My First USPSA Match

Smith & Wesson M&P 9mm - 1.jpg

I am proud to announce that this past weekend marked my very first USPSA match. I was finally able to make it out to a local club and give the sport a try. I can’t express how much fun I had and eagerly look forward to shooting in another match.

I met some very nice people that gave me tips on how to address portions of a stage and even gave me a pat on the back when I shot well. While I have no illusione that I shot great in my first match, I was happy with the outcome. I was most proud of my ability hit steel plates at 50+ yards with my Smith & Wesson M&P.

Looking at the match scores, I placed 15th out of 18 shooters in the production division. What seemed to kill me was a botched stage where I suffered a 60 point penalty for ending the stage early and not engaging 2 targets. My best stage was the qualifier where I placed 3rd out of 18 shooters.

I learned a lot from shooting this match. The biggest lesson came from my worst stage, which was to stick to your game plan. By changing my plan on the fly I managed to skip engaging two targets. From a non-shooting standpoint, I learned to pack sunscreen and take all of the extra stuff out of my range bag before heading out the door. The added material not only weighed a ton, it would have made room for snacks and extra water.

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What was your first Action Shooting match like?

Walt

Hi There, My name is Walt White and as the name of this blog suggests, I am a Pennsylvania resident. In addition to having numerous hobbies that I discuss on my blog - Iā€™m also the father of three little girls and a pitbull.

4 thoughts on “My First USPSA Match

  1. I started to do it years ago but realized the financial commitment was going to be too great, ammo was expensive I thought then, now it’s over twice as much. šŸ˜€ My club does steel challenge matches though, where you shoot five plates at varying distances as fast as you can. I was using my Glock 35 and running into the same ammo problem. They offer a .22 division though so I brought out the Buckmark and that basically wiped out the ammo cost, and cause the thing is so accurate and easy to shoot my times dropped almost in half.

    But congrats on ya Walt, a lot of my friends are avid action pistol shooters, it sure is a hoot to do.

    1. Ratters,
      Ammo cost was a deterrent when I first looked into action shooting. While it is still going to be an expensive hobby, I’m going to do it recreationally and shoot once per month. In addition, I’m going to try to get into reloading to bring the cost down some more. At the moment I am in the brass hoarding stages so that I have plenty of stock for when I get started.

      The club that I shot at this month doesn’t have a USPSA match next month as a result of a big match out of state (I think it is Area 8 match of some sort). As a result, I’ve been looking into what other clubs have going on and came across steel matches.

      With the option of shooting .22 at these steel matches, I think I am going to check it out next month.

      Thanks for the comment

  2. Dude, saw your video in YouTube but forgot my login so followed the link. You did get my name right. Steel can be fun as well especially knock down steel. I believe they do a big match in top ton in oct. I think there is a YouTube video of it. Saw a stage with like 50 steel I think. Hope you shoot more uspsa and that I run into you in another match. I think you shot extremely well for your first match. I would not be surprised to see you do really well in future matches.
    Rya

  3. Ryan,
    Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate all the advice and encouragement you gave me at the match. I noticed you and a couple of the guys you were shooting with were recording yourselves shooting. DId you happen to post that footage on Youtube? I went looking for it the other day but al I found were older matches at Topton.

    As I was looking around at club schedules, I found the steel matches. I watched some video on it and it looks like it would be a lot of fun. I can even use .22 to do it, so I might even mix in steel in addition to USPSA shooting.

    Thanks for following the link and leaving a comment. I hope to run into you again at another match. I’ll definitely be shooting the next Tontop match, I hope to see you there.

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