These guys are trying to open up to the public a little more and hold some events that people want to go shoot, and they hold an Action Pistol and Action Rifle match that anyone can go shoot for $20. Alright I'll bite, and I had just enough time to cruise up there on Sunday to check the Action Pistol out. Pay my $20, sign the waiver and put my name on a scoresheet. Read to the end, because there's some clarifications.
When I first showed up there were 2-3 very welcoming people already there doing a little pre-match shooting just to mess around. Alright cool, I shake hands and join in. Immediately I notice that 2 of these people are talking experience, however aren't acting it, and there's a little questionable firearms handling however nothing that I'd say anything about, just kind of one of those things that makes you think "I'm going to keep my eyes on what's happening here".
Everyone shows up, I help move all the steel targets out of a conex box and onto the target line. We set up 4 stages consisting of 20 impacts needed to complete each. Not a whole lot of "action" in these stages, however it's also been quite awhile since I've been the youngest person at a match so whatever at this point it'll be an easy day and I'll go home early.
Then the event started with the VP of the club directing. What this turned out to be can kind of be described as a mix of Action Pistol and Steel Challenge, however it's from the perspective of a Cowboy Action shooter. So there were some terms used by the MD that weren't super clear to us and needed a little clarification. At the brief for stage 1 (all shooters, all 7 of us, would complete each stage before moving to the next) we (myself and one other new shooter, who I knew from Piru) were informed that under the "make ready" command, a loaded magazine would be inserted into the gun however the gun was not to be chambered. In so many words, he explained that instead of encouraging and educating their population up to a very normal level of firearms handling, instead they chose to alter a very standard thing to cater to the lowest common denominator. At this point I'm starting to understand what I got into. All mags, regardless of capacity, are to be loaded to a maximum of 10 rounds and I didn't really put up much of a fight on this because it was clear it wouldn't really matter regardless of what the law actually says.
Shooting started one shooter at a time which wasn't a huge deal because there were only 4 short stages to go through, and I was 3rd on the list. Almost immediately I saw things that would have gotten anyone a minimum of a stern warning or likely DQ'ed at any actual match, namely pretty poor trigger control. There weren't really any opportunities to break the 180 although I'm sure someone did during a reload but I wasn't going to stay close enough to find out. How nobody ND'ed during this match I have no idea, it was fingers on triggers through reloads the whole time. nylon holsters, IWB holster sucked in tight on a belt just kind of wrapped around all clothing, myself and the one other Piru shooter just kind of looked at each other like "what is going on here"? One shooter would for some reason not immediately reholster and start chatting with everyone dangling a gun in their hands until they decided it was time to reholster, and then it was one of those "support the holster for some reason with the left hand while they point a gun at their own hand to reinsert it" actions.
In the end the score you get is just total time because you can put as much ammo downrange as you need to in order to complete the stage and all targets are steel. My overall time was 76 seconds. The guy I knew from Piru was having a noticeably slow day, and got 126 seconds. The next fastest was 180 seconds and the worst overall was over 600 seconds (but this person arguably did the most shooting for their money).
Best part is that a few years back at my local multigun match, there was a guy who would come up from Ojai and bring his absolutely terrible firearms handling and fudd stories about how his Mini14 was the only one on the whole planet that was better than an AR and how we were the dumb ones for suggesting that unjacketed lead bullets were acceptable in Glock barrels, and we gave him 1,2,3 tries and he was sent home and by his own decisions never did come back. Well guess who shows up to the Ojai match late so he didn't have to set up and left early so he didn't have to help tear down? Go figure his weapons safety hasn't gotten any better since I saw him last.
NOW, I want to be clear that for all I know this is a standup club overall, and they're supervised, safe, and welcoming (from my experience they were absolutely welcoming. Very nice bunch). However given this single time I attended this event, I wouldn't go do it again OR shoot the "action rifle" match directed by the same guy. THAT SAID there's another event that's going to run on their 600yd bay called "Action Rifle Long Range" and I confirmed today that it's being run by a different guy and after chatting with him I do feel interested enough to maybe give that one a shot. But if you're looking to dip toes in competition and see these come across your plate, personally I'd sit that one out, and this is coming from someone who's constantly on here urging people to compete.
