Fun shooting steel.

Despite my sore back, I accompanied my father over to the Dallas Pistol Club stop-plate match on Sunday.


Stop plate matches are fun for people who like to shoot a lot. The shooter goes to 5 stages, where 5 plates are laid out in different patterens at different distances. At each stage, the shooter fires 5 strings, on the clock. Makeup shots for misses are allowed. Except for learners and those shooting .22s who start with pistol in hand, the shooter starts with a holstered pistol, with hands up above the shoulders. 5 stages with 5 strings at 5 targets means 125 rounds, if you shoot it clean. Nobody shoots it perfectly clean all the time. The only thing that differentiates a "stop plate" match from a simple "plate match" is that the last plate shot is pre-designated by the red stem holding it up. Otherwise, the shooter may shoot the plates in any order he pleases.

.45 acp race guns are very popular, with race holsters that use magnets to retain the pistols in a drop position, well outside of the belt. N frame .357s of 7 and 8 round capacity are also popular, because the brass is easy to pick up.

I shot a Glock 19.

Hey-- why not?

I carried it in a fairly-close-fitting Fobus pancake holster, and shot Winchester white box out of it. The reduced radius of the shorter slide was noticible, but not too bad. I carry a Glock on duty, and figured that the slight handicap of the smaller gun might offset a little the fact that I was shooting a minor caliber.

The only problem with this was that my giant hands kind of overlap some on grip if I'm not very careful, and slide can bite the webbing of my hand a little, when I'm in a hurry.
Dad shot with his old post WWII '40s era Colt 1911, and practiced "slow is smooth and smooth is fast." Here we see him in mid-draw:

Dad's old pistol did let us know that it was time to replace the old recoil spring, though, when it failed a few times to completely go back into battery. An easy and cheap fix, and it gave Dad the opportunity to practice his failure drill. :)

All in all, we had a grand time.