Competition Dynamics 2022 BOTC is wrapped up and in the books. As usual, it was my favorite match of the year. The format of finding, ranging, and engaging targets mixed with the physical portion of the match really pushes competitors to bring their top game. This match is really a two part match, the field stages and the assault stages. An addition of a fourth assault stage was an excellent addition. The added assault stage kept the adrenaline going throughout the day; two assaults were shot on Friday and on Saturday along with the field courses.
So, a quick breakdown for the classes, field courses are shot with one shooter running a gas gun, and the other shooter typically running a bolt gun. Field courses are broken down into 2x4 or 1x8 courses. Two positions, four targets, or one position, eight targets. The carbine shooter must engage four targets with unlimited rounds, and the rifle shooter gets one shot per target for the eight available targets. Teams are given one hour to complete their assigned course. Early finishes are given bonus points added to the score. Assault courses are a combination of rifle, carbine, and pistol and are scored based on overall time, targets neutralized, etc. A full description is on the CD website and covers it far better than I can here. I figured a brief summary might be beneficial in understanding the following AAR.
Thursday- Zero day. I was running the rifle (bolt action 25 Creed) and my partner was running a 224 Valkyrie. Partner's rifle was being a little bit finicky as his velocity had climbed and groups had opened up. But, with unlimited shots at targets, we weren't too terribly concerned. My 25 Creed continues to hammer and everything was lining up perfectly. The 135 Bergers in my 25 Creed are just incredibly consistent and are perfect for this type of match. We corrected data on my partner's rifle and called it a day.
Friday- Teams are sent out on each field course in 20 minute increments. Our start time was 0840. Winds were decent and the weather was warming up quickly. We had some rain early that morning, but it was really nice weather overall on our start time. We started on Field Course 1, the most physically demanding course. Be it nerves, light conditions, or whatever else, our first stage on F1 sucked. We were stuck looking for two targets on a 2x4 stage that took us about 15 minutes to find. When we did get all the targets found, my partner's rifle reared it's ugly head with the accuracy issues we had seen the day before. He was eventually able to get his hits and it was my turn to shoot. We had been on the stage about 20 minutes and I was beginning to panic. I rushed shots and made bad wind calls. I wasn't holding enough wind and my partner thought I was shooting over the targets. I only hit two of my targets; turrible. We started making up for our colossal F'-up on stage 2 and 3 only dropping one point between us. As we got to the last stage, we were just about out of time. We started letting it rip and managed to hit 7 targets before we timed out. We actually somehow put up a respectable score of 36 out of the possible 48 points. It wasn't good, but wasn't bad.
We shot Assault courses 1 and 2 on Friday. These are always a ridiculous amount of fun. Lots of fast and furious rifle, carbine, and pistol shooting. It's hard to look back and critique what we did right or wrong because of the speed. The best way to describe it is every miss costs you a second, which will cost you a match point. We shot them well neutralizing all the targets, but we are definitely not the fastest as a team. My partner struggled with a few pistol targets, but we still put up decent scores.
Saturday- We shot F2 on Saturday. Battled some tricky winds, but shot the course decently. Cooler temperatures had really helped my partner's gas gun settle back in. Colossal F'-up #2 inbound. We arrived on the last stage with 23 minutes remaining if my memory serves me correctly. We had found 7 of our 8 targets on the stage and had engaged them accurately enough, but we couldn't find the 8th target. Through our misinterpretation of the rules, we decided to take a failure to engage on the 8th target to retain our time bonus, which was significant. Turns out, one cannot take an FTE on the last stage and retain a time bonus. Our screw-up, and it cost us a bunch of points. We ended up shooting 40 out of 48 with no time bonus.
Assault courses 3 and 4 were on the menu on day two. We shot Assault course 4 first, a change from the usual assault course with just rifle and carbine being used, no pistol. The course was an absolute blast and my partner rocked it. We came off the stage with the RO's telling us we had the fastest time of the match thus far. This was short lived as four teams behind us put up faster times. It was still a good course for us.
Assault course 3 the wheels fell off a little. We ran it okay but the mishaps killed us. I managed to shoot through a bad guy target into a hostage target positioned behind it in my rush and got two procedural penalties good for 40 seconds of penalties. Adding to that, we ended the stage both having to shoot our rifles at plates about 100 yards. My partner's carbine jammed up, hard, twice. Two mortars to get it running before we finished the stage. It was a bit of an ugly score overall.
Sunday- We were hoping for a good finish overall in the match, and we knew we had to put together a respectable day for that to happen. We had light winds blowing and an early start time with cool temps. We ran the course decently although I dropped some shots due to the crazy wind on the east side of the mountains. It's always interesting to be watching right to left mirage, but end up holding left to right wind. For some reason, each stage we went to, my brain could not process what I was seeing and I kept dropping shots here and there. Ended up shooting a 39 with 12 minutes of bonus time, which was respectable.
No assault stages on Sunday as Sunday afternoon is reserved for the awards ceremony. Several companies had provided a very nice prize table for the match. Burris/Steiner optics really went ham on the prize table and had a ton of optics including Steiner M7 series scopes, Burris Match Pro scopes, and Burris XTR III scopes on the table, not to mention a bunch of their budget lines of optics. I can't thank Burris enough for their generous donations. TBAC had several suppressor certs and 50% off certs. I checked out some scopes I hadn't seen before, Accufire Technology. This was the first I've seen of their scopes, but they looked very nice with a well thought out reticle. XS Sights, Leupold, Fehu Outdoors, JP Rifles, XLR, and countless other companies had put prizes on the table. There was something nice for everyone who attended.
We managed to place 8th out of 36 teams which we were happy with. We always want to do better, but with the loaded field, our goal is a top ten finish going into the match. My partner and I both picked up some generous certs for XTR III riflescopes which we will put to good use. Speaking of which, I ran an XTR III 5-30 in the match. It held up great and performed great just as it has been the last two years.
My hat goes off to Zak and Jimmy for the excellent match they continue to put on year after year. I really believe they mastered the scoring system to wring out who the best team is after three trying days of an array of shooting skills. My compliments to all the teams who competed. This is a match where I don't believe there are any losers. If you compete in the match, you win. The experience, people, and scenery is worth the price of admission. The RO's were excellent as always. They work their tails off and put up with winded, grumpy, and exhausted teams and always are top notch. Some of the RO's ran to the top of a brutal hill for two days running an assault stage; the same hill that about killed me when I climbed it on the field stage. Just really incredible dedication.
My partner and I are already talking about next year. Overall scores were available for viewing today and we immediately started texting and breaking down where we broke down. I'm planning on getting to Team Safari this year again, but can't wait for BOTC next year! I've omitted so much about the experience as I'm probably already being long-winded. You have to come experience it for yourself.
See you out there....
So, a quick breakdown for the classes, field courses are shot with one shooter running a gas gun, and the other shooter typically running a bolt gun. Field courses are broken down into 2x4 or 1x8 courses. Two positions, four targets, or one position, eight targets. The carbine shooter must engage four targets with unlimited rounds, and the rifle shooter gets one shot per target for the eight available targets. Teams are given one hour to complete their assigned course. Early finishes are given bonus points added to the score. Assault courses are a combination of rifle, carbine, and pistol and are scored based on overall time, targets neutralized, etc. A full description is on the CD website and covers it far better than I can here. I figured a brief summary might be beneficial in understanding the following AAR.
Thursday- Zero day. I was running the rifle (bolt action 25 Creed) and my partner was running a 224 Valkyrie. Partner's rifle was being a little bit finicky as his velocity had climbed and groups had opened up. But, with unlimited shots at targets, we weren't too terribly concerned. My 25 Creed continues to hammer and everything was lining up perfectly. The 135 Bergers in my 25 Creed are just incredibly consistent and are perfect for this type of match. We corrected data on my partner's rifle and called it a day.
Friday- Teams are sent out on each field course in 20 minute increments. Our start time was 0840. Winds were decent and the weather was warming up quickly. We had some rain early that morning, but it was really nice weather overall on our start time. We started on Field Course 1, the most physically demanding course. Be it nerves, light conditions, or whatever else, our first stage on F1 sucked. We were stuck looking for two targets on a 2x4 stage that took us about 15 minutes to find. When we did get all the targets found, my partner's rifle reared it's ugly head with the accuracy issues we had seen the day before. He was eventually able to get his hits and it was my turn to shoot. We had been on the stage about 20 minutes and I was beginning to panic. I rushed shots and made bad wind calls. I wasn't holding enough wind and my partner thought I was shooting over the targets. I only hit two of my targets; turrible. We started making up for our colossal F'-up on stage 2 and 3 only dropping one point between us. As we got to the last stage, we were just about out of time. We started letting it rip and managed to hit 7 targets before we timed out. We actually somehow put up a respectable score of 36 out of the possible 48 points. It wasn't good, but wasn't bad.
We shot Assault courses 1 and 2 on Friday. These are always a ridiculous amount of fun. Lots of fast and furious rifle, carbine, and pistol shooting. It's hard to look back and critique what we did right or wrong because of the speed. The best way to describe it is every miss costs you a second, which will cost you a match point. We shot them well neutralizing all the targets, but we are definitely not the fastest as a team. My partner struggled with a few pistol targets, but we still put up decent scores.
Saturday- We shot F2 on Saturday. Battled some tricky winds, but shot the course decently. Cooler temperatures had really helped my partner's gas gun settle back in. Colossal F'-up #2 inbound. We arrived on the last stage with 23 minutes remaining if my memory serves me correctly. We had found 7 of our 8 targets on the stage and had engaged them accurately enough, but we couldn't find the 8th target. Through our misinterpretation of the rules, we decided to take a failure to engage on the 8th target to retain our time bonus, which was significant. Turns out, one cannot take an FTE on the last stage and retain a time bonus. Our screw-up, and it cost us a bunch of points. We ended up shooting 40 out of 48 with no time bonus.
Assault courses 3 and 4 were on the menu on day two. We shot Assault course 4 first, a change from the usual assault course with just rifle and carbine being used, no pistol. The course was an absolute blast and my partner rocked it. We came off the stage with the RO's telling us we had the fastest time of the match thus far. This was short lived as four teams behind us put up faster times. It was still a good course for us.
Assault course 3 the wheels fell off a little. We ran it okay but the mishaps killed us. I managed to shoot through a bad guy target into a hostage target positioned behind it in my rush and got two procedural penalties good for 40 seconds of penalties. Adding to that, we ended the stage both having to shoot our rifles at plates about 100 yards. My partner's carbine jammed up, hard, twice. Two mortars to get it running before we finished the stage. It was a bit of an ugly score overall.
Sunday- We were hoping for a good finish overall in the match, and we knew we had to put together a respectable day for that to happen. We had light winds blowing and an early start time with cool temps. We ran the course decently although I dropped some shots due to the crazy wind on the east side of the mountains. It's always interesting to be watching right to left mirage, but end up holding left to right wind. For some reason, each stage we went to, my brain could not process what I was seeing and I kept dropping shots here and there. Ended up shooting a 39 with 12 minutes of bonus time, which was respectable.
No assault stages on Sunday as Sunday afternoon is reserved for the awards ceremony. Several companies had provided a very nice prize table for the match. Burris/Steiner optics really went ham on the prize table and had a ton of optics including Steiner M7 series scopes, Burris Match Pro scopes, and Burris XTR III scopes on the table, not to mention a bunch of their budget lines of optics. I can't thank Burris enough for their generous donations. TBAC had several suppressor certs and 50% off certs. I checked out some scopes I hadn't seen before, Accufire Technology. This was the first I've seen of their scopes, but they looked very nice with a well thought out reticle. XS Sights, Leupold, Fehu Outdoors, JP Rifles, XLR, and countless other companies had put prizes on the table. There was something nice for everyone who attended.
We managed to place 8th out of 36 teams which we were happy with. We always want to do better, but with the loaded field, our goal is a top ten finish going into the match. My partner and I both picked up some generous certs for XTR III riflescopes which we will put to good use. Speaking of which, I ran an XTR III 5-30 in the match. It held up great and performed great just as it has been the last two years.
My hat goes off to Zak and Jimmy for the excellent match they continue to put on year after year. I really believe they mastered the scoring system to wring out who the best team is after three trying days of an array of shooting skills. My compliments to all the teams who competed. This is a match where I don't believe there are any losers. If you compete in the match, you win. The experience, people, and scenery is worth the price of admission. The RO's were excellent as always. They work their tails off and put up with winded, grumpy, and exhausted teams and always are top notch. Some of the RO's ran to the top of a brutal hill for two days running an assault stage; the same hill that about killed me when I climbed it on the field stage. Just really incredible dedication.
My partner and I are already talking about next year. Overall scores were available for viewing today and we immediately started texting and breaking down where we broke down. I'm planning on getting to Team Safari this year again, but can't wait for BOTC next year! I've omitted so much about the experience as I'm probably already being long-winded. You have to come experience it for yourself.
See you out there....
Last edited:
