I am a huge fan of the AGC 3 gun matches, and was really very disappointed when the January one was rained out. I made sure I would hit the one on Sunday, and I had a great time. Stage by stage walkthrough follows, but I was 30/48 and 10/16 in my division (Tac Scope).

I shot this one with:

• Glock 34 Gen 3 with 17rd mags with +3/4 TTI baseplates (I only load them to 20rds). Ammo was my hot 124gr reloads.
• Home build 3 gun rifle (VG6 Gamma, lightened bolt carrier, 16″ pencil barrel, adjustable gas, rifle buffer system) with a Burris RT-6 LPVO on top of it. Mags were Magpul 30rd’ers of varying sorts. Ammo was range-safe Wolf 62gr FMJ.
• Stoeger M3K Freedom edition (unmodified)

The first stage was my worst, by far. I timed out after an excruciatingly slow shotgun reload and some horrific pistol shooting. I think what happened is that my shotgun ran dry and it locked the bottom, forcing me to do a port load, release the bolt, and then resume the rest of the reloads. My understanding is that MOA Precision has an “lightning-load” mod that will resolve this problem for me, which is now looking super handy and worth the money.

The pistol shooting was just… I don’t know. They were really small targets at distance and it was clear I was not hitting them. I believe the match director referred to it as “trying to hit nut sacks at 20yds”, which, while a bit uncouth, is not a bad description of the task at hand.

I didn’t get video of stage 2. I didn’t do particular well at it.

Stage 3 was a debacle. Not as bad as stage 1, but close. Slow rifle shooting, slow shotgun reload (with horrible technique to boot), bad shotgun ammo management, and that damn spinner. My pistol shooting wasn’t bad.

Stage 4 was, surprisingly, not bad for me. You can see me picking up the pace on shooting (no no-shoots!), my shotgun reload isn’t bad (nor is it “good”, but it’s progress), and my pistol work is pretty solid. You can see some evidence of a lack of decent stage planning during the shotgun shooting.

30/48 isn’t really an impressive outcome, and neither is 10/16 in my division. On the other hand, for the second 3 gun match of my shooting career, it could have been a lot worse. Some things I need to do:

1. Practice more with a shotgun and carbine on 3 gun-style targets. I have no idea how I’m going to make this happen. It is possible I could do it during the summer on some Thursday nights at AGC if I work from home. This may be necessary if I’m going to get better, because I just don’t have the experience doing target-to-target transition recoil management with those systems.
2. Work those iron sights on my pistol more. Carry Optics has spoiled me! I am converting over to a Sig P320 X5 Legion, so this will give me a chance to shoot my irons a bit more until I top it with a Romeo1Pro or Romeo2.
3. Practice shotgun reloads more at home. These are annoying because there’s no fast way to empty the tube on an M3K / M2, but it’s clear that I could be faster at them.
4. Spend more time on my stage planning. Ben Stoeger’s books talk about this, and it’s clear I need to re-read those sections. I think more visualization could help me.
5. Work the mental game more. I know I can shoot faster. I just don’t believe I can shoot faster. There’s a certain line between pushing myself hard and going full Ricky-Bobby, but I need to tread a bit closer to it than I currently am.
6. Build out my 3 gun belt so I can use my Safariland GLS holsters on it. I was not running at full tilt because I wasn’t confident in my holster’s passive retention. A GLS holster would give me more ability to really crank up my runs.