I invited Rolf to go to an ASI match with me and this morning he showed up at my house about 8:20 AM and I drove us the rest of the way to the Renton Fish and Game Club.

I expected with the weather on the cool side, threats of rain, and ammo shortages the number of people would be less than usual. I was wrong. 95 shooters showed up. There were 15 or 16 people on our squad. This makes the match longer than usual. One of the things I like about the ASI matches are that they are usually over by 12:30 or 1:00 and there is enough time left in the day to do other things. It was right at 2:00 PM before we were done. But having lots of shooters is a good thing for the gun culture, so I’ll stop whining about that now.

I first “met” Rolf on the email distribution list for the Microsoft Gun Club (now “The Gun Club at Microsoft). Later I met him in person at the Tuesday Night Pistol League at Weapons Safety, Inc. This was all stationary shooting at a stationary target. He has taken numerous courses from Insights Training, he has been participating and/or volunteering at Boomershoot for many years and I figured he had shot at least a few USPSA pistol matches or maybe a few IPDA matches. Nope. This was his first “action” shooting match.

Hmmm… Okay, well, I know he will do fine. I’ve seen him shoot pistol and revolver before (he used a .357 to shoot boomers at “entertainingly close” distances).

I took a few pictures of him at the match today and after reviewing them he said this is the best one:

“Always willing to lend a hand out”, he told me.

I’m inclined to think this one is better:

I told him I expected he would come in between the bottom third and the bottom half. After seeing him shoot the match I stood by the prediction.

Match results are here. He came in at the 32nd percentile, Very close to my prediction and excellent for a first time action shooter.

I had a couple mechanical malfunctions (and a couple mental ones as well). My powder puff loads failed to reliably cycle the action. The cool weather probably contributed to this. In the hot (for the Seattle area) summer the loads cycled the same gun just fine. I think I need to add another 0.1 of a grain to the load to make sure they work in the cooler weather. I probably could grip the gun tighter and make them more reliable but it would be better to increase the charge a little bit. This will allow me to use them with new shooters with reduced risk of them getting frustrated with the failures to extract and feed.