Rob Leatham

Worlds Collide: Shooting a Competition Stage

Rob Leatham
Duration:   7  mins

Description

It’s shoot-off time as Rob Leatham and Rob Pincus shoot a competition stage with three positions: one target around a wall, two paper targets that have to be shot through a window, and seven steel targets. The handguns of choice are 1911s.

Both complete the stage, which includes having to do a reload, and score it IDPA style, based on time plus adding a one-second penalty for every shot out of the designated zone. Rob Leatham’s score is 12.55 plus 5, for a total of 17.55 seconds. Rob Pincus’ score is 21 plus 14, for a total of 35 seconds.

As with many handgun shooting drills, both Robs learned a few things from shooting this competition stage. Here are their key takeaways.

Takeaways for Competition Shooting

Rob Leatham reviews how he shot the stage and concludes:

  • 1. He dropped too many points, enough that he would have lost a match. He needs to be more precise.
  • 2. He did the sequences well and did a tactical reload.
  • 3. He didn’t shoot the steel targets in the most efficient sequence. He waited for a target to fall when there was another target open, which he should have shot.

Takeaways for Defensive Shooting

Rob Pincus was shooting a Springfield Armory 1911 TRP 10mm with six-inch barrel and he’s a big fan of it. It’s the first 1911 he’s wanted to buy in a couple of decades. It’s also great as an appendix carry gun.

  • 1. When fully loaded, the TRP’s magazine would not seat, so he had to give it some good hard smacks to get it to seat. Consequently he did a slower reload when trying to be faster.
  • 2. If he were going to use the TRP as an everyday carry gun, he would download it by one round so it would seat properly and easily.

Conclusions

Shooting a competition stage will obviously teach the competition shooter some valuable lessons, but more importantly for PDN viewers, a defensive shooter can learn something from shooting it too. For Rob, this time the lesson was, fully test your self-defense gear before you need it.

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I've already started. I actually have a timer and a 1911 perhaps you could tell everyone why. Okay. So we're going to shoot a little stage here. I've actually gotten Pincus to shoot a stage. You've had me do this before, just not with a 1911. With a timer, this is just crazy. Not like this, never with a 1911. So we've got little states set up. There's three positions. You have one target around this wall. There's a window. You have two paper targets over there that you have to shoot from this window when you go through the hallway. Right? And then you move to the last position and not going over that fault line. Right? That's a big penalty. Shoot down the seven steel. All right. Sound reasonable? I'm going to watch you do it. That's my hand to God cause you're the strategist. All right. So this is, this is how bad his competition shooters are. What's the starting position Gun in the holster. Loaded chambered with your hands on your head. All right Shooter. Ready? Yeah. Do you understand the course of fire? No. Standby. All right. Holster your loaded gun. Holster your loaded gun. Just, just holster your loaded gun. I never put away without extra bullets. Oh my gosh. I need extra, extra bullets. I thought you weren't going to shoot extra bullets But you've got enough for that. Oh my gosh. 12.5, five, 12.55. Now we're going to score it. This is the boring part. Now this is the hard part. So we're scoring it IDPA style. Sure. Which means even though this is not an IPA target each one of those adds a second. So I got one, two, three, four, one more over there. So I had five seconds to my clock times. 17.55. Yup. Derek is writing this down by the way. So 7.55, no, 17, 12.5, five 17. Someone take a picture. I think we have a pretty good record at this point setting up the steel. All right. Let's pick them up. What happened to not shooting an extra target? What's he able to? I thought it was okay there. You know why? No, I shot a bad shot. If you're wearing a gun, if you're in a gunfight and you saw a bad shot _ I thought it was okay, what would you do? Cause I shot a bad shot. Is that, did you have all seven or just six? Yeah, I got them off. Oh, I didn't know if it was up. I didn't know. And if you were a competition shoot you would have watched the order and realized I shot it poorly. I, I knew that. I wondered why I had to go find targets. I actually wondered why he did it that way. Yep. All right. All right. You ready? All right. So you, you, you got the whole port program ready? It's competition. You can think about it. All right. All right. Did you see my tactical reload? Yeah. That's an IDPA move. Which mean I had a full mag for all that. I know you did. pretty tricky. Huh? Slick, slick, move their stuff. Shooter's ready. Should I do a press check? Yeah, I would make sure everything was perfect. All right. Let's see. Good God. Look at this. I got front serrations. Oh yeah. I don't think this. I'm not sure that this has been oiled in a while. They just see that I can conceal this man. I can. I am totally. I am totally legit. You look like Jack Nicholson in the fricking Nicholas. Nicholas. Oh that was the golfer. The golfer Jack Nicholson. Oh my gosh. All right. Joker gun. All right, here we go. So this is ready. Oh, do I have to interlock my fingers out? Just touching your head. Standby. Coming at you. Stupid 1911 God that knocks the targets down fast. That does. Did you really holster a partially loaded gun? Jeff, I don't have any other magazines you want me to do? I got two magazines and this one wouldn't even go in. It wouldn't go in. You know, you just have to hit it like a man. Maybe you should spend more time in the gym. Oh my God. All right. So let's score the targets. All right. We can tell mine because mine are the tiny little holes. So you've got three, six, 12. I already lost 13, 14. So you're 14 seconds in penalties with 21. So I got 37 seconds, 36, 14 to 21 and 35 35, 35 31. See? All right. So once again, you have beaten me at a competition state. That's all that really matters. So mic drop, wait, I'm out of here. No, wait. We have to take you the takeaways. All right. So what are your takeaways from this? What's your value? Well, in your competition stage, if you watch what did you, what's your crop when you're going to go to your next competition what, what out of this helped you get ready for your next world title? First step is I dropped way too many points. Okay. I mean, I didn't shoot these going. Hey. Yeah. Right. All those points dropped. That would have been enough to lose the nationals and an IP national just by itself. Slow down. Yeah. I don't like slow down. Be more precise. In the second portion I actually did my sequences really well. I got my tack load in, so I was fully loaded when I got to the last Did you do the steely right in the middle? That's the problem. Okay. It's when I went across and went ding, ding, ding, ding. When I came back, I waited for a target to fall when there was another target open. So I would know next time I waited I waited for all of them to fall. Well that's a 10 millimeter knocked them all down about twice as fast as mine does. I don't think math, but okay. So that's your takeaway? No, my, my takeaway was, first of all like these magazine that fully loaded met so this is the 10 millimeter by the way. Right. People don't know what this is. This is, this is like my new favorite gun to shoot. It's a 10 millimeter, six inch TRP. I'm madly in love with it. The first 1911 I've wanted to buy in like at least two decades. I'm sure. Right. Okay. So, but what I did is the perfect appendix positioning is definitely for me, but what I didn't realize is that this magazine got to about here and then it wouldn't seem fully loaded. And you saw me kind of trying to jam it in there. So I actually probably did a slower reload trying to be faster on the whole tactical relay thing. You know what better out, just running the gun, running an empty into a reload. So what did I learn? I learned that if I were ever going to carry this gun I'm not going to do it. If I were going to carry this gun I would do what like we do, where they are mags. I would download this to by one run. So this is where a competition stage can teach you things that you can take away obviously for competition. But I could also learn something from a defensive standpoint. So that whole thing about you test out your gear. Yeah, that's true.
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