!st USPSA match under my belt.!

Good on you, Dude!

First match for me was an idpa match when I was 23(?). It remember it being cold. I had just got my CCW and holster and wanted to see how good i really was.

I got to feeling pretty chesty at IDPA and decided to branch out into USPSA
My first USPSA match was a very humbling experience.
I made a video thinking that I was doing okay and posted it here. The regular dudes really set me straight. At the time it was really hard for me to swallow that thread is where my signature line comes from.

Very humbling.

That video, if you are interested:

Good job. My goal for my first match was also not to DQ.

I'd shot sillouhette and some one-off stuff, but USPSA was the first real action match. I was so nervous that I kept forgoting to let go of the trigger enough to reset the gun. Then I'd assume I had ammo trouble and I'd tap-rack, losing a round. I must have dropped 5 rounds in the first stage that way.

December 2004, according to the USPSA site. Classifier was baseball standards. I remember it. What a nightmare I shot a 45%

https://uspsa.org/viewer/pdf/03-14.pdf

I'm a rare individual. My first match was in late 1985 and I've never finished Dead A??'d Last(DAL) in an IPSC or IDPA match. Probably a stage but never a match.

An ole buddy tutored me for a couple of months before I ever had the nerve to enter a match.

My 3rd or so match was the old Kansas City Indoor Championship at the Hodgden Powder Company indoor range and I *Still* didn't do a DAL! Can't believe my mentor talked me into doing it!

My best place of finish in a *stage* was/were a couple of top tens behind Leatham in '89 at the afore mentioned KC Indoor match before I lost my convenient practice range.

Those of you who start IPSC/IDPA games cold turkey have my admiration. I would have never have started without assistance.

I shot competitive smallbore rifle for years then took about a 30 year break. Started shooting handguns about 6 years ago, shot about 5 or 6 IDPA matches over a 5 month period, stock service pistol. I don't think I ever came in dead last but I wasn't having any fun and considered giving up competitions. 5 years ago in a moment of insanity I purchased a revolver, a 6 shot 686. After shooting the revo in practice maybe 2 or 3 times I entered a 5 stage wildcat static steel match. It was early April, the sun was shining but it was cold and windy, probably temperatures in the low 20s. I was 57 years old and that time I come in dead last. I consumed about 400 rounds and when I finished I had 2 rounds left.

My score for that 5 stage match was 390 which if you add in penalties is about 6.5 minutes to finish the match or you could say it took me 3.9 seconds on average to hit each target. When I look back at it, it was a bitter pill. I was so awful, I just wanted to leave the range, go home and forget that I ever considered entering another match. I think part of what kept me going was a desire to erase the humiliation. I didn't actually enjoy shooting steel until last year, so over 2 years of painful struggle. I had maybe 3 or 4 matches where I came in last place overall.

Then I started practicing and taking things seriously.

I shot a similar 5 stage wildcat last week, my score was 76 seconds total or .76 seconds per target. I'm now shooting 5 target strings faster than each target hit from just a few short years ago. I'm now 61. In Steel Challenge I'm a solid A shooter in optical sight revolver. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes everything goes to crap but overall I'm having fun. I'm fairly certain that the thing that kept me trying was a desire to prove to myself that I could do reasonably well.