Wow, what a day. We ended up understaffed on ROs for a variety of reasons, leading to things running slowly. Then there were the equipment issues... there was a catastrophic failure on one AR, and a broken extractor on the Barrett on the first shooter. The Barrett was a brand new rifle with a grand total of maybe 15 rounds through it, all on the day before the event. As no one had a cleaning rod long enough for the Barrett, we had no way to knock the case out of the chamber, and were unfortunately not unable to use it for the rest of the event. As for the kaboom with the AR, the shooter is definitely lucky. So am I, for that matter... I was RO'ing and was standing right behind him when it happened. He caught a few pieces of shrapnel in the arm, but nothing serious. He had me scared for a second though... I couldn't see his support side arm the way he was standing when it happened... I didn't know if he was going to pull back a stump or what. It was quite a boom. We still aren't sure what caused it, either.
Matt, did you address your concerns regarding the scoring with Dale, the event organizer? I have his contact info if you need it... PM me if you want it.
I did not witness the safety incidents you mention. I'd like to hear more details on what happened. Also, in the future, please take action or at least say something if you see someone do something that puts anyone at risk of taking a round to the chest, or any other place. If you see a safety violation and you don't do or at least say something to stop it, you are just as wrong as the person who committed it.
I did see and address some safety issues myself. One shooter tried to stage a rifle pointing downrange while there were still ROs and competitors downrange scoring and pasting. Another shooter tried to touch an already staged rifle under the same circumstance. Also there were a couple of times when people started heading downrange to look at targets without being given the OK by the RO -- once before the shooter who just finished his stage had even cleared his gun in fact.
Anyway, despite the difficulties, I had a good time, and most of the shooters there seemed to as well. I did a lot of running all day, fixing fallen targets and whatnot, and skipped lunch to keep running shooters through the course. I was hungry, tired, sore, and sweaty at the end of it all, but I still enjoyed myself. I shot the course after everybody left... it was a lot of fun.
Also I attended Derek's carbine class today, and it went very well.