“A Different Kind of Shooting, Part 3″
While waiting for my turn to be on the firing line at Stage 1, I saw that there were few shooters waiting for their turn at the firing line of Stage 4. So, I pulled out my card from Stage 1 and submitted it to the Range Officer of Stage 4. I first made a thorough study of all the targets in Stage 4. It looked like a movie set. Temporary structures made with ordinary lumber were nailed together to form like a series of rooms with blue plastic sacks stapled on the lumber as walls. There were series of small windows and as the shooter will move from one small window to the next, the shooter will see several targets which must be fired at. At the end, the shooter must fire at a target which will trigger the swinging of another target that must be fired at. If I remembered it right, Stage 4 required a total of 32 rounds that must be fired at.
The lady shooter from Armscor – Peach de Leon was ahead of me in the firing line of Stage 4. I was so amazed with the way she hit the targets with ease and flair that was so pleasing to the eyes. Not only in form, but more importantly in substance as reflected in her accuracy of hitting her targets!
When it was my turn to be at the firing line, there were ready dialogues that have to be said by the Range Officer which have ready answers that must also be said by the shooter. It sounds like this: Range Officer: “Shooter make ready”. With this order, I have to draw out my gun and load it with a full magazine, put back my loaded gun into the rig. The Range Officer would then say, “Shooter, are you ready?” to which I answered, “I am ready”. After declaring that I am ready, I waited for the beeping sound from the timer carried by the Range Officer and draw out my gun, slide the loader and with the gun loaded, I started hitting my targets moving from one windows to the next. While engaging my targets, I have to quickly replace the empty magazine with a full magazine. After the last target, I was order to show my gun to the Range Officer if the chamber was already empty. The RO would then pushed the button to stop the timer. He logged my time on my score sheet for that stage. Then, he counted the hits on the targets that I made which were classified as A, B C, D and the Misses. It was then that I realized that no matter how I seemed to have memorized the location of the targets, as I peeped on the windows and hit the targets, I missed a lot of them! I have not fired at all my targets! My score sheet reflected that I had missed a lot. However, modesty aside, I also hit A and B targets!
I went to stage 1 and it was already my turn to be in the firing line. Again, I had to go through the same procedure with the commands coming from the RO.
(to be concluded…)
