Thanks to an IDPA Side Match I Want an AR-15

On Sunday, I attended the December New Holland Rifle and Pistol Club IDPA Match. Unlike most of the IDPA Matches I’ve attended in the past, this one had a twist. A separate Rifle Side Match was setup for those that had rifles. If you didn’t have a rifle, you were welcome to shoot the stage with your IDPA Pistol.

Ordinarily, a rifle side match would actually have been a deterrent to me shooting the match. The reason being, I don’t own an AR-15. In addition, when a side match is included in my match fee and I am unable to shoot it, the match as a whole loses value, in my eyes.

Thanks to a shooting companion, I was offered the use of an AR-15 to shoot the stage. Prior to this match, I hadn’t fired a rifle in a few years. Due to my severe lack of recent experience, I wasn’t expecting to do very well. To make sure that I was at least comfortable with the rifle controls and stage procedures, I went over all of that with the owner of the AR-15 (Thanks again, Kerry).

When the buzzer sounded, I fumbled along. The stage required “1 to the Head, 2 to the Body”. In an effort to keep things simple, I decided to stick with all head shots (there were no-shoots crowding the torso Down Zero area, making a headshot easier in a few cases).

When the dust settled, I finished the stage in 59.36 seconds. I was down 6 points with one procedural error (I shot the prone array out of sequence). This gave me a finished time of 65.36 seconds. I enjoyed the stage a great deal and hope to shoot another sometime. In the meantime, I’ll have to start convincing my wife why I need an AR-15 while saving my pennies.