Well, I finally did it. I shot my first 3-gun match. I know how excited you are to hear about it, so let me get right in.
SoCo 3-gun
I attended a SoCo 3-gun match run by match director, Kevin Travis. SoCo 3 Gun hasn’t been around long but they are already doing some amazing things and I expect it will be one of the premier matches in Colorado before too long. I had the opportunity to spend some time with Kevin before the match. After I signed up, he knew it was my first match and he invited me to his practice session a couple of days before go time.
We practiced some fundamentals and my pistol work was good, but I think he could tell that my shotgun skills were severely lacking. And by that I mean I barely knew how to use my shotgun. He taught me how to unload quickly, worked on loading techniques, shooting shotgun while moving and more. I felt bad that I was taking up his practice time, but he was incredibly gracious.
Here is some footage from the practice session provided by Eggleston Munitions.
The following day he invited me over to work on my shotgun as the Remington Versamax is notorious for being terrible to load. We broke out the Dremel and widened out the loading port and also replaced the tube spring to improve my reloads. He also made me some practice shells to work out with instead of my red snap caps.
I asked him why he spent so much time working on the matches, helping people out and teaching people and his answer surprised me.
“To advance the sport”
Answers like that are why I love the shooting industry. Kevin noticed that the major matches throughout the country had some amazing stage designs and gadgets and he wanted to bring that to some local matches for people to enjoy but also so he could practice. You can find his training company at Travis Firearms Training, LLC and an amazing 3 gun match at SoCo 3 Gun.
Some of the cool things I saw at the match were popper targets that launched clays, a balance bridge, a spinning target, bear trap (clam shell), drop turner, knock down steel, Texas star and tons of other targets. The stages were not easy and required planning and strategy, but at the same time were really fun. I’ve seen similar stuff on 3-Gun Nation, but nothing this cool in local USPSA matches.
Some great video of the awesome stages provided by Eggleston Munitions
How did it turn out?
I did ok, finishing 16 out of 29 however I learned a ton. First, I need to get my equipment dialed in. I took a brand new rifle and after two stages it completely quit functioning. I took my normal competition rifle as backup and finished the match with no rifle problems. In the first stage, my shotgun was not functioning at all and I had to run a stage with only 4 shells in the tube. I was able to dial it in after the first stage, but between shotgun and rifle issues, I was 3 stages down quickly. The other two stages I finished 6th and 10th.
Can’t wait for the next match and glad I finally sacked up and shot some 3-gun!
