091229 AAR: TSSA SFDCC Lights-Out Match

Thought of posting this in the lights/lasers section, but it will do here.

pics, links to videos, etc. after the jump


On 29 December 2009 Tropical Sport Shooting Association held a Rifle Safety Officer Appreciation Lights-Out South Florida Defensive Carbine Club Match at the Markham Park Target Range in western Broward County, Florida beginning with setup at 17:30 with shots fired at 19:30 and all shooters and props off the range by 22:00. We try to do special free-of-charge matches as often as we can for our Rifle Safety Officers who come out and volunteer their time at least once a year to help us run our New Shooter Orientation and Qualification. We try to make the match something special that we wouldn't normally do with the larger group as a whole. This is not to say that the larger group is unsafe, or incapable, but we want to give something back to the RSOs and there is a certain comfort level to knowing everyone else there is a safety officer.

This match was special in that it was a lights-out match, meaning that the lights that usually completely illuminate the range are shut off after setup is complete. Shooters were required to begin all stages with their lights (whether weapon-mounted or hand-held) turned off, but those using hand-held lights as opposed to weapon-mounted lights were granted the concession of beginning with the light in their hand. The moon was almost full, and the range facility has lights in other areas so it was by no means pitch-black. Given time for eyes to adjust there were no issues with seeing where you were going or not running into one another.

In addition, we used a new type of target which we sourced from LEtargets.com. These were the USMC-SRQ targets which we attached to their cardboard BOBBER backer using spray-glue. These targets consist of a trapezoidal region for the occular-nasal cavity, a half-circle above that, and a rectangular area extending down to the chin. The body consists of a 6" circle in the high-chest area with a tear-drop shape 10" in diameter around it and touching the rectangle that ends at the chin. Shooters were required to have two shots in either the trapezoid or the 6" circle (or one in each) to neutralize the target, or three in the next scoring ring out (see images below). The scoring rings were not visible beyond approximately 5' from the target. In addition the face has eyes, a nose, a mouth, and ears printed on the target.



STAGE ONE

Course Description

Stage one consisted of a house-clearing type stage. Targets were arranged in four arrays, with the first three consisting of four of the above targets with two each outlined in red and two outlined in green. The final targets were IDPA targets with printed caricature-type faces glued onto the heads with trapezoidal scoring areas outlined in the ocular-nasal cavity but which were not visible to the shooter. At the beginning of the stage and before the start of the timer the shooter was shown a card that was either red or green and on which was printed one of the final four faces. The color of the card indicated the color of the targets to be neutralized (opposite color then became non-threat targets) and the face was the shooter's final target. The stage began with the carbine with six rounds and at the indoor ready with the shooter's hand on the door.

At the signal the shooter opened the door and engaged the array directly in front of them, then turned right to engage the array at the end of a hallway. The shooter then progressed down the hallway engaging an array in the first room to the left, and finished by picking the appropriate head in the array of four in the last room on the left. Only shots in the ocular-nasal scoring area of the final target were counted. All colored targets were arranged with aggresive overlap making the potential for shoot-through, and therefore a hit on a non-threat target, very strong. All shots were required to be made from cover, but makeup shots were allowed on the move.


Intent

The idea of the basic stage was simply to allow shooters to gain some experience with an "indoor" and low-light shooting environment and to assess gear and gun setups in terms of light placement for bounce-back and other issues. In addition, the use of the colored targets and the final target ID were employed to keep the shooter thinking throughout the stage, and the aggressive overlap of targets was utilized to ensure that shooters were mindful of Rule Four (Know your target, and what's beyond it).


Gaming

There was not much opportunity to game this stage other than to push the bounds of cover. All of the above outlined in "intent" really made for a difficult stage to simply run through blasting away. As always, having some idea of the layout of the stage and the placement of the targets helped. Because of the nature of the match it was not possible to shoot the stage as a "blind" stage.


Personal Lessons

I found that my carbine light setup worked perfectly for me. Having the X300 mounted to the front sight base via a Midwest Industries mount really made for a versatile setup. I had to be mindful when shooting around cover to the right to get the light clear of the barricade so that the targets were illuminated and I wasn't blinded by bounce-back, but this really came as second nature.


Admin/Match Lessons

We will definitely be using this scenario again and for our regular matches. The new wall systems the club has developed really made setup and tear-down easy, and as more of these systems come on-line we will have even more flexibility with the setup. Shooting this stage with our standard targets and with the lights on should not be a problem at all for all of our Qualified shooters. Working in a transition to handgun from the carbine will also add another dimension to the stage.




STAGE TWO

Course Description

Stage Two consisted of a "scenario" stage.

While working as a salesman at a local gun shop and showing a carbine to a customer, a robbery crew attacks by first turning off the lights. Draw your pistol and engage the first of the crew until empty, ground the pistol on the counter, and then pick up the rifle you were demonstrating for the customer, load it with the magazine kept behind the counter, and finish neutralizing the targets. At some point during the fight two more robbers will enter the store. Don't shoot the customers.

Targets consisted of a plate rack with six 8" diameter steel plates, the above described USMC-SRQ targets, and IDPA targets as non-threats. Two additional USMC-SRQ targets were wheeled in on a cart after the plate rack was engaged. All shots on the plate rack were required to be with the handgun. If shooters failed to neutralize all plates before the handgun ran dry they were counted as failures to neutralize. The shooting position consisted of a "counter" (a low table) and a "wall" (a vertical Bianchi Barricade) as cover. After the buzzer shooters were required to make use of cover. There were a total of eight USMC-SRQ targets and six plates.


Intent

The idea here was to give the shooters a chance to work with their pistol and light on a variety of targets from steel to paper, as well as to engage moving targets with one gun or the other while using the light. Having the non-threat targets added a dimension that the shooters had to keep in mind as the two movers came through the array. The movers also offered a variety of shifting shadows over the targets behind them that shooters had to account and adjust for.


Gaming

Several shooters chose to down-load their pistol to attempt to clear the plate rack and switch to their carbine as quickly as possible. This backfired in many cases as engaging the plates in the dark with a hand-held light proved more challenging than they anticipated and resulted in failures to neutralize as they ran dry early.


Personal Lessons

I am better with the handgun with a light attached than I am without the light! The plate rack is often the bane of my existence, but with the light attached and the sights perfectly silhouetted I managed to clear the plate rack with relative ease. The light does NOT work as laser however on a target of this size. One might make an argument that at extremely close range and on an attacker one could center the light beam on the high chest and achieve the desired result, but this did not prove to work on the 8" plates.

In addition, fiber-optic sights do not pick up any ambient light from the X300 mounted under the gun. Sights were black silhouettes and nothing else. I will be investing in tritium sights for this pistol, and may be looking into the combination tritium/fiber-optic sights that one of the other shooters had. I do still believe that having a solid black rear sight is the way to go however. I also think that the argument that many make against tritium sights and in favor of having a light only is total hogwash.


Admin/Match Lessons

This is another stage that we could easily run with the rest of the shooters with the range lights on. There is a lot of dimension to the stage, the storyline gets shooters interested, and having the moving targets adds a dynamic. In hindsight I would have the moving targets initiated by the first round fired from the carbine. Some shooters spent so much time loading it that the movers had come to a complete stop by the time they began shooting.




HEAD-TO-HEAD STAGE

Course Description

This stage was shot after both other stages were complete and with most shooters present. It consisted of two USMC-SRQ targets at a 45-degree angle at 10 yards, the same type of array angled the opposite direction at 20 yards, and two large poppers and one small. The same setup was mirrored on the other side with the small poppers arranged so that they overlapped when down. Shooters began with six rounds in the carbine, a second six-round carbine magazine on their person, and their pistol holstered and loaded to capacity. All paper targets were required to have three hits and all steel must fall, no carbine hits on steel. Shooters engaged the first array, performed an emergency reload, engaged the second array, and then transitioned to pistol to finish off the steel poppers. The shooter with the fewest FTNs (failures to neutralize) and the small popper on the bottom was the winner. If a shooter was first to finish but had an FTN while the other shooter shot the stage "clean", the clean shooter was the winner. Single elimination, with all shooters running it once, then the winners facing off against each other, and so on until one man is left standing.


Intent

We run this type of stage very frequently. It is a very simple stage with a lot of aspects to it for the shooters to take into account. It's fast to shoot, it's fast to reset, and at least half the shooters get a chance to run it twice, and at least a quarter of the shooters get to run it three or more times. It is also extremely fun to shoot with a lot of spectators and heckling adding to the pressure, and it allows for grudge-matches with father against son, friend against friend, etc.


Gaming

Only hits count, and smooth is fast. Some shooters out-game themselves and get hits that don't count or get so wound up that they bumble the reload or transition badly. Many shooters also forget what part they are on and will try to reload when they should transition or vice/versa. Going as fast as you can go and reliably get the hits and perform your manipulations is the key. More than one shooter lost because their popper was on the bottom but they had FTNs.


Personal Lessons

I won this stage overall. I was again very impressed with myself in terms of my ability to get the hits with the pistol with light attached. I spent some agonizing time looking for the front sight, and a tritium dot would have aided in this, but I took my time and managed to get my hits pretty reliably.


Admin/Match Lessons

None really. We run this type of stage frequently enough that we have it down pretty well. I do need to remember to put some kind of bumper under the poppers to make them easier to reset, but that's a minor issue.





OVERALL CONCLUSIONS

General

We had a very enjoyable night, with 16 great guys that are all pretty much friends. Very relaxed, good competitive spirit, no problems getting people to reset steel or paste targets, and no safety issues that I was made aware of. I can only speak for myself but this was one of the most enjoyable matches for me in a long time.

I would like to see shooters making better use of cover, and seeing how many RSOs themselves weren't using cover properly gives me some idea of why I see so few shooters called on it. Clearly we need a refresher on this.

I think the targets are phenomenal but aren't without their limitations. Unfortunately I think they are cost-prohibitive on the scale at which we'd need them for SFDCC matches. Additionally they proved difficult to score in that the very faint scoring lines that I like so much from a shooting perspective make them tough from a scoring perspective. I do think this issue would be reduced on a lighted range however. The pasters we use are also bigger than they need to be for rifle-round holes and cover up a lot of the scoring area further complicating things. The best solution may yet be IPSC targets with the chest box cut in half so that it's not so tall.


Gear

We had at least one shooter using a generic pouch for a holster because he did not have a holster to accommodate his weapon-mounted light. This was a major no-no that I did not find out about until the very last minute.

This brings up a good point about gear as it relates to low-light. A lot of people have lights on their guns these days, or provisions to add them in the case of handguns. However what appears to be lacking is a good plan of attack on how to utilize that tool. Obviously getting some kind of training with low-light scenarios and weapon-mounted and hand-held lights is ideal, but at the bare minimum you need a holster that will accommodate your pistol with light attached, and you need to know how the light operates and how it affects your sight picture.

I am not immune to this. It took me a few minutes to re-familiarize myself with the controls of the lights. However, having identical controls on the pistol and the carbine was a HUGE plus in my opinion. I wasn't going from a rocker to a button or a pressure pad, I used the same motion on both guns. Press forward for momentary on, rotate clockwise for constant on. Very simple and very consistent.

I also used my battle belt again. While I like the concept of the smaller dump pouch I'll be putting the larger one back on and reserving the small one for pistol-only events. Having room for only two carbine magazines in the dump pouch just doesn't cut it. Otherwise I continue to be very pleased with the belt setup.


Safety

Obviously the pouch/holster was an issue. Beyond that I know of no safety issues for the match. We successfully resisted the urge to let things slide under the premise that "we are all safe here". Apathy and complacency have no place in running a safe shooting event. The rules apply, all the time, to all of us, and as RSOs we should not be looking to circumvent that, even when it's "just us", but we should be striving to be the good examples we are at all times.