Personal Protection Match

WHEE! I had a blast yesterday!

I shot my first Personal Protection match at the Dallas Pistol Club Saturday morning. This type of match requires one to draw from a holster. In the past, I shot as a novice and was at the “low ready” position before I shot.
“Low ready” is when your pistol, a .22, is already in your hand and pointed at the ground before you are given the “GO” command. Yesterday, after loading the Browning High Power [the 9mm not the .40 caliber]; making it safe at the firing line and with the Range Officer watching, I re-holstered. Then the R.O. asks, “Shooter ready?” When the shooter affirms s/he is ready, then the “GO” command is given and the timer starts.

In a Personal Protection match, you must shoot from behind cover to neutralize multiple threats to innocents. There are 5 stages. Each is set up in a different bay. The shooters are assigned to Range Officers, usually 4 -5 on each “team”. That term is an anomaly since we are all competing for the best time and accuracy.

My team was three men and me. I joked that it was gonna be like having 5 peeps since I'd take twice as long as anyone else. There was another woman competing, but she was on a different team.

On one stage, we went from shooting behind a barrier in a standing position , shoot while walking to the next barrier [a barrel in this case] while neutralizing 3 “bad guys”. Getting down on my knees was a challenge since my arthritis had been acting up and my right knee was swollen. Getting back up was even worse.
My favorite stage was the one with the “evil, bad dogs” attacking two innocents. All the targets were laying on their sides. The “dogs” closest to the innocents had bloody fangs painted on them.
Other than my time [which was, in fact, about twice as long as my fellow participants] I was pleased with my performance. Some targets I hit with the first shot, although it was hard to only use ONE shot. In other practices, I'm used to “double-tapping” the target. A double tap is shooting the target twice. There's even an old exercise called the “Mozambique Drill” that requires two shots to the chest and then the Coup de gras to the head.

What was most challenging was moving and shooting at the same time. However, as the rules say, “Who stays still in a gunfight?” These competitions are good practice for real life. Should you ever [Gawd forbid] be fired on, you will at least have practiced shooting from cover and while moving.

I don't even care that I will be in last place when the scores are published. I had so much fun, I can't wait to shoot this type of match and the “Real World” match again.