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A wounded soldier won the Top Shot competition at the LaRue Range day. The prize was a loaded PredatAR rifle with optics (I can't remember what). When he claimed his prize, he announced that he was donating it to the Wounded Warrior Foundation so they could continue their work helping people like him. This was one of the rifles that was used in the latest season of Top Shot, and was awarded by the winner of that show.
There were tons of prizes raffled off (and tons of swag handed out, like PMags), but the big prize was a LaRue OBR. And a 13 year old boy was holding the winning ticket. Of course, they'll transfer the rifle to his father, but who better than this kid to win the big prize?
None of my tickets turned up... again. Maybe next year. At least the barbecue was good.
There was a lot of great gear on display, and I didn't get time to play with it all. One of the cooler things I got to mess with was a camera sighting system (that I can't remember the name of! Help?). Basically, a small camera goes on to your rifle's optics, and a small display about the size of a camera viewfinder mounts to some safety glasses. You can do things normally, the viewfinder is off to the left a little bit. It's in your field of vision, but if you don't focus on it, it stops being distracting really fast. But when you need to shoot around a corner, you can look at the little screen. It's not the clearest thing, but you put the red dot on the target and pull the trigger, just like normal. It's just that this time, you're using the Iraqi unsupported firing position to do it. The camera is wireless, there's a receiver and battery that you put on your gear, and a wire leading to the monitor. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but it didn't seem to be that steep; it's just that you're not going to be used to holding a rifle sideways in front of your chest to shoot it.
There was a stage to give people a taste of 3 gun shooting. Participants got split into 3-person teams, two teams would run heads-up through the course of fire. Each person on the team chose a weapon and away you go. First (and farthest run) was an AR with Troy sights (which my friend tells me worked VERY well), shooting maybe 70 yards at three gongs of different size. Once those three were hit (or the shooter burned his 6 rounds of ammo), the safety went on, the rifle went back in the barrel and the shooter had to tag the next teammate in. Next station was a Benelli shotgun (M4 I think) loaded with 6 rounds of ammo. You had 5 targets at about 15 yards. Three pepper poppers and two discs to knock down using bird shot. Safety goes back on, shotgun into the barrel and the last team member picks up a Glock 17. He's got 10 rounds to knock down 5 plates on a rack and a pepper popper, all at about 15 yards.
My friends Mike and Dale have been shooting for a loooooong time. Mike has over 24 years experience with the AR platform, Dale is a pistol shooter and did a whole lot of trap and skeet for years (he's deadly with a shotgun). I'm a bit more "general shooter". Our first run, we gave Mike the rifle duty, Dale took the shotgun and I got stuck with the Glock. It's been a year or more since I've shot a Glock, and I don't shoot them very well because Gaston put the wrong angle on the grip... but we still made the other team look like a bunch of noobs. I missed the first plate twice, but after that I had a good rhythm and didn't miss. At the end of the day, we decided to run the 3-gun again, but this time I asked for the shotgun because Dale has a Glock, and I think I'm pretty good at the "tactical" shotgunning thing. Waiting in line, we start talking to the "team" behind us; three younger dudes in their early to mid 20s. The talk gets to the point where joking offers to "throw the match" get answered by them with "we got this won already." An epic spanking of the other team commenced. Their pistol shooter was just stepping to the line as ours was dropping his last target. As I was dropping steel like a boss, their pistol guy turned to my friend that had shot the rifle and asked "who are you guys!?" LOL, just a bunch of old out of shape dudes that know how to shoot.
We're all going to be laughing at that for a while.
There were tons of prizes raffled off (and tons of swag handed out, like PMags), but the big prize was a LaRue OBR. And a 13 year old boy was holding the winning ticket. Of course, they'll transfer the rifle to his father, but who better than this kid to win the big prize?
None of my tickets turned up... again. Maybe next year. At least the barbecue was good.
There was a lot of great gear on display, and I didn't get time to play with it all. One of the cooler things I got to mess with was a camera sighting system (that I can't remember the name of! Help?). Basically, a small camera goes on to your rifle's optics, and a small display about the size of a camera viewfinder mounts to some safety glasses. You can do things normally, the viewfinder is off to the left a little bit. It's in your field of vision, but if you don't focus on it, it stops being distracting really fast. But when you need to shoot around a corner, you can look at the little screen. It's not the clearest thing, but you put the red dot on the target and pull the trigger, just like normal. It's just that this time, you're using the Iraqi unsupported firing position to do it. The camera is wireless, there's a receiver and battery that you put on your gear, and a wire leading to the monitor. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but it didn't seem to be that steep; it's just that you're not going to be used to holding a rifle sideways in front of your chest to shoot it.
There was a stage to give people a taste of 3 gun shooting. Participants got split into 3-person teams, two teams would run heads-up through the course of fire. Each person on the team chose a weapon and away you go. First (and farthest run) was an AR with Troy sights (which my friend tells me worked VERY well), shooting maybe 70 yards at three gongs of different size. Once those three were hit (or the shooter burned his 6 rounds of ammo), the safety went on, the rifle went back in the barrel and the shooter had to tag the next teammate in. Next station was a Benelli shotgun (M4 I think) loaded with 6 rounds of ammo. You had 5 targets at about 15 yards. Three pepper poppers and two discs to knock down using bird shot. Safety goes back on, shotgun into the barrel and the last team member picks up a Glock 17. He's got 10 rounds to knock down 5 plates on a rack and a pepper popper, all at about 15 yards.
My friends Mike and Dale have been shooting for a loooooong time. Mike has over 24 years experience with the AR platform, Dale is a pistol shooter and did a whole lot of trap and skeet for years (he's deadly with a shotgun). I'm a bit more "general shooter". Our first run, we gave Mike the rifle duty, Dale took the shotgun and I got stuck with the Glock. It's been a year or more since I've shot a Glock, and I don't shoot them very well because Gaston put the wrong angle on the grip... but we still made the other team look like a bunch of noobs. I missed the first plate twice, but after that I had a good rhythm and didn't miss. At the end of the day, we decided to run the 3-gun again, but this time I asked for the shotgun because Dale has a Glock, and I think I'm pretty good at the "tactical" shotgunning thing. Waiting in line, we start talking to the "team" behind us; three younger dudes in their early to mid 20s. The talk gets to the point where joking offers to "throw the match" get answered by them with "we got this won already." An epic spanking of the other team commenced. Their pistol shooter was just stepping to the line as ours was dropping his last target. As I was dropping steel like a boss, their pistol guy turned to my friend that had shot the rifle and asked "who are you guys!?" LOL, just a bunch of old out of shape dudes that know how to shoot.
We're all going to be laughing at that for a while.
