My third time back shooting USPSA at The Range in Soledad. What a great match this is. You come Saturday morning, and five stages are ready to go. Today I started on Squad One. The people are awesome, super friendly, and helpful.

Stage One is usually the USPSA qualifier. I used to shoot Production class with my Glock 34 back in the day. Now things have changed and I’m shooting ‘Carry Optics’ division using a Holosun Green Dot sight. Production Division used to be limited to ten-round magazines. Now Carry Optics allows for high-cap mags. Since I don’t own any, I have to reload a lot. I got a few compliments on my reloading today. My shooting not so much. I’m pretty slow compared to most out there, but I’m getting better. Today I finished 42 out of 49. Definitely need to shoot a lot faster next time. Most of the people out there are very good.

I didn’t get a video of Stage One, which was the qualifier. I got through it in 12.64 seconds without missing. Many were shooting it in six seconds, and a few in five. I could probably afford to shoot a lot faster, and even with a miss, I would score better. This still gives me a C rating, which is what I was expecting.

Stage Two was called “Bricked Up,” and you had to shoot each target three times, which was fun. If you can remember. Since you most always shoot twice, it can trip some people up, and it did. I made a stupid mistake on this one. Before even shooting, I told myself, when you’re done, look and make sure no misses. Sure enough, I had one in the black on that second-to-last target, and I could have easily just made it up if I had looked left. So one mike for the day. Later stages, I did make up a few misses and went clean the rest of the match.

Stage Three was called “Shoot Fast, Die Last.” Lots of white ‘No Shoot’ targets really slow me down. It’s a -10 penalty to hit one. And finally, I see another round in the black and make it up, adding like five seconds to my time. Amateur!

Stage Four is called “Monkey off my Back.” This one had some long shots and some with more No Shoots, so you really had to take your time. It also had a moving target that you activate by hitting a steel target. I decided to shoot that four times to avoid a mike. Made it through this one clean, albeit slow.

And the final Stage Five was called “Angled,” which featured some steep angles that had you really having to plan how you would shoot at which target. This one I finished and then realized I have two shots into black (hard cover), which would have been two mikes, so I made them both up. Phew.