Right before heading to the United Multi-Gun League Wyoming Governor’s Cup, I made the decision to switch to Open Division (or Race in UML parlance). I’ve been wanting to switch for a while now to learn new things, shoot against new competition, and generally do something different after six years in Tac. So, they day I left I changed my division, put a down payment on a Dissident Arms shotgun, and screwed a Viper red dot onto my production gun.
The plan was to just plus up the tub-fed shotgun and try to hang, but as soon as I started walking stages it was clear that an open shotgun was mandatory if you wanted to be competitive. Luckily for me Jeff Lambert was on my squad and offered to loan me his KL12 shotgun and other open goodies like bags and bipods. I can’t thank him enough, and I definitely would not have finished where I did without his help.
After three days of shooting, I took home second place among some world-class competition. I am extremely happy with my finish, but more than that I had an absolute blast learning new skills on every single stage. I can’t wait until my shotgun gets here and I can start practicing with it and get better.
Shawn Streeter put on one hell of a match. Yes, it rained and yes we had to shoot a stage in standing water, but that can’t be helped. He found a new range to host the match, and put some excellent stages on the ground. There isn’t a single one of them that I wouldn’t love to shoot again.
I also recorded an episode of the The 3-Gun Show with Dave Hartman (yes folks, it’s coming back!!!) and it should be a great one to listen to. At one point everyone in the room was pretty sure that I had just said the dumbest thing anything had ever said on the podcast and was about to lose all my sponsors, but I think it’ll work out 🙂
Hats off to Cody Leeper for crushing the open field, and a huge thanks to everyone on squad 4 for being a super fun crew to hang with for three days.
