Excitement Excitement - uspsa

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Todd Jarrett Wins \\World Shoot X - uspsa$

United States, but the best of the best get together at the International Shootists Institute (ISI) in Piru, California to fight it out for pride, prizes, and some of the biggest cash purses in the sport. In 2006, more than $30,000 in cash and 160 firearms were given away. Smoke & Hope tempts shooters to go fast. Inevitably, many go too fast and miss. ton and Mike Fichman, co-founders of the challenge. Fichman has since retired, but Dalton continues to serve as the Steel Challenge match director and author of a column in Front Sight magazine dedicated to steel shooting worldwide. Steel Challenge shooting is based on speed. Each “stage” at a Steel Challenge match asks you to shoot five steel targets arranged in a pattern, with a designated “stop plate” that must be shot last (see illustrations). For each stage the shooter stands in a box, facing downrange, and raises his wrists above his shoulders. At the start signal, he draws and shoots the five targets according to the stage description. Once you’ve shot all five, you’ll re-load and re-holster, getting ready to do it again. In all, you’ll get five tries at each stage, throwing out your slowest of the five tries. The Steel Challenge match itself consists of eight such stages for a minimum of 195 rounds. (The stage called “Outer Limits” is only fired four times.) When you’re finished with all stages, add your times together. Lowest time wins. The Steel Challenge itself is a prizetable event of grand proportions with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and prizes up for grabs every year. Local steel matches happen all over the Annual For 2011 • FRONT SIGHT Competitors fly in from many nations, but most notably from Japan. (Past champion Tatsuya Sakai is a Japanese national. “Team Loaded” of Japan finishes extremely well.) The European Steel Challenge match has been held annually in the Netherlands since 2008, and some of their top shooters make the trip all the way to California to compete. PICK A DIVISION Steel shooting draws most heavily on the USPSA/IPSC/IDPA crowd, so its divisions are built around their divisions. However, the challenge maintains an open door policy toward all the shooting sports. You’ll find divisions for .22s, cowboys, shotguns, and Pistol Bullets and Ammunition ZERO Zero Bullet Company, Inc. P.O. Box 1188 • Cullman, AL 35056 Tel: 256-739-1606 • Fax: 256-739-4683 Toll Free: 800-545-9376 www.zerobullets.com 15
Women & Children First Unlike any other event in the shooting sports, the Steel Challenge is very much a family affair, with plenty of women and junior shooters competing, often from the same family. Even family members among the spectators are so well known from their many years attendance that they are considered very much a part of the character of the event itself, so much so that they'd be sorely missed if they did not attend. That family aspect is due in part to the strong attendance by women at the match. Roughly one in six shooters is a woman. In 2010, some were up-andcoming speedsters like Smith & Wesson's trio of juniors Rachel Crow, Molly Smith, and Janae Sarabia. Some were moms like Tereza Arellano whose son and daughter Jason and Photo by Yamil Sued. Jenna, along with husband Montie, Sara Drake and her signature yellow joined her in the .22 event. CZ. And there was even a mom-to-be as the very pregnant Laurel Yoshimoto competed, and while neither she nor her husband Josh took home any big title, on Oct. 15 they won a much bigger and better title; that of proud parents of future Steel Challenge shooter Jonathan William Yoshimoto. the like. You should be able to find one that lines up neatly with whatever equipment you already own. Photo by Yamil Sued. Mike and Alicia Setting discuss how to handle the targets. Photo by Yamil Sued. Laurel (and the unborn Jonathan) Yoshimoto on “Outer Limits.” AMMO FOR STEEL Most shooters run their ammunition on the light side. There is no advantage to shooting heavier loads, so most folks stick with a low-power 9mm or .38 Special that still makes the minimum 120 power factor. TACTICS FOR STEEL While steel shoots LOOK like speed contests, they’re actually accuracy contests with a fancy wrapper on them. Only a few courses are coarse enough to be shot without paying close attention to your sights (notably “Smoke and Hope” with its extra-large steel rectangles) and even it has a relatively small stop plate. As most anyone that shoots steel will tell you, you’ve got to get your hits. “KC Eusebio messes the whole strategy up because he's actually fast enough to miss and still win,” says Matt Kartozian of customglock.com, but he’s very much the exception. What’s the strategy? “Don’t miss.” Get the gun out and shoot five accurate shots. It’s common to beat people that are higher-ranked, and much, much faster simply by shooting less often. If you have an eye toward shooting steel, there are a few things you can do to practice. The main thing that will help is to improve your draw — and shooting USPSA matches. Since steel consists of little other than drawing and shooting, the math is pretty simple. “If you're off on your draw, you're behind from the start,” says Kartozian. Kartozian, Kay Miculek, and many others also emphasize learning to rapidly move the gun from target to target. “Transitions” are a big deal in steel, but can be easily practiced at home without firing a shot. One reason for its broad appeal is that Steel Challenge makes great “crosstraining” for any other shooting endeavor. You’ll find Cowboys, tactical types, revolver specialists, even shotgunners at the Challenge every year. You might say it’s the newest, and the oldest, specialty within USPSA. 16 FRONT SIGHT • Annual For 2011
Page 1 and 2: 2011 US Annual Vol. 28, No. 1A FREE
Page 3 and 4: USPSA= Speed, Power, and Accuracy b
Page 5 and 6: Learning The RULES By John Amidon,
Page 7 and 8: Getting the Club Connection By Dave
Page 9 and 10: BY ROBIN TAYLOR, USPSA STAFF USPSA
Page 11 and 12: stops, magazine releases, mainsprin
Page 13 and 14: SYSTEMS (703) 361-2663 (Voice) (703
Page 15: USPSA’s Newest, Oldest Specialty
Page 19 and 20: USPSA Going Multi-Gun BY ROBIN TAYL
Page 22 and 23: Annual For 2011 • FRONT SIGHT 21
Page 24 and 25: A B D C A C D © stock in their US
Page 26 and 27: .com Everything you need to win! Pi
Page 28 and 29: Annual For 2011 • FRONT SIGHT 27
Page 31 and 32: 2010 Smith & Wesson US Steel Nation
Page 33: Close Call! USPSA and Steel Challen

Excitement Excitement - uspsa

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?