So…I just finished teaching a class with a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver as my teaching gun…and out of 21 students, only one was using a revolver instead of a semiautomatic pistol. He was 78 years old.  This told me something.

That said, though, he finished with a score of 220 out of 250 possible with his snub-nose Ruger SP101, and there was at least one instructor on the line with the same kind of gun to show him how to work it, since the “least modern gun” on the hips of my staff instructor cadre was a 1911 .45 auto, and all the rest had Glocks, S&W M&P autos, or the Springfield XD. Today, I start an advanced class, and have seen the writing on the wall: I’ve switched to a polymer Glock 26 9mm autoloader as my teaching gun for this week.

About ten days ago I was in Phoenix, competing in the South Mountain Showdown, and using the S&W in Stock Service Revolver class. Significant Other and I found ourselves shooting one stage with some other revolver fans. “Cool,” I said, “we’re in a nest of revolver shooters.”

“Or maybe a gaggle of revolver shooters,” she suggested helpfully.

“A cylinder-full of revolver shooters?” I ventured hopefully.

“Or a speedloader of revolver shooters,” she said supportively.

Now, I know the proper term.

We were obviously a “museum” of revolver shooters.

Help me out here…I’m not the LAST dinosaur, am I?

It’s hunting season, for Heaven’s sake. How many of you are going to be hunting birds with a good old classic double barrel shotgun, and how many are going after the Thanksgiving turkeys with a shotgun made of Fiberglas and synthetic stocks with Sorbothane recoil pads?  How many will be stalking the winter venison with good ol’ bolt action or lever action rifles made out of blue steel and walnut, and how many will be using something that’s plastique fantastique and tactique-al?

Like that guy said to Clint Eastwood in the first “Dirty Harry” movie… “I got to know.”

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It’s 11/1/11.  I managed to escape most of that monster October nor’easter one step ahead of the massive snow, and get to someplace warm.  Hope all y’all made out OK.

Hunting season is upon us.  Time to enjoy the great outdoors, and maybe take some of it home with you for dinner.  There’s a primal satisfaction in feasting on turkey or venison you bagged yourself in the woods.

If hunting is not your cup of tea, or something you just don’t have time for, see about shooting a match. The latter is true for me, but I was able to squeeze in a GSSF shoot over the past weekend and plan to shoot an IDPA event the next. Nothing pushes you to keep your skills sharp so much as shooting in friendly competition.

Stay warm…stay safe…and stay sharp!

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The current issue of Backwoods Home magazine contains my article, requested by Editor Annie Tuttle, on how to best fit guns to women.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/ayoob131.html

I see the importance of fitting guns to smaller bodies constantly in my “day job” at Massad Ayoob Group. (http://massadayoobgroup.com ). A few weeks ago in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, we had some excellent shooters in one of my MAG-40 classes.  More than half shot 300 out of 300 on the final qualification run, which encompasses 60 timed shots including strong hand only, non-dominant hand only, standing, kneeling, etc.  The tie-breaker win for overall top shooter went to a young lady who kicked mucho male boo-tay to do it.

She came to us already a very fast action pistol competitor, and on the skill-set side of the class, we concentrated on sharpening up her accuracy.  She clearly was listening.  She started out with a CZ75 9mm, a rather large Czechoslovakian pistol, and wound up switching to a Smith & Wesson Military & Police pistol in the same caliber. As noted in the above-linked article, this gun has interchangeable backstraps to adapt fit in general and the trigger-reach dimension in particular, to the shooter. This was the gun she used to win the “shooting contest,” capturing the pot of a dollar each from all the shooters in the class.  (We do that the Bill Jordan way: “No Second Place Winner.”)

It was her focus, skill, dexterity and mental discipline that captured the victory, but a firearm that perfectly fit her small hand was a part of it, too.

“If it doesn’t fit, you won’t hit”… at least, not as well as you might have. And that goes for the guys as well as the gals.

With spent brass from the last shot still in the air, this young lady is already on target for the next with a well-fitted S&W M&P 9mm, as the stopwatch ticks… 

…and she finishes at the top of her class, beating all the men, with a 300/300 “qualification mode” score, and a high 590s out of 600 tie-breaker in “competition mode scoring.”  Scoring key for qualification mode can be seen at upper left of the B27 silhouette target.

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Woo-hoo! Just finished competing in the World Championship of IDPA, the International Defensive Pistol Association (www.idpa.com), held at Frank Garcia’s splendid Universal Shooting Academy in Frostproof, Florida.  The tournament continues through the weekend.

It was a fun couple of day with folks from Costa Rica, Italy, Romania, Venezuela, and more countries whose citizen shooters I probably haven’t met yet. The majority of contestants, naturally, were fellow Yanks.

Some complained that the courses of fire were too hard: some long shots, often with the target barely exposed from behind cover, and exposed VERY briefly. Well, duh.  You don’t go to Carnegie Hall to play Chopsticks, and you don’t go to a world championship to solve easy shooting problems.

Any fantasies I might have had about winning a world title disappeared in my very first stage. Having shot every target I could see, I lowered my Smith & Wesson and waited for the range officer to come and supervise the mandatory unloading of the gun.

…And waited…

When I finally turned around, they were looking at me with something between horror and stark pity.  I realized there must be one target I hadn’t shot yet.  I brought the gun back up, moved and scanned, and found the target I’d overlooked that was hiding in a corner. By the time I’d put the requisite two bullets in it, I had added some 12 seconds to my time.

How fast you solve the “shooting problem” determines whether you win or lose. Accuracy counts, of course, with a half-second added to your time for every point down from a perfect hit on the silhouette target. Shooting in Master class, I had tanked myself right there.

Well, at least it took the pressure off.

I shot with folks as young as 18, and geezers even older than me, if such a thing is possible. Male and female, black and white and brown and Asian…and had a ball.

The defensive shooting games are, I have long been convinced, the most egalitarian of the shooting sports. The rich shoot alongside the poor. “Civilians” shoot alongside cops and soldiers. It’s about a core value – the protection of the innocent from evil – which is sincerely and universally shared.

IDPA is a dynamic shooting sport. Here, keeping his 9mm Glock 34 in a safe direction, Steve Koski sprints between shooting positions.

 Elaborate stage includes targets that charge the shooter, run parallel to the running shooter, and appear very briefly from behind steel cover.

In Frostproof, Florida, the match goes on rain or shine. Here Lance Biddle shoots a stage just after torrential thunderstorm, with water nearly to his ankles, using 3″ barrel S&W Model 65 in Stock Service Revolver division.

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A few weeks ago, I attended a way cool pistol match. Usually, I go to these things as a competitor. This time, my function was reporter, spectator, and “ammo boy.”

The occasion was the first all-women’s event in the Glock Shooting Sports Foundation discipline.  This Glock Girl Gala was the brainchild of Lisa Marie Judy, a gun enthusiast and activist for firearms owners’ civil rights in Reevesville, SC.  Lisa Marie’s feedback from other women interested in firearms was that pistol matches, being generally male-dominated, seemed too intimidating to enter. An “estrogen event” seemed to be in order.  She got permission from GSSF to host one, with the promise that if she got 100 entries, it would go on the calendar again.

She got OVER a hundred. From junior to senior in age group.  Single ladies and married ones, professional women and housewives.  It was a fun atmosphere, and a family one, with husbands, boyfriends, and dads along to assist and encourage.  There was a substantial contingent of female law enforcement personnel, as well.

I noticed a very strong element of mutual support among the ladies, distinctly more than I usually see at regular matches among “the guys.”

As a father of daughters, I found it a joy to watch.  A huge percentage of the attendees were shooting their first match, and Lisa Marie was gratified by how many said afterward that they wanted to attend more matches, “co-ed” or otherwise. The “Palmetto Glock Girlshootout” had proven itself to be a very effective port of entry for women into sport shooting.  Look for a full length article on the match in the next issue of “Glock Autopistols” magazine; some of the photos here are used with that publication’s permission.

Check out the GSSF rules and regs at www.gssfonline.com. I hope this concept catches on. The world of shooting needs more such events, in this writer’s opinion. Congrats to Lisa Marie, the GSSF folks, and all the many volunteers of both genders who made it happen!

Shooters await their turn on the firing line.

Lisa Marie Judy and GSSF’s Scotty Banks break up a log-jam in the “waiting to shoot” list.

This uniquely-executed Glock 17L was the “auction gun” for the event.

This is the “Glock-M” setup, one third of the match.

Earmuffs in pink, Glock .45 in always-appropriate basic black.

Not without a whimsical sense of humor, Lisa Marie Judy ordered these porta-potties for the event.

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