Preacherman
Member
From Women & Guns (http://www.womenandguns.com/0904issue/feature0904.html):
Pride, Prejudice and the IRC
(or how I learned to stop worrying and love the revolver)
By C.J. Songer
Prejudiced-me? Oh, no, no, no. You're welcome to shoot any type of revolver you'd like around me, and I won't sneer. It's a quaint thing to do. Kind of like, say, living in tents or traveling by covered wagon so as to honor our pioneer heritage. I can appreciate it, truly, from a historical standpoint, but for right here and now? Give me a semi-automatic any day of the week. I've shot revolvers, honey, and they are old, slow and moldy. That's not prejudice, right? It's purely a statement of fact.
So when my friend, Lisa Farrell, who shoots revolvers (and pretty darned rapidly, too) said, "Come shoot the IRC with me, CJ-it'll be fun!" my first reaction was, "Huh?!" followed almost immediately by an incredulous, "Fun?!"
Shooting is serious business. I mean, yes, you feel the thrill of achievement, and certainly you enjoy the camaraderie of hanging around with fellow shooters, but it's hardly what you'd call "fun," is it? (You can tell that I've spent the past umpteen years training for self-defense purposes. No, I don't shoot competitions-I'm entirely a stealth-trainee. I like to keep my skill level private against the day that I'll need it.)
I'm more in the public eye these days, though, by virtue of being a writer, and I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about public things-about the Second Amendment withering away, about the divisions in the shooting ranks, your type of shooting versus my type of shooting, shooters as a group keeping themselves too invisibly private, that sort of issue. And I realized in that startling instant of "Huh?!" that, like it or not, I was prejudiced, just as guilty as anyone about loving "my" specialty and subconsciously disdaining the rest.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."-Mahatma Gandhi
"If not you, who? If not now, when?"-The Talmud
Yeah, yeah. "Fine," I said to the Universe. "Sure, I'll take your challenge-why not? I'm an idiot," and next thing you know, there I was emailing back and forth with Nelson Dymond, the IRC match director, to get all the particulars.
IRC, by the way, stands for the (Smith & Wesson) International Revolver Championship match, which is held at the Hogue Action Pistol Range in June in Morro Bay, CA, every year. It's a prime competition, with contestants coming from all over the USA and from around the globe (fourteen members this year from Australia alone), and it's put on by ICORE, the International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts.
The big guns in the revolver world come out for this one-Jerry Miculek, Vic Pickett, Jason Pettitt, Pat and Neil Hogue, John Bagakis, and so on-which means the competition at the top levels is friendly but fierce. I was, quite seriously, not planning to be there competing; I didn't have my sights on anything except possibly a trophy for the "Most Unqualified Female" there, if they even had such a thing, but somewhere in the process of gearing up for the match, I made another lowering self-discovery: besides prejudice, I have pride-if I had to shoot a revolver, I didn't want to look too bad.
I'd gone out to the range for a trial run with my husband's 686+, a Smith & Wesson seven-shot revolver that he'd thought I might like. I didn't. It was slow and cumbersome, and incredibly awkward reloading that sucker with the so-ancient speed loaders he had, and, of course, overriding all this was my constant awareness that there'd be good shooters gathering in Morro Bay in a very few months, and that, dang it all, I was going to look like a slow-witted, fumbling dork. My husband's a very supportive guy. Some might even call him "enabling." We reconnoitered right there on the spot and drew up a new plan.
Moonclips were the ticket. I hadn't been particularly aware of moonclips before this-they're not something I need for a 1911-but Lisa uses them, as do most of the competition shooters, and they're much faster in reloading than the aforementioned so-ancient speed loaders. They're "mo' better" for me than even the newer, rubberized speed loader plugs, because moonclips drop straight into the revolver's cylinder, holding the ammo together as a unit, and acting, therefore, almost like the magazines I'm used to for my Colt .45. "Almost like?" Now we were talking!
We took the 686+ up the coast and handed it over to Randy Lee of Apex Tactical in Los Osos to be turned into-tadaaa, a race gun. (It's pretty, there in the picture, isn't it? Silk and pearls.) Randy did an excellent trigger job on it while he was machining the cylinder to take moonclips. (A certain amount of the cylinder metal has to be carved out and removed to accept the bulk of the dropped-in moonclips-at least for that model.) Notice the sleek absence of spur on the hammer. Notice the Miculek grips. Notice the bitchen front sight. (None of this meant that I'd shoot any better, you understand, but at least I could feel that I looked good.)
The day of the IRC dawned bright and early. I stayed in at the hotel, having breakfast. Well, the night before, see, there'd been a shooters meeting where they'd explained all the courses of fire and given us start-times. It turned out that I'd been assigned to Squad J, which meant I'd be shooting over the length of the two days with Lisa, as well as the two "Buellton Boys," Clete Knowlton and Dave Hearth. We also had two of the 14-member Aussie contingent-gregarious man-mountain, Daryl O'Bree, and his quietly efficient cohort, Bryan Laing. A quick-draw Mike Ballard was there with his family as backing, his wife and his several young children.
We had a pilot, Scott Naumann; stocky Dave Ramsay; tall and lean Brian Chin, and an 80-year-old gentleman named Mansfield Clinnick. Mannie normally shoots IPSC, he told me, and he gave us all quite a run for the money. (Actually, it was for prizes. There were some very nice ones to be won, too: more than twenty Smith & Wesson revolvers, several Tauruses and Rugers, a number of Dillon reloading packages, two shotguns (a Vang Comp Remington and a Knoxx Industries Mossberg, both 12-gauge), a .22 rifle from Henry Repeating Arms, a Fort Knox safe, a multitude of Cold Steel knives, Hogue grips, and tons of other gear, all donated by the mega-generous Smith & Wesson, by the equally-charitable Dillon Precision, by Sturm Ruger, by Hogue, by Brownells, and by Fort Knox Safes, Hearthco Moonclips, Para Ordnance, Surefire, TKCustom Products, Cold Steel, and many more.
Sadly, though, there was no trophy-prize for "Most Unqualified Female Shooter." I must speak to them about that for next year.
At any rate, Squad J wasn't starting off in the shooting blocks until that afternoon, which meant we had all Friday morning to "nervous up." I figured it was done on purpose to throw us off-balance, so I refused them the satisfaction. Cool I was, yes, as a cuke, when I finally strolled in, looking sharp in my pedal-pushers and my spiffy, black, wrap-around CR-Speed belt, with the hanging holster and my raft of fully-loaded moonclips.
I'll spare you the gristly details of the actual match-well, all right, I'll share just a few. This was a competition. It had stages. Some of them were:
"Viagra"-excuse me, say, what? That's a stage? Yes, indeed, one that goes on and on and on...
"Bowl-A-Rama." You start with both hands on a bowling ball, wiping it down. Very simple. Anyone can do it. The ball rolls down a chute as soon as you release it, though, where it sets off a clam-shell-type target that's deceptively slow in that first eighth of a heartbeat, and then-wham! Don't shoot the innocent that's now covering your target, don't miss the other targets scattered near and far on the range, and above all, don't forget to knock down your pins! (I mean, you're bowling here, aren't you?)
"My Kitchen." You're standing at the table, slicing a watermelon. One hand's on the melon, one's on the knife, and, oh, by the way, there's a bunch of bad eggs looking in at you from various places, and your spare ammo's on the window sill twenty feet away
There were two all-steel stages, ("Even" and "Paradox"), four field courses, and three speed shoots. The Near-and-Far Standards were killer: for the first string, the drill was to shoot one round into each of 6 targets at 50 yards in 9 seconds, (all of this, of course, while drawing from the holster.) The second string took place at 25 yards, and, again, it was one round into each of the targets but this time, you had to do it all within 7 seconds. The third string called for 2 rounds on each of the six targets at 10 yards in 10 seconds, (that's 12 rounds total for the string, with a mandatory reload somewhere in-between); and the fourth string, at 3 yards, consisted of 2 rounds each on the top 3 targets, while shooting with your strong hand only, followed by a mandatory reload, and then 2 rounds each on the bottom 3 targets, shooting with your weak hand only-all of this in 10 seconds-or less. The Standards are scored for time and for shot placement, and there's no doubt that it's a test of your manhood or womanhood. (I wanted a rifle. A machine-gun. A flame-throwing Howitzer.)
Did I mention "Surprise"? Surprise" was a stage that started with the shooter kicking a door in (well, okay, I exaggerate; it's a gentlemen's sport-you shoved the door down.) That revealed everything that had previously been hidden from you by the walls. It also started one of those aforementioned devilish clam-shells ("Don't shoot the innocent!") and a target which began swinging wildly in front of you. There were multiple arrays of paper targets and pepper-poppers, all loosely grouped, with a mandatory reload before engaging each group. It was an exercise in strategy (and, for many of us, futility.)
As for the match itself-well, I shot very badly, fumbling the reloads, mashing the trigger, and fighting my constant urge to take cover (I did mention my self-defense aspect for training?) but, on the other hand, I had a blast. It was actually fun!
Lisa won her 4th Women's Limited Championship (and a sponsorship from TKCustom.com) so she's a very happy camper, and as soon as I've taken my Jerry Miculek revolver course this summer, I'll feel better, too. What's that? I'm taking a Jerry Miculek revolver course? Yes, indeed, it's that old adage: if you can't beat 'em, (and, Lord knows, I couldn't!), you'll just have to join 'em! Besides which, I have all the gear now. It would be wasteful not to use it.
The truth of the matter is that we met a bunch of really nice people (many of whom are alarmingly fast with their stodgy, old, clunky revolvers) and it looks like we'll be going again next year. We've joined ICORE; we're signing up with a local Wheelburners group; we'll probably be enrolling the kids. (Juniors are welcome to shoot the IRC, too, in case you were wondering. The more the merrier! Our son will be willing, but we'll have to talk our daughter into it, I think. She-speaking of prejudices and, oh dear Lord, where did I go wrong?-likes her Glock!)
Check out the ICORE website for scores, diagrams of all the IRC-2004 stages, and for information on joining! (http://www.icore.org)
Pride, Prejudice and the IRC
(or how I learned to stop worrying and love the revolver)
By C.J. Songer
Prejudiced-me? Oh, no, no, no. You're welcome to shoot any type of revolver you'd like around me, and I won't sneer. It's a quaint thing to do. Kind of like, say, living in tents or traveling by covered wagon so as to honor our pioneer heritage. I can appreciate it, truly, from a historical standpoint, but for right here and now? Give me a semi-automatic any day of the week. I've shot revolvers, honey, and they are old, slow and moldy. That's not prejudice, right? It's purely a statement of fact.
So when my friend, Lisa Farrell, who shoots revolvers (and pretty darned rapidly, too) said, "Come shoot the IRC with me, CJ-it'll be fun!" my first reaction was, "Huh?!" followed almost immediately by an incredulous, "Fun?!"
Shooting is serious business. I mean, yes, you feel the thrill of achievement, and certainly you enjoy the camaraderie of hanging around with fellow shooters, but it's hardly what you'd call "fun," is it? (You can tell that I've spent the past umpteen years training for self-defense purposes. No, I don't shoot competitions-I'm entirely a stealth-trainee. I like to keep my skill level private against the day that I'll need it.)
I'm more in the public eye these days, though, by virtue of being a writer, and I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about public things-about the Second Amendment withering away, about the divisions in the shooting ranks, your type of shooting versus my type of shooting, shooters as a group keeping themselves too invisibly private, that sort of issue. And I realized in that startling instant of "Huh?!" that, like it or not, I was prejudiced, just as guilty as anyone about loving "my" specialty and subconsciously disdaining the rest.
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."-Mahatma Gandhi
"If not you, who? If not now, when?"-The Talmud
Yeah, yeah. "Fine," I said to the Universe. "Sure, I'll take your challenge-why not? I'm an idiot," and next thing you know, there I was emailing back and forth with Nelson Dymond, the IRC match director, to get all the particulars.
IRC, by the way, stands for the (Smith & Wesson) International Revolver Championship match, which is held at the Hogue Action Pistol Range in June in Morro Bay, CA, every year. It's a prime competition, with contestants coming from all over the USA and from around the globe (fourteen members this year from Australia alone), and it's put on by ICORE, the International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts.
The big guns in the revolver world come out for this one-Jerry Miculek, Vic Pickett, Jason Pettitt, Pat and Neil Hogue, John Bagakis, and so on-which means the competition at the top levels is friendly but fierce. I was, quite seriously, not planning to be there competing; I didn't have my sights on anything except possibly a trophy for the "Most Unqualified Female" there, if they even had such a thing, but somewhere in the process of gearing up for the match, I made another lowering self-discovery: besides prejudice, I have pride-if I had to shoot a revolver, I didn't want to look too bad.
I'd gone out to the range for a trial run with my husband's 686+, a Smith & Wesson seven-shot revolver that he'd thought I might like. I didn't. It was slow and cumbersome, and incredibly awkward reloading that sucker with the so-ancient speed loaders he had, and, of course, overriding all this was my constant awareness that there'd be good shooters gathering in Morro Bay in a very few months, and that, dang it all, I was going to look like a slow-witted, fumbling dork. My husband's a very supportive guy. Some might even call him "enabling." We reconnoitered right there on the spot and drew up a new plan.
Moonclips were the ticket. I hadn't been particularly aware of moonclips before this-they're not something I need for a 1911-but Lisa uses them, as do most of the competition shooters, and they're much faster in reloading than the aforementioned so-ancient speed loaders. They're "mo' better" for me than even the newer, rubberized speed loader plugs, because moonclips drop straight into the revolver's cylinder, holding the ammo together as a unit, and acting, therefore, almost like the magazines I'm used to for my Colt .45. "Almost like?" Now we were talking!
We took the 686+ up the coast and handed it over to Randy Lee of Apex Tactical in Los Osos to be turned into-tadaaa, a race gun. (It's pretty, there in the picture, isn't it? Silk and pearls.) Randy did an excellent trigger job on it while he was machining the cylinder to take moonclips. (A certain amount of the cylinder metal has to be carved out and removed to accept the bulk of the dropped-in moonclips-at least for that model.) Notice the sleek absence of spur on the hammer. Notice the Miculek grips. Notice the bitchen front sight. (None of this meant that I'd shoot any better, you understand, but at least I could feel that I looked good.)
The day of the IRC dawned bright and early. I stayed in at the hotel, having breakfast. Well, the night before, see, there'd been a shooters meeting where they'd explained all the courses of fire and given us start-times. It turned out that I'd been assigned to Squad J, which meant I'd be shooting over the length of the two days with Lisa, as well as the two "Buellton Boys," Clete Knowlton and Dave Hearth. We also had two of the 14-member Aussie contingent-gregarious man-mountain, Daryl O'Bree, and his quietly efficient cohort, Bryan Laing. A quick-draw Mike Ballard was there with his family as backing, his wife and his several young children.
We had a pilot, Scott Naumann; stocky Dave Ramsay; tall and lean Brian Chin, and an 80-year-old gentleman named Mansfield Clinnick. Mannie normally shoots IPSC, he told me, and he gave us all quite a run for the money. (Actually, it was for prizes. There were some very nice ones to be won, too: more than twenty Smith & Wesson revolvers, several Tauruses and Rugers, a number of Dillon reloading packages, two shotguns (a Vang Comp Remington and a Knoxx Industries Mossberg, both 12-gauge), a .22 rifle from Henry Repeating Arms, a Fort Knox safe, a multitude of Cold Steel knives, Hogue grips, and tons of other gear, all donated by the mega-generous Smith & Wesson, by the equally-charitable Dillon Precision, by Sturm Ruger, by Hogue, by Brownells, and by Fort Knox Safes, Hearthco Moonclips, Para Ordnance, Surefire, TKCustom Products, Cold Steel, and many more.
Sadly, though, there was no trophy-prize for "Most Unqualified Female Shooter." I must speak to them about that for next year.
At any rate, Squad J wasn't starting off in the shooting blocks until that afternoon, which meant we had all Friday morning to "nervous up." I figured it was done on purpose to throw us off-balance, so I refused them the satisfaction. Cool I was, yes, as a cuke, when I finally strolled in, looking sharp in my pedal-pushers and my spiffy, black, wrap-around CR-Speed belt, with the hanging holster and my raft of fully-loaded moonclips.
I'll spare you the gristly details of the actual match-well, all right, I'll share just a few. This was a competition. It had stages. Some of them were:
"Viagra"-excuse me, say, what? That's a stage? Yes, indeed, one that goes on and on and on...
"Bowl-A-Rama." You start with both hands on a bowling ball, wiping it down. Very simple. Anyone can do it. The ball rolls down a chute as soon as you release it, though, where it sets off a clam-shell-type target that's deceptively slow in that first eighth of a heartbeat, and then-wham! Don't shoot the innocent that's now covering your target, don't miss the other targets scattered near and far on the range, and above all, don't forget to knock down your pins! (I mean, you're bowling here, aren't you?)
"My Kitchen." You're standing at the table, slicing a watermelon. One hand's on the melon, one's on the knife, and, oh, by the way, there's a bunch of bad eggs looking in at you from various places, and your spare ammo's on the window sill twenty feet away
There were two all-steel stages, ("Even" and "Paradox"), four field courses, and three speed shoots. The Near-and-Far Standards were killer: for the first string, the drill was to shoot one round into each of 6 targets at 50 yards in 9 seconds, (all of this, of course, while drawing from the holster.) The second string took place at 25 yards, and, again, it was one round into each of the targets but this time, you had to do it all within 7 seconds. The third string called for 2 rounds on each of the six targets at 10 yards in 10 seconds, (that's 12 rounds total for the string, with a mandatory reload somewhere in-between); and the fourth string, at 3 yards, consisted of 2 rounds each on the top 3 targets, while shooting with your strong hand only, followed by a mandatory reload, and then 2 rounds each on the bottom 3 targets, shooting with your weak hand only-all of this in 10 seconds-or less. The Standards are scored for time and for shot placement, and there's no doubt that it's a test of your manhood or womanhood. (I wanted a rifle. A machine-gun. A flame-throwing Howitzer.)
Did I mention "Surprise"? Surprise" was a stage that started with the shooter kicking a door in (well, okay, I exaggerate; it's a gentlemen's sport-you shoved the door down.) That revealed everything that had previously been hidden from you by the walls. It also started one of those aforementioned devilish clam-shells ("Don't shoot the innocent!") and a target which began swinging wildly in front of you. There were multiple arrays of paper targets and pepper-poppers, all loosely grouped, with a mandatory reload before engaging each group. It was an exercise in strategy (and, for many of us, futility.)
As for the match itself-well, I shot very badly, fumbling the reloads, mashing the trigger, and fighting my constant urge to take cover (I did mention my self-defense aspect for training?) but, on the other hand, I had a blast. It was actually fun!
Lisa won her 4th Women's Limited Championship (and a sponsorship from TKCustom.com) so she's a very happy camper, and as soon as I've taken my Jerry Miculek revolver course this summer, I'll feel better, too. What's that? I'm taking a Jerry Miculek revolver course? Yes, indeed, it's that old adage: if you can't beat 'em, (and, Lord knows, I couldn't!), you'll just have to join 'em! Besides which, I have all the gear now. It would be wasteful not to use it.
The truth of the matter is that we met a bunch of really nice people (many of whom are alarmingly fast with their stodgy, old, clunky revolvers) and it looks like we'll be going again next year. We've joined ICORE; we're signing up with a local Wheelburners group; we'll probably be enrolling the kids. (Juniors are welcome to shoot the IRC, too, in case you were wondering. The more the merrier! Our son will be willing, but we'll have to talk our daughter into it, I think. She-speaking of prejudices and, oh dear Lord, where did I go wrong?-likes her Glock!)
Check out the ICORE website for scores, diagrams of all the IRC-2004 stages, and for information on joining! (http://www.icore.org)
