{"id":4919,"date":"2018-04-14T17:36:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T21:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=4919"},"modified":"2018-04-14T17:36:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T21:36:50","slug":"tying-up-a-loose-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/tying-up-a-loose-end\/","title":{"rendered":"TYING UP A LOOSE END"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reminded that I left a loose thread hanging last <\/a>month, when I wrote about the Rangemaster Tactical\u00a0 Conference hosted by Tom Givens and his extraordinary team in Little Rock. I had mentioned the Polite Society Match, a defense-oriented pistol shooting competition that is a staple of this excellent 20-year training event, and never followed up with the finale.<\/p>\n

I wrote at the time, \u201c\u2026 the quality of shooting here is so high that just after the first day, several perfect scores on the fixed-time speed shooting event have been recorded.\u00a0 Good news (for me, anyway), I\u2019m one of them.\u00a0 Bad news: the competing field includes world-class champion shooters like Gabe White and Ernest Langdon.\u00a0 In the shootoff for the title, my chances are about like a snowball in hell\u2026but at least I\u2019ll go down shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which turned out to be rather prophetic\u2026<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s pick up where I left off. I had shot the match on the first day of the three-day event, Friday. All competitors were scheduled to be complete by the morning of the last day, Sunday, and then arrayed for a person-against-person shootoff.<\/p>\n

The main match on Friday was the first time in the several years I\u2019ve been going when it was \u201cfixed time,\u201d that is, we had so many seconds to get our shots off at each stage, and then the hit values were added up.\u00a0 In the past, each shooter was separately run on each stage with an electronic timer, and time factored into hit value for final score. I don\u2019t recall there ever having been a perfect tie.<\/p>\n

This time, with many heavy hitters in the mix (read: world champion and grandmaster class) more than three dozen of us tied for first place with perfect scores.<\/p>\n

The initial 40-shot qual with turning targets.\u00a0 From left: Ernest Langdon with Beretta Px4, Spencer Keepers with Beretta 92, and some old fart with Gen5 Glock 19, all 9mm.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I managed to clean the first phase, 200 out of 200. So did 3 dozen other guys. The two head shots were mandatory.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This required a \u201cpre-shootoff shootoff\u201d to determine the top sixteen who would vie man-against-man in the final elimination.\u00a0 Tom decided on the \u201cFive-Yard Roundup\u201d designed by one of the rising stars in defensive firearms training and writing today, Justin Dyal.\u00a0 He writes for SWAT magazine, and his explanation of his drill can be found here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 It went pretty quick, captured by the Evil Princess on her iPhone.<\/p>\n