Well boys, I went and did it. I finally got my first NRL22 match win! I had been consistently placing in the top 3 lately but yesterday was my day and I actually won one out at Beloit rifle club.
I'll post a couple of cool pics below, but first, let's look at the match and I'll give you a breakdown on the stages:
Stage 1:
View attachment 432082 Ok for this first stage, there is a lot of moving involved so you're going to have to have a game plan. I shot a 10/12 on this one and made a silly mistake that almost made me time out. I ended up asking "time?" on the final prone position with like 5 seconds left and somehow blazed the last 3 targets in that time - but this is something you should avoid. The game plan here should be to have your heavy bag ready to throw on top of the tripod and leave it there. Then have your small bag ready (to use under your stock) and toss it down on the prone mat right off the get. My mistake is that.... I forgot my small bag.... Oopsie. No problem, I just balled up my left fist and used it as my rear bag when shooting the prone positions. Also, from 25 years of competitive paintball I have the habit of having bent knees in sort of a combat shooting form. This is something I have to consciously think about when shooting off tripods and things like the pyramid/A-frame - and make myself straighten/lock my legs. I did that yesterday and shot way better than my typical paintball/combat bent-knee stance. The two shots I missed were from the standing position, and mostly due to a hasty position of my heavy bag where it was sorta sloping down on the left side, causing a not-so-perfect situation... Oh, also don't forget about the mag change. I loaded 2 mags with 6 each so it would force me to mag change (I may have forgotten without doing that!)
Stage 2:
View attachment 432084 This one is a single position 10 rounder with an easy to remember sequence. The key here is to take your time and shoot S L O W! I scored a 9/10 here. One flaw I have, also another good habit in paintball but somewhat bad habit in NRL22, is that I shoot REALLY FAST. I finished in like 58 seconds when I could have doubled that time and really concentrated on making my impacts. My haste cost me 1 impact.
Stage 3:
View attachment 432085 I cleaned this one, 12/12! I was the only one to do this at the match. For gear I always use an Arca bag for the pyramid stages because I don't want to fool with moving a bag around and wasting time. I usually take the top rung positions on the pyramid because I like standing tall. This time, my lizard brain whispered to me "get low" right before the "Engage!" call so I took a position on the 2nd lowest rung on the left side to start. Used my backpack filled with pillows to get stable and made my hits, then went up one rung on the same side and did the same. On the 55gal drum, my Accu-Tac bipod is the key here, since the legs and be positioned backwards 45 degrees. That allows me to lay the rifle across the top of that drum and create a modified prone situation which is very stable. Easily hit all 4 off of that. Then I repeated my previous strategy on the pyramid but on the other side since no positions can be repeated. This proved to be a perfect strategy, indicated by my clean score on this one.
Stage 4:
View attachment 432087 Tank trap stages are always a challenge. For this one I got a 10/12 and made sure again to focus on the locked leg stance instead of my combat habit of bending my knees. The other strategy here, since a mag change is required, is to load 2 mags with 6 each so it forces the mag change. A smarter thing would have been to load the first mag with 4 and then the second one with 8 so I wouldn't have had to reload in the middle of the 3rd tip. Pretty simple stage but that was my strategy.
Stage 5:
View attachment 432088 I cleaned this stage. For the seat position I used my Arca bag and my backpack squish bag to support my position. When I transitioned to the top I basically just did the same thing and made sure my pillow backpack was put to good use to get real stable. Also, I normally NEVER dial but on this stage since the targets are only at 1 distance I simply dialed 4MOA and held dead on. Easy stage to clean if your fundamentals are good.
I only missed 5 shots all day! Hopefully me taking the time to type this analysis early in the month will help people who will be shooting the Feb COF this month! Now, as promised, here are a few pics from the match:
Results:
View attachment 432089 View attachment 432090 @zer0dev and myself, AKA the Tomax & Xamot of this league! (Tomax there needs to work on looking a little less friendly - we'll work on that! Haha)
View attachment 432091 Thanks to everyone who participated in the match, the Match Director and staff, my sponsors, my supporters, Erik, and everyone else who supports me in any way, including you for reading this!
Cheers!
