Like last year, I did not shoot the main match, but I did shoot the standing only side match. It is actually called the Win Jim’s Money Match, and is open to any competitor as long as they use a Production Optics (Carry Optics for everyone else) gun. I really like the standing only match as it is very difficult and tends to test things that I care about more.
I shot my LTT P30L LEM with the Trijicon SRO and it performed wonderfully. I ran through the match in practice on Friday and shot a 1918, which is my best score in practice and also my best score fired in a match. The one 8 I dropped was on the practical at 50 yards. I practiced a little again on Saturday and shot more like I normally do, dropping a few 8’s here and there. On Sunday we shot the match and I finished third, with an 1892. Match pressure is a real thing, lol. I won a nice medal (seen below) and $100, not pictured here.
Though I think very highly of the Bianchi Cup as a contest of marksmanship, it is not a complete shooting test by any means. The par times are fast if you are trying to shoot X’s like I am. The X ring is a 4″ circle. Even shooting 10’s, an 8″ circle, is incredibly hard to do 192 times in a row. Very few people have ever done it. Unfortunately, the par times are slow enough that the competition doesn’t do a great job of driving technique that is universally useful, which is one reason I believe in shooting other, faster matches like Steel Challenge, IDPA or USPSA.
This year in particular, the Cup had all sorts of issues and was not run very well. On top of that, one competitor shot himself in the foot while reholstering. I do not have all the details but it was a 1911 with a very light trigger that may or may not have been safe to use. I don’t know if the safety was engaged or not. Fortunately, he was just grazed from what I have been told, with no real damage occuring.
Another competitor had his pistol fall out of his holster, resulting in a match DQ. He is a great guy with a lot of experience and was shooting an open gun. Open gun holsters barely do their jobs at the best of times. In this case, a screw had worked loose and an internal part either fell out or stopped doing its job. All of us need to inspect our gear on a scheduled basis to ensure that things like this do not happen to us. Most of us do not do this, including me some of the time and I have narrowly avoided some issues in the past with holsters as they wore out or got out of spec. Talking to him after the event, we both agreed that we will be inspecting our gear on a regular basis from now on.
Not only holsters, but ensuring your optics screws have not moved (I use witness marks on all of my optics), along with basic preventative maintenance on your gun is crucial to good safe performance. Depending on the gun you use, that can mean different things. My guns need very infrequent cleaning, but I lube them whenever they are starting to get a little dry. Thicker lube in the summer and thinner lube in the winter. Magazines need to be kept in good shape as they are often the first line of failure. These are just the high points, you should ensure that you understand how to maintain your gun, to your satisfaction.
At any rate, there were lots of learning points (to put it politely) this year at Bianchi, and I hope all of us involved learn from them. It is a great course of fire and I encourage all of you to give it a try sometime. If you need or want help with that, send me a message. Maybe we can field a Pistol-Training team one of these years!
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