First three gun match - wow!

[another okie]

What a blast! But I can see I need more guns. And more practice.
Obviously the rifle of choice is an AR-15, and the shotgun of choice is a Winchester or Benelli semi-auto. Well, I don't think I can afford both of those right now.

It seems like the biggest problem with the shotgun was not racking the slide of my pump gun, but reloading. It also seems like the rifle of choice and optics would vary greatly depending on whether it was short or long ranges. At short ranges it would be tempting to use a pistol caliber carbine, but obviously if you're shooting at long range (over 150 yards, in my book) you need a real rifle and a scope.

So now I'm curious: What are some basic tips for three gun? Where do you shoot three gun matches? How do you reload a shotgun without taking ten minutes on the clock?

 

[Correia]

This is how I load my shotgun. Been working pretty darn good.

www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22025

As for equipment, spend your time before you spend your money. Shoot more matches, and then you will figure out what it is that you really want/need.

 

[another okie]

Well, after a little price checking I find a Benelli semi-auto is about $800, a Remington competition master is $750, a Bushmaster AR is $800 - $1,000. Maybe I can live with the old Ithaca and the M1 for a while. The Saiga 12 gauge shotgun is attractive - I like the idea of box magazine reloads.

 

[Carnitas]

For limited competetion I dont think an auto SG is all that necessary. For instance..... If its a 20 round course and each rounds takes 0.1 second longer to shoot with the pump, thats only 2 seconds on the run time. When you consider that each shell is going to take 1.5 seconds or so to load the shot speed is pretty insignificant. Get a $300 870 or 590 with a 20 inch barrel and land full length tube and spend the money you saved expiermenting with various shell carriers and loading techniques. The loading skill will save you way more than 2 seconds and best of all you can snicker if not laugh out loud when all the benili shooters have their guns go TU because they hung too much carp on them.

WRT the rifle. It looks like there are two paths. THe pistol caliber carbine for people who shoot matches where the rifle stages are really just longish pistol stages, and real rifles to shoot rifle distances. Be careful with optics. Some matches do not allow any optics on limited competetors. Some allow a low powered optic on the rifle only.

I'm still working on my reload technique. Right now I've kinda settled on two. The first is just your basic at the sholder reload. Gun stays up and hand goes to the belt shell carrier for a 1 or 2 shells. This is good for a quick top off. If the gun is fully empty I shift my strong hand to the top of the reciever so that the rear sight is in the palm of my hand and roll the gun down to waist level so that the loading port is up, the stock is between my inner arm and my body, the barrel is angled down and pointing off 45 degrees to the week side. This puts the loading port right next to the belt carrier and in a position where a fumbled shell will rest in the loading port. The trick is to get the ammo near the loading port. Seems like the top guns used an armband carrier for their quickie loads.

 

[faustulus]

I am jonesing to try this. I am thinking about gettting a dissapator upper for my AR and using my Franchi until I can afford a benelli. But man does it look fun.