Re: Mammoth Sniper Challenge - Park City, KY
I'm really late chiming in here with my gratitude to the sponsors, the match directors and RO's. To say I had a great time would be an understatement. It gave me some great ideas to break up the mundaneness of my 'training' methods here at home. Going to have some new plates and mounting methods made up, as well as figure out a way to mount up golf balls and tennis balls to shoot from alternative positions.
I had no problems with target sizes, there were targets at each stage that were plenty large enough to engage. I like the trick pulled with the diamond targets, and having to think outside the box and remember some good 'ol high school level math to get the correct measurements. My mil'ing needs some work, however I think that I was close enough in most cases, just reading the wind correctly was the hard part.
I also now know that to be more competative at matches like this, I need to have DBM in a pretty bad way. I ended up single feeding most of the time, but if I had 10rd mags that I could quickly and easily implement, I think that I could have gotten several more targets shot in the match.
As it stands 18th position in military wasn't a bad turnout for me IMO. This was my first match of this type. I've been to 3 other matches before, however 2 were f-class type, and one was a 'sniper match', however there were no time limits, and it was a KD range in 100y increments.
I'm going to gather some friends that would like to do these types of matches, and we'll put on our own mini-matches to work on getting used to these types of pressures and stresses, and be more proficient so we can talk smack to the Oklahoma boys, lol.
I didn't get to meet as many other shooters as I would have liked, however I was one of the few wearing the black Manners hats with the nickname "shortbus" on the back. I did get to meet Chiller, Knight11bb4, and scotts1w. I'm sure there are others in there, but I don't remember the names. The way the event was run, there wasn't a lot of time for socializing outside of your own squad.
All in all, I had a great time, and i'm looking forward to my next match. I can't be sure if i'll be able to attend the July match, I don't have an AR. I have a really good friend with one that lives here in town, and i'm sure he'd loan it to me, however he's going to be PCS'ing from Leavenworth around June or July. I will however have a suppressor the next time, which will be nice for my shooting partner, make it easier to stay on the spotter for spotting impacts.
The cold didn't bother me, I was plenty warm with the exception of my feet. I was wearing my old army leather boots, and 2 pairs of stocks was still not sufficient. I would have worn my gortex boots, but they don't fit right for walking, and I thought we'd be doing a lot more walking. Next winter's Mammoth match, i'll know.
Once again, it was a pleasure, I had a great time, and i'm looking foward to more matches, and meeting more great people.
Branden (shortbus)