Long story short, I had a lot of fun and got my butt handed to me. I used a 10/22, not an airgun, but the results would have been the same whatever I shot.
Match prep - A-
I got to the match an hour early and I brought everything I need and was dressed appropriately for the weather. I watched videos of the stages and practiced what I could. The reason for the minus is that you can always have more practice time.
Gear - A
I had the right gear with me and used the right stuff on each stage. I never had a thought that I should have used a different bag. Gun didn't jam, scope was good.
Time management - B-
I only timed out on one stage on the last shot. The issue was that I had too much time left on the other stages. This tells me that I can shoot slower and get more solid on some of the sketchy positions. I'm going to need to practice with a timer to get a better feel for a 10 or 12 shot sequence.
Shooting - D
First issue was that I didn't spend enough time confirming my zero. It was impossible to see your misses so I didn't figure out that I was half a mil to the right until the fourth stage. As soon as I realized something was off, I should have started shooting the left and right edges to figure it out. Sure, it wastes some shots, but when you are only hitting 2 or 3 per stage you have shots to waste. If you are going to miss anyway, at least get some info from the misses.
Second issue was on the 5th stage. There were 2 targets at 70 yards and 2 targets at 95 yards. My plan was to zero to the 70 yard targets and hold .6 mil on the 95 yard targets. However, I forgot to zero the scope to 70 yards and I didn't write down what the actual hold overs were. I knew it was around 1ml for the 70 and around 1.5 mil for the 95. My guesses didn't go well. I think I hit 3 or 4, but this should have been a pretty easy stage.
Third issue was on the pyramid. You were supposed to shoot from 5 different positions on the pyramid. My plan was to shoot the bottom 3 rungs (prone, low kneeling, kneeling), skip the 4th rung and shoot both sides of the top rung (standing). My reasoning is that the 2nd rung from the top is a crouching position that is the least stable. I didn't think I would be fast enough to shoot prone on both sides of the bottom rung because it's a 6 foot shuffle from one side to the other at the base (turns out this was correct). In the heat of the moment, I found myself on the rung that I meant to avoid and it took forever to try to get steady. I wound up timing out on my last shot on the top rung. Option A would have been to stick with the original plan of shooting the top rung twice. Option B would have been to shoot it the way I did, but shoot the second rung last. If you are going to time out, time out on the worst position.
Outside of the 3rd issue, I shot everything in the right order and felt pretty solid on everything except the sawhorse. I had two mags loaded for every stage, and except for the brain fart on the 5th stage I had the scope dialed for every stage. Honestly that was my biggest concern, I didn't want to flail around shooting the wrong targets or timing out on every stage. I didn't plan on the shooting being the hard part. So lessons were learned and there is plenty of room for improvement. And this thing is much tougher than Youtube would have you believe.
Match prep - A-
I got to the match an hour early and I brought everything I need and was dressed appropriately for the weather. I watched videos of the stages and practiced what I could. The reason for the minus is that you can always have more practice time.
Gear - A
I had the right gear with me and used the right stuff on each stage. I never had a thought that I should have used a different bag. Gun didn't jam, scope was good.
Time management - B-
I only timed out on one stage on the last shot. The issue was that I had too much time left on the other stages. This tells me that I can shoot slower and get more solid on some of the sketchy positions. I'm going to need to practice with a timer to get a better feel for a 10 or 12 shot sequence.
Shooting - D
First issue was that I didn't spend enough time confirming my zero. It was impossible to see your misses so I didn't figure out that I was half a mil to the right until the fourth stage. As soon as I realized something was off, I should have started shooting the left and right edges to figure it out. Sure, it wastes some shots, but when you are only hitting 2 or 3 per stage you have shots to waste. If you are going to miss anyway, at least get some info from the misses.
Second issue was on the 5th stage. There were 2 targets at 70 yards and 2 targets at 95 yards. My plan was to zero to the 70 yard targets and hold .6 mil on the 95 yard targets. However, I forgot to zero the scope to 70 yards and I didn't write down what the actual hold overs were. I knew it was around 1ml for the 70 and around 1.5 mil for the 95. My guesses didn't go well. I think I hit 3 or 4, but this should have been a pretty easy stage.
Third issue was on the pyramid. You were supposed to shoot from 5 different positions on the pyramid. My plan was to shoot the bottom 3 rungs (prone, low kneeling, kneeling), skip the 4th rung and shoot both sides of the top rung (standing). My reasoning is that the 2nd rung from the top is a crouching position that is the least stable. I didn't think I would be fast enough to shoot prone on both sides of the bottom rung because it's a 6 foot shuffle from one side to the other at the base (turns out this was correct). In the heat of the moment, I found myself on the rung that I meant to avoid and it took forever to try to get steady. I wound up timing out on my last shot on the top rung. Option A would have been to stick with the original plan of shooting the top rung twice. Option B would have been to shoot it the way I did, but shoot the second rung last. If you are going to time out, time out on the worst position.
Outside of the 3rd issue, I shot everything in the right order and felt pretty solid on everything except the sawhorse. I had two mags loaded for every stage, and except for the brain fart on the 5th stage I had the scope dialed for every stage. Honestly that was my biggest concern, I didn't want to flail around shooting the wrong targets or timing out on every stage. I didn't plan on the shooting being the hard part. So lessons were learned and there is plenty of room for improvement. And this thing is much tougher than Youtube would have you believe.
ha-ha