I had an interesting shoot with my MKA 1919 suffering a critical failure after two trigger pulls. (Critical, not catastrophic, more on that later.)

There were some nice “shooters choice” opportunities at this event. Nothing bugs me like a 3-Gun stage that’s written like a theater director reading a script. Here there was some looseness in the stages that boiled down to “These are your targets, where your feet can be, and what gun you need to shoot them with. How you get from A to B is up to you.”

Here’s a rough stage rundown from memory:

Stage 1: A graduated bay with 25, 50, and 100 yard targets. Shooter starts with their rifle, engages close paper targets, then mid-range paper targets along the way to a VTAC barrier and shoots far steel flashers. Cut back towards the 50 yard berm, dump the last rounds into a close paper target, then dump the rifle. Grab your shotty, nail a pair of clays, clear a forest of steel poppers, and then put one slug on a close paper target. Transition to handgun, where there are four small coffin-shaped steels, and a “hostage” setup. This was a swinger with a no-shoot attached, where hitting the steel “leg” would cause the no-shoot to swing out of position exposing a paper target behind it. Lots of fun. If you were smart, you knocked the leg out then tagged the steel while the no-shoot slowed down. For the record: I wasn’t smart.

Stage 2: Out the back of a quonset, start with rifle. Shooter sprints to a mat, goes prone and rings steel. Then rings the steel again off a VTAC barrier. Ditch the rifle, retrieve shotgun, and clear a field of 8 close clays and 4 dropping steel targets. I really liked the opportunity to go prone on this stage. Shooting in Alberta in March is likely to have some pretty soupy ground conditions, so adding the mat was a good call all round. More comfortable, less messy, well defined shooting box.

Stage 3: Stages 3 & 4 shared the wide central field, where WRAS used the diagonal angle to maximize their rifle distance. Start in one corner, and engage paper targets in the opposite corner (approx 80 yards?) Ditch the rifle, retrieve your shotgun, then run the length of the range to a charge line where there were a handful of clay stands and clay-thrower poppers. If you haven’t shot these, it’s a large coffin shaped steel target that when shot, falls onto a lever and launches a clay pigeon into the air. Lots of fun. Ditch the shotgun, and clear a close-range plate rack with pistol.

Stage 4: Same start position as stage 3, but shooting straight ahead instead of the diagonal. Engage 3 partially covered paper targets with the rifle, then grab your shotgun and haul up to a snow fence barricade. Two ports, two target arrays, and you were required to transition between them. 3 steel poppers from one, and a pair of slug targets from the other.

Stage 5: Inspired by Larry Vicker’s recent Collateral video, the opening of this stage required the shooter to start in a surrender position, engage a single IDPA target, then neutralize a second IDPA on the side followed by an alpha “eye-box only” target. This was all fast, fun, and close range. The stage description encouraged qualified shooters to engage the first target from retention. After your Tom Cruise moment is complete, ditch the handgun, and run back to retrieve your shotgun and go through the breaching door. Through the door was a snow fence hallway with barrel barricades, a selection of 7 clays and 3 slug targets straight ahead. This was one of those nice “shooter’s choice” moments where you could start on the clays, then switch to slugs, or start sending slugs down-range as soon as you were through the door. I opted for the latter, and that’s where my problems started…

My Shoot:

My shotgun is in a bad way. Starting on Stage 5, I breached the door with my Mka 1919, sent the first slug flying, and then got a dead trigger. The action was stuck forward, and I smacked it pretty hard to get the chamber open and the empty hull removed. After some inspection, it looked like the roll pin from the extractor had worked its way out of the BCG and seized up solid. That gun was done for the day.

This sucked: I’d never cleaned that shotgun all last season, and found its performance excellent aside from a few magazine issues. I’d had several range sessions with the gun over the winter and never had any problems. This was the first failure, and it was a major one. Fortunately, I was able to borrow an LAK12 Puma, which proved an interesting experiment.

I’ve been watching the Puma since it was released. Being a Tavor shooter, the idea of a magazine-fed bullpup shotgun is appealing. Add in NR status, adjustable gas system, built in flat-top rail, and a last round bolt hold open: it seems like a winner.

I encountered two major drawbacks with the Puma, which fortunately share a simple solution.

Problem 1: It wouldn’t always cycle target load. I was assured it was on the correct gas setting, but at least once a stage it would fail to pickup the next round and I’d have to rack the action manually after a click with no bang.
Problem 2: It wouldn’t always knock down steel. The puma doesn’t have thread in chokes, and it’s just a cylinder bore. There were several times where I could see shot splashing off the steel targets, but not putting them down.

Solution: To add more oomph and improve reliability, I’d be shooting heavier loads through this gun for any and all 3 gun shoots. #4 or #6 shot at least. I think at least one industrious Canadian has already removed the Chinese flash hider and threaded their barrel for Remington chokes. Not a bad idea either.

The other upgrade that would help make the Puma more competitive is an enhanced magazine release. It should be fairly straight forward to fit some kind of an extended paddle onto the left side release, and it would definitely speed up reloads.

On a personal note I feel like my winter dry-firing has really improved my pistol shooting this season. 10 minutes daily. There wasn’t a lot of handgun in these 5 stages, but I enjoyed what there was. In 2014, I was fairly sure my handgun game was my weakest component in 3-Gun, and am glad to see that turning around.

Now I just have to revive my Mka 1919 and see if I can trust it again, or whether it’s time to get a Puma of my own…

You can find my first timer’s report over on The Firearm Blog, but I thought I’d share a few extra thoughts here and some of the amazing photos snapped by the Crimson Trace team.

On practiscore I placed 123 out of 185, which put me well behind the Miculek’s of the shooting world. I was surprised (and delighted) to come out ahead of Matt from Outdoor Hub, and Shelley Rae but placed right where I expected behind Caleb Giddings.

The coolest score stat for me personally was Stage 6, where Mike Hughes totaled 53.83 seconds. I was right behind him at 54.44 seconds, which feels pretty good.

At the end of the day though: competitive shooting is really about you as an individual. You don’t “lose” when someone else has a better time, and you only “win” when you feel like you’ve given your all, and improved from your last match.

The Crimson Trace match took place over five days, with 10 unique stages that highlight the challenges of shooting at night.

The Midnight Invitational gathers some of the top dogs in the shooting world. Top Shot winners, national champions, media writers, and industry professionals make for a unique 3 Gun shoot.

I was on the range shooting all night: from sunset right till 4:00am, and its easily the most unique shoot I’ve ever attended.

This was my first time shooting seriously in the dark, and my first time using lights and lasers outside of a static range environment.

Best Moments:

The first thing most people want to hear about is the grenade launcher. Their eyes swim while imagining massive fireballs illuminating the night sky. That’s a little over the top, but it is pretty cool for a 40mm virgin.

We were using an FN MK 13 EGLM ambidextrous launcher with chalk rounds to engage a vehicle. The shot was taken from the 40 yard line, so this was more a novelty than marksmanship, but still plenty of fun. The pull on the launcher is like nothing I’ve ever used before: more christmas-cracker than trigger.

Another highlight was Stage 3, which used an FN AR-15 outfitted with a FLIR Thermosight RS-64. Shooters targeted “heated steel” downrange that was almost invisible in the dark, but glowed hot through the optic. An on-target hit would spark nicely, and a bright green glowstick would swing into view. Its the sort of reactive system that feels good to hit: you get the crack of the rifle, the thwack of your round hitting steel, and a little glowing flag waving back at you.

I’ve spent some time with night vision, but we don’t get much hands-on time with suppressors or full-auto guns. Stage six, a cooperative effort between Gemtech, PWS, and i2 Technologies was a great close quarters scenario where each shooter would be fitted with dual PVS-14 night vision goggles, then clear the house using a suppressed Glock 17, a suppressed select-fire PWS, and a semi-auto Mossberg.

I’ve attended 3 Shot Shows now: and while I don’t mind media day at the range, there’s generally little more to do with a demo gun other than point it down-range and pull the trigger. The Midnight 3 Gun definitely steps outside the “try this” box and invites shooters to “use this.” You’re given a course of fire, and the clock is ticking.

Once again I owe a big thanks to my sponsors, who encourage me to face border guards and get sand in my shoes for the sake of some world class shooting.

Click any of the images below to see their full-size glory.

The short of it:

I’ve never run my guns so hard, experienced so much shooting stress, or had so much fun.

I find first person clips of entire stages are pretty boring if you’re not the guy who shot them, but here’s a highlight reel of some of the best moments from MGM Ironman 2014!

Driving from Calgary to Parma took me nearly 18 hours with the border hassle of travelling with guns. Arriving at camp at 9pm and getting up to shoot at 6am the next morning was a poor choice. I had a pretty miserable first day, and learned my lessons about sunscreen, shooting first, and planning a stage properly.

Planning was a big component of the game that differs from my Canadian events. American’s shoot more, shoot farther, and shoot faster than the Canadian matches I’ve seen. Previously, my idea of planning was to look at the stage description and make sure I knew my zero at the furthest target. But the Ironman requires so much more. You need to have a mental map of what order you’ll shoot each target in, and know where in the stage you will be reloading. Will you go left to right, or right to left? Shoot the spinner first, or save it for the last? I learned the hard way that these things make a difference. The ROs and your squad can coach, but they’re not there to plan for you. Stage briefing at the Ironman goes like this:
“This is your rifle dump box, this is your shotgun dump box. Start here, and engage targets as they become visible.” 

Things got better after that first day. I owe a ton of thanks to my squad preparing me before the start signal and coaching me after the timer started rolling.

The Ironman was exactly what I’d hoped for, with ridiculous challenges like towers, slides, carts, and the zipline. Probably the hardest part for my bullpup rifle and me was a forced weak-hand stage that involved shooting underneath a vehicle. I had to deal with the unusual malfunction of hot brass bouncing off my face and back into the chamber!

My favourite stage by far was the trench, which involved ditching the rifle after close quarters engagements and sprinting across the entire parking lot to get to the shotgun portion. That stage also involved a pair of the deadly MGM Spinners that must be rotated completely to score. These ones were shielded behind hard cover, and I had a lot of fun working the angles to get into a shooting position.

Here’s an example of one of the stage layouts. You shoot all your 80 yard and over targets from the top of a 30ft tower (A), slide down to ground level, and do it all again from inside a massive tire (B) then move down the centre line to wrap up your pistol and rifle targets. That solid triangle is a cluster of 14 steel targets. Lots of guys timed out on this stage, and I was lucky to be able to watch and learn from their mistakes.

I even enjoyed the “spool-stage” that required shooters to position themselves in a small enclosed space before engaging. Many of the heavier guys cursed up and down about wedging themselves under a chunk of wood.

All the side-stages were a blast. I of course enjoyed the zipline, but also had fun using a suppressed .22 with no hearing protection to pop shots at a moving thermal target using FLIR’s infrared sight.

I’ll be doing lots of things different next year, but overall I’m pleased with my performance. Two shooters who I know and respect got disqualified this year, and I heard DQ horror stories from several veterans who didn’t make it through their first Ironman. My coach finished 34th out of 48 in the Open Division, and I took the 39th position not far behind him.

Looking at my summer schedule, I’ll be doing some smaller matches at the Peace River and Edmonton Area clubs, but the next big thing will be the Crimson Trace Midnight Invitational in August.

I said it before when I signed up for the Ironman, but I’ll say it again:

Huge Thanks To: The MGM Ironman is a big event for me, and I have lots of people to thank for getting me to a place where its within my grasp. Special thanks to Angelo Brewer from FLIR, who emailed me all through the event last year telling me I should shoot it. Also thanks to Dwight, Werner, Ken, Paul, Steve, and all the staff at Vortex Canada who’ve had me on their Field-Staff team for the past 2 years. I also owe a thanks to Zahal.org for keeping me stocked with all kinds of Czech and Israeli gear while supporting my various projects over the past year. Similar thanks to Adam Bekar at A3 sports, who’s encouraged me to haul Tasmanian Tiger packs and load-bearing equipment into the Rockies on a regular basis. A big thanks to all the people at ITM Instruments and Scout Basecamp who keep me busy during the week. Thanks to the talented people at IWI US and IWI Israel who have helped me with every question about the Tavor platform as my knowledge and skills grew alongside the rifle. Another thanks to James Bachynsky and Norm Hamilton from the Calgary Shooting Centre, who call me first when cool things show up on their doorstep. I should certainly thank Nathan Cook and the National Firearms Association for creating the Gun Owners of Canada Forum. My girlfriend Jessica deserves lots of thanks and praise for putting up with rifle parts strewn across the living-room and reload drills during movie nights. Finally, and most importantly I owe a huge thanks to the shooting community around me: everyone who says hi at the range, reads the blog, comments on youtube, or posts in the forums. You guys are cool cats, and I’m honoured to have you as an audience.

At the core of this is the war-belt, also known as a battle-belt. This padded belt traditionally integrated into a soldier’s load bearing system. It carries rifle magazines, first aid kits, and all manner of necessary equipment when on patrol overseas or in any number of dangerous environments. However, the war-belt has found a life independent from the drop-loads, chest-rigs, plate-carriers, and assault-packs involved in a complete system.

I have two distinct setups built from Tasmanian Tiger’s Warrior Belt: one for the specific applications of 3-Gun, and one built to maximize flexibility outdoors between all kinds of firearms.

The first setup is an adaptive (not dynamic) war-belt. It’s one of the least tactical but most flexible pieces of equipment I own. Because of that: it sees more use than any of my other soft-cloth gear.

Without changing anything I can take it to the indoor range for pistol drills, wear it out into the wilderness for a hike with the shotgun, or throw it in the back of the jeep with a new rifle that is about to be zeroed.

As part of this focus on flexibility I’ve chosen soft cloth Tasmanian Tiger magazine pouches. Two rifle, two pistol. The mag pouches use an elastic retainer and can fit P-mags, M-14 mags, both calibers of Vz-58 magazines or even AK-47 mags if needed. They may not be designed for everything I force into them, but they’ll hold anything I might want to take to the range on a given day.

In the same vein, I use the adjustable MKII Holster, which I can fit and wrap around any pistol from a walther .22 to a .357 revolver. It can hold any handgun in my safe, regardless of lights, lasers, sights or magazines I might choose.

This means the holster is not a duty carry setup. It does not have serpa retention or other speed releases. But in the name of flexibility it can securely hold any sidearm or accommodate radios, GPS units, laser rangefinders and other similarly sized equipment.

I’ve attached a OSOE shotgun panel for 12 rounds of shotshells, and a TT dump pouch. Personally, I find a good dump pouch makes a world of difference to my shooting. It’s a space for loose ammo, a pocket for your cold-weather gloves, or a bin for empties and trash.

I try to promote responsible range care, and nothing encourages you keep your shooting area clean like having a bag on you to put spent shells and empty boxes. Plus the standard empty-magazine-storage helps make sure you’re not tossing your precious p-mags in the dirt.

I keep the belt on this quite loose around my waist, and often wear it in conjunction with a set of suspenders (the updated MkII Warrior Belt includes these). This means that the load-out can be used by anyone else of similar body size, and that I don’t have to resize any straps between shooting indoors in a T-shirt and out on a mountainside with insulating layers.

This belt is built for the kind of shooting situations that I experience on a regular basis, and because of that it sees regular use.

My second build is part of my introduction to 3 Gun: holds your pistol and munitions. Nothing else.

War-belts are made up of 3 components: an inner belt that fastens around the waist, a padded outer belt with molle attachment points, and the actual load bearing parts attached to the molle. For my 3-gun setup I replaced the standard inner belt with a tight Ferro Concepts belt.

This offers two advantages: the upgraded raptor clip, and the ability to weave the 2″ belt through the war-belt panels. This way I can use both molle and belt mounted magazine carriers. I buckle this setup in the rear, to maximize the real estate right in front of me.

I use a Fobus hoslster, as its one of the few Israeli holsters designed to fit the Israeli Jericho 941. I’ve found the best stability for this actually involves placing the entire paddle over the war-belt, rather than threading it into molle or 2″ belt sections.

This will hold 3 rifle magazines of different capacities at an even height, and a 5 pistol magazines right up front. I’m currently working on a shotgun solution. Hopefully I’ll have an update on that soon. 

The way I’ve setup my warrior belt, it would be out of place on a battlefield. But that hasn’t stopped me from using it at every opportunity.

Sometimes equipment gets so caught up on being combat-ready, or built for SHTF, or loaded down with tactical-extras, that it can get left behind in the closet for just regular shooting. When I spend money on gear, my goal is to never let it rust in the closet. This war-belt certainly doesn’t run that risk.

This gear list will definitely change. I have 5 months to lock-in the guns and gear I use.

Rifle: The Tavor TAR-21

Pistol: IWI Jericho 941

Shotgun: Hatsan Marine Escort

The Tasmanian Tiger War Belt:

The best way to get excited about Three Gun is to see it done! There are lots of videos online, but I’ve gathered some of my favorites here.

3-Gun is a multi-discipline shooting sport that requires the use of a rifle, pistol, and shotgun to navigate through a number of stages. You’re scored for accuracy and time, and ranked against other competitors.

The MGM Ironman is one of the more unusual events, as it features a number of “non-standard” stages. While a standard 3-Gun stage might have you shooting silhouette targets and steel spinners through simulated doorways and windows, the MGM Ironman includes things like:

* tunnels
* a zip line
* a vehicle stage
* a tower and slide

Here’s an awesome video to give you an idea, starting with the zip-line.

The quote from a previous competitor that really drew me in was: “A standard IDPA stage will usually take you 30 seconds or so. At the MGM Ironman you need to be prepared to run, and shoot, and keep running and shooting for 5 minutes straight.”

That sort of thing sounds excellent to me. The round counts for the MGM are high. There’s a lot of lead-downrange.

Your firearms in 3 gun fall into classes. If you’re using magnified optics, extended magazines, and race holsters: you can expect to be in Open Class. If you’re using stock irons and shooting off-hand, you can expect to be in Limited Class. Different matches and divisions have different ways to break down their classes. It’s important to build your gear to your specific class.

I wanted to keep all my options open, so for the 2014 Ironman I’ll be shooting open class. You can learn more about my progress in the 3-Gun category.

If you’re curious to learn more about the specifics of 3-gun, the web is full of awesome guides. I found reading the FNH 3-gun rulebook helped a lot, and love seeing the news on 3 Gun Nation.

Those three fancy photos at the top aren't me, and aren't taken by me. Left to right they're sources:
 http://www.flickr.com/photos/33302087@N04/
 http://sinistralrifleman.com/2011/04/19/coyote-tactical-3-gun-vest/
 http://www.cabelas.com/category/Gun-Sports-Gun/261156780.uts

Why Compete? Because I love to shoot, and testing myself alongside professionals scares the piss out of me. I want a challenge, and have no doubt that this will do it. From what I understand I will be the first shooter there to compete using a Tavor, and I’m excited to see that gun grow beyond an exotic bullpup into a widely accepted rifle platform.

Why Blog About It? I know too many other shooters who want to try competitive events, and don’t. I’m hoping that my coverage can give them a better idea of what’s involved, and encourage you to get out there and try it! That, plus I love discussing gear & techniques of any kind. This is something new for me! I’ll be chronicling my progress in the 3 Gun category of this blog.

So Are You a Gamer Now? Far from it. Adventure camping is still my favourite past-time. I’m hoping to spend just as much time in 2014 using NVGs under the stars as I spend at shooting events. To get an idea of my balance: I own seven backpacks, and only three pistol magazines. That’s going to have to change, but not too much.

I Owe Thanks To: The MGM Ironman is a big event for me, and I have lots of people to thank for getting me to a place where its within my grasp. Special thanks to Angelo Brewer from FLIR, who emailed me all through the event last year telling me I should shoot it. Also thanks to Dwight, Werner, Ken, Paul, Steve, and all the staff at Vortex Canada who’ve had me on their Field-Staff team for the past 2 years. I also owe a thanks to Zahal.org for keeping me stocked with all kinds of Czech and Israeli gear while supporting my various projects over the past year. Similar thanks to Adam Bekar at A3 sports, who’s encouraged me to haul Tasmanian Tiger packs and load-bearing equipment into the Rockies on a regular basis. A big thanks to all the people at ITM Instruments and Scout Basecamp who keep me busy during the week. Thanks to the talented people at IWI US and IWI Israel who have helped me with every question about the Tavor platform as my knowledge and skills grew alongside the rifle. Another thanks to James Bachynsky and Norm Hamilton from the Calgary Shooting Centre, who call me first when cool things show up on their doorstep. I should certainly thank Nathan Cook and the National Firearms Association for creating the Gun Owners of Canada Forum. My girlfriend Jessica deserves lots of thanks and praise for putting up with rifle parts strewn across the living-room and reload drills during movie nights. Finally, and most importantly I owe a huge thanks to the shooting community around me: everyone who says hi at the range, reads the blog, comments on youtube, or posts in the forums. You guys are cool cats, and I’m honoured to have you as an audience.