rings), my 17" MSTN lightweight upper with a TA11 ACOG on a CavArms lower with a stock military trigger, and my SV "Limited" double-stack "1911" style with its 18-20 round .40SW mags. Ammo was XM193 for the rifle, a mix of #00, #4 buck, #7.5 shot, and slugs for the shotgun, and handloaded "long" 40 for the pistol.
In addition to the normal 3Gun rifles, MGM allows the use of another rifle on the single longest-range stage (to 650 yards). For most people, this meant bringing their precision/long-range rig. However, for Trooper shooters, if you shoot it, you have to pack it. I had brought my AWP (which does pwn n00b5, by the way) just to screw around with, and had planned to just shoot my AR15 on the longest shots, walking rounds in. For no reason, the Trooper squad lucked out and started on the L.R. stage. Since it was OK to ditch/abandon gear, those of us who brought bolt/long range rifles could carry them to the stage and then ditch them after shooting, which meant we didn't have to carry them the whole match.
I can't provide a very detailed description of each stage because the large number of target opportunities and re-engagements in each one. Here is a decent summary of the gist of each stage and anything special and/or interesting. Each stage employed all 3 guns.
For comparison purposes, I have shot RM3G in 2003 and 2004, SMM3G in 2004, the ITRC in 2004, and the Tiger Valley / CavArms 3Gun match in 2004, besides shooting 3Gun locally for almost 3 years now.
Earlier this year, I had made a decision to make as many major 3Gun matches as I could, money, schedule, and vacation-time allowing. The CavArms guys offered me a spot shooting with them at this match, so MGM was "in." M.A., a local, generously offered to let us stay at his place, so the cost for me to shoot this match was minimized: gas, ammo, some gear, and food.
Russell (SinistralRifleman) cajoled me into shooting Trooper Class. The rules for Trooper class are that you have to start the match with everything you'll use in the match in your pack, web gear, etc. You cannot add anything later except for the provided water and lunch (such as it was). You can shoot any guns you want, bring two rifles, whatever, the only catch is that you have to carry everything. A Trooper is not required to wear his pack while shooting, but he must carry everything from the "base camp" of the Cav van to every stage. Those of you who have been to large matches know that this can entail miles of hiking, just going around a shooting complex.
Because MGM is a notoriously high round-count match, Trooper class was even more challenging. At the ITRC in 2004, my partner and I were able to carry merely a pair of binocs, our LRF, and a couple hundred rounds on the field courses -- in short, no problem. At the MGM, the "minimum" round count was about 1100, split between pistol, rifle, and shotgun. When you add another 50-100% for taking extra shots, margin, etc, that's clearly a lot of ammo. And it weighs a lot. So CavArms decided to allow the use of a "staged" large 50 cal ammo can for extra ammo. Even so, the load of about 500 shotgun shells, about 500 pistol rounds, and about 500 rifle rounds, in addition to three guns, cleaning stuff, tools, water, food, mags, web gear, camera, etc, came to about 120 lbs on average for the Trooper shooters at MGM. That was not counting the weight of the loaded 50cal can.
My gear consisted of a Kifaru Marauder pack, with two external pockets from Killer Gear / Triad Tactical and a Tactical Tailor 2-piece MAV with 5 TT AR15 pouches, 7 6-per shotshell loop strips, a general purpose pouch, and a triple pistol mag pouch. Both long-guns were configured with CQBSolutions 3-point slings. My pistol stayed in a normal Blade-Tech belt loop kydex holster. I brought 8 30-round AR15 mags, and 7 18-20 round 40SW mags.
[ link to LARGER image ]For this match, I used my Benelli M1S90 (18.5" bbl, straight stock, ghost rings), my 17" MSTN lightweight upper with a TA11 ACOG on a CavArms lower with a stock military trigger, and my SV "Limited" double-stack "1911" style with its 18-20 round .40SW mags. Ammo was XM193 for the rifle, a mix of #00, #4 buck, #7.5 shot, and slugs for the shotgun, and handloaded "long" 40 for the pistol.
In addition to the normal 3Gun rifles, MGM allows the use of another rifle on the single longest-range stage (to 650 yards). For most people, this meant bringing their precision/long-range rig. However, for Trooper shooters, if you shoot it, you have to pack it. I had brought my AWP (which does pwn n00b5, by the way) just to screw around with, and had planned to just shoot my AR15 on the longest shots, walking rounds in. For no reason, the Trooper squad lucked out and started on the L.R. stage. Since it was OK to ditch/abandon gear, those of us who brought bolt/long range rifles could carry them to the stage and then ditch them after shooting, which meant we didn't have to carry them the whole match.
I can't provide a very detailed description of each stage because the large number of target opportunities and re-engagements in each one. Here is a decent summary of the gist of each stage and anything special and/or interesting. Each stage employed all 3 guns.
