Help me design my next 3 gun match. :)

[Correia]

I need to plan a 10 stage 3 gun match for March 15th.

So step up 3 gunners. Tell me what you love. Tell me what you hate. In other words give me some stage ideas.

I have a great range to use except for one problem. We are limited to 200 yards tops on our biggest area. 2 100 yard areas (one complete with a little fake town facade). A shoot house ( which we can use the exterior as it is a 360 degree berm, but not the inside). And the rest are small 25 yard areas. Pretty nice range, but it would be nice to get more stuff out to 300.

For these local matches we have SOs that travel with the squad as we don't want to get 10 SOs to have to sit at one stage all day. So I like to keep the stages simple and straight forward.

 

[Navy joe]

One that works well as a stage that you can run with both rifle and pistol is a plus. I've done a couple where the start position is a box and you move fwd into a free fire zone that has fault lines funneling into a hallway. A target array on each side of the funnel, range 7-20 yds, Make it 10 rd neutral ideally. (5 targets on each side or 4-5 total). Entering the hallway you can have several close range targets visible through ports or whatever. At the end, let it open up on a charge line. Place whatever arrays you want, something at 50+yds. (Rifle rated poopers if you have them). Some other closer targets. Throw in a few no-shoots and you have a nice blend of speed shoots and precision shots. Run with handgun and then run with rifle, two stages done.

 

[PvtPyle]

We need a precission shoot from the rooftops to the combat town. Should not be much of a problem since the shotgun thing can be ran behind the clubhouse as always, and just have them move from one stage to the next. I dont know how that would affect thecharging florr or mover to the right though....

The other thing is, lets use the charger! Maybe with the rifle for 2 shots then the rifle goes empty and you go to your sidearm.

I also still think the BHD buddy retrieval we talked about would be good. I can score a dummy from the unit to drag. Maybe down on the poppers, having them come up as you cross to the dummy and then a differnt set come up on your way back across. You also have to reload from behind cover before starting back with the dummy.

 

[Chris Rhines]

Off-hand stages. Force the shooter to do all his shooting and manipulations, pistol and longgun, with his primary hand tied to his belt. (I mention this mainly because it's something that I really need to train in... )

Ever look at the COF library at www.sportshooter.com? You might find some ideas.

- Chris

 

[Correia]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Pyle, a couple of things since you are familiar with the FARM. If we shoot from up on top of the stand into the combat town we cannot safely use the mover. Unless the same squad shoots both, but that is bottleneck city.

We have not used the charger in the past. I'm not sure why that is, but I was under the impression that they did not want us to use it. I will ask.

I love the drag the dummy drill, but I wonder if I could arrange it safely considering the skill level of some folks. I just worry that we are going to have some folks who won't be able to keep the muzzle in a safe direction as well as move the dummy. And I don't want them to holster a hot pistol on the clock, just because you know somebody would shoot themselves in the leg under stress. I suppose I could break it into 2 strings, #1 fight your way to your buddy. Stop. #2. Drag dummy to safety, kill rest of bad guys. You see my quandry.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

I'd chop the number of stages in half or triple the number of days.

you should also try some "thinking out of the box" type stuff, like having a long range pistol stage, a long range shotgun stage and an Uber short range rifle stage.



10 stages is too many. about 5 too many.

 

[PvtPyle]

We tried the long range pistol stage already. Fun? Yes. Challenging? Heck yeah! Practical? Sure if you are looking for a quick ticket to jail in this state.

I agree with the cutting the stages in half. I like the idea of starting Friday night and running some night shooting like you guys did for us. I can round up a few generators to use, and maybe we should do a run what ya brung for the night shoots.

You guys would not get too peeved if some of us showed up with PVS-14's on our guns, 7D's on our heads (maybe 14's if supply gets it together) and PAK-2's on our M4's would you?

Or can I finally get to use my illums on this one?

 

[Correia]

Ahh, but Andrew here is the rub. This is a local club (IDPA) match that we do every quarter. These are all local shooters, not hardcore pros like you guys are used to. (our match fees are $15, yours are $150, I imagine that weeds out most of the riffraff).

We don't have a bunch of volunteer SOs willing to sit at one stage all day. We have travelling SOs who go around with the same squad from stage to stage. Not as consistent, but that is the price you pay. These are the same guys who SO constantly year round with no thanks, so mostly we just want them to be able to go and have fun.

We are actually pretty darn efficient. Last match we had 50 shooters. 9 stages. We started at 9:30 and finished by 3:00. The round count was about 100 pistol, 100 rifle, and 50 shotgun. So as you can see we run a bunch of folks through and do a bunch of shooting in a short amount of time. By having a bunch of small stages instead of a few huge ones you can have a bunch of little squads instead of a few big ones. Bottlenecks are minimized. Or at least when the occur it is only 4 or 5 guys sitting on their thumbs instead of 20.

Don't get me wrong, your match blows our little bitsy one out of the water. But you guys have a ton more resources. We do pretty good for what we got.

As for night shoot? I'll have to check with club president and the people who own the training center. That is a good question.

 

[Andrew Wyatt]

*shrug*

long range pistol is probably not something you're probably ever going to have to use, but if you DO have to use it, you'll need it badly. same with long range shotgun.

I was primarily suggesting that you cut down on the stage number for effieciency reasons. I've been to matches that had lots of stages like that and they were cattle drives. having ten stages means you have ten possible places to have a gigantic screwup, and you need 20 good ROs instead of 10 or 12.

if you slow down and put a lot of effort into 4 or five stages, you'll have a better match, IMHO.


Ymmv, of course.

 

[Archie]

Choose if you want to test ...

shooting ability or equipment, including magazine capacity.

"Assault" courses with a handgun are pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Other than game playing, who is going to engage five to ten armed individuals by rushing them with a handgun?

How about a "I'm pinned down in this quickiemart by bad guys in the parking lot" stage?

Or, you have five rounds for each weapon and ten targets to take out; shooter can do any target with any weapon. (Make them think.)

An axiom of weaponcraft is that a handgun is only to get one to a real weapon. Make something of that.

Do NOT design courses around magazine capacity. Seriously, does anyone really think they are going to make two hits on six targets, then reload and do it again in real life?

For specific ideas, I'd have to see your layout and equipment.

I do like three gun matches. But SLC is a bit far from the LA area for a weekend shoot.

 

[ACP230]

This might be a possibliity.

Start with the handgun of choice loaded with six rounds and holstered facing three silhouette or IDPA type targets at 10 feet. At the start signal fire on the targets until each has two COM hits. I prefer one hit per target and repeat, but if you gotta double tap you gotta.

Holster handgun and move to a table where the shotgun and rifle are placed. Load shotgun with four rounds and shoot two targets, one at five yards and one at fifteen.

Place empty shotgun on table and move to rifle at other end. Load one mag of eight rounds and engage four targets placed at 20, 35 and 50 yards.

All targets must have COM shots or head shots, or shooter will be declared dead. If all targets have good hits break ties with time used to get them.

 

[Captal_de_Buch]

I need to plan a 10 stage 3 gun match for March 15th

10 stages of 3 gun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



OH MY GOD, I've died and gone to heaven....

faint