Photo courtesy of River Bend Gun Club Action Pistol group

Saturday July 16 was quite a shooting day. I had planned on shooting the GSSF match at the River Bend Gun Club in Dawsonville, Georgia, and I found out late in the week from Staci Boudreau, a fellow shooter on Twitter, that the club’s monthly Action Pistol match was also held that morning. So I met Staci and her husband Bruce at RBGC for a full day of shooting.

The River Bend Gun Club, RBGC, is a very well kept and well run club located a few miles off I-575 about 50 miles north of Atlanta. I first shot there as a guest of a co-worker a few years ago, and it’s only gotten better since. I’ve shot GSSF and USPSA there, and now Action Pistol.

The RBGC Action Pistol match is very much like the matches I first shot in Alabama 18 years ago. It’s not affiliated with any organization like USPSA, which gives them a lot of freedom in stage design, gun classifications, and the like. I shot Production class, because that’s what I shoot in USPSA, and I wanted to keep the more frequent magazine change as a part of the test. Oh, I was tempted to shoot Limited, since I could have loaded my magazines to 19 and blazed away. Maybe next time.

First, I think the safety briefing that was given was about the best briefing I have ever had. He went over all the rules of the match, and all the safety points. Nothing was glossed over, that there was no assumption about anyone’s previous shooting experience. It was presented with ease, and no one seemed anxious to move on. Very refreshing.

Also refreshing – literally – was the weather, around 75 degrees at the start of the match, and drizzling most of the time. Shooting a Glock, all I had to do was wipe off my grips before shooting. The weather started to dry up by the end of the match, though.

There were three stages, and each tested different shooting skills. The first stage was all steel plates, either classic round plates, steel bowling pins, pepper poppers, or steel IPSC targets. You either hit or not, and it all came down to time. The second stage was classic run and gun, with an added twist – the last series of targets included one target that had a badge around its neck, representing an undercover policeman, and the ROs changed which target was the LEO before each run. At least one shooter in our squad shot the cop.

Stage 3 took advantage of the non-USPSA rules, in that it only required shooters to neutralize the targets, which was defined as one shot in the A area, or 2 in the B and/or C area. Shots in the D range just made the target angry. There were several shots around barricades, and if you aimed center of mass and saw an A hit, move on.

There were unpleasant surprises, though, as some shooters received Failures to Neutralize, because they assumed a single headshot was a neutralizer, not seeing that they had actually hit the B area in the head.

After that, we enjoyed a great hamburger and hotdog lunch, then headed up the hill to the Cowboy range, where the GSSF match was already under way.

After signing in, we shot the three stages I talked about last week. I shot a very good match for me, with zero misses except one steel plate left standing. My score was 121 seconds and change, which is a 15 second improvement over my personal best.

Bruce shot a lot better than I, with a score of 83. Well done.

I arrived home about 4:30, after leaving the house at 7 AM. A quick peak as I cleaned out the car revealed that my Glock didn’t really need cleaning. I just brushed out the trigger group, ran a rod brush through the barrel, and put him away. The Glock 19 I took as a backup got the carry loads back in, and went in my waistband.

The GSSF scores will be posted later today, Monday, and in a few weeks, the prizes will be awarded. But believe me, before then, we’ll be back on the range.