The Antichrome
Moderator
Single Stack Nationals were held last weekend at PASA Park, in Barry, Illinios.
My Crossbones team mates and I crossed the Mississippi to compete.
Single Stack Nationals (aka The Single Stack Classic, or SSC) is a neat match, because everyone shoots the same Division and same type of gun (obviously, the 1911)
The platform continues 101 years later to be proven as a fantastic competition machine. The match is set up to accomodate and yet challenge the SS platform. I thought the stages were more interesting and fun than last year. They were mostly typical Ray Hirst designs; shoot and shuffle at a mix of open targets and 'speed bumps' to slow you down. Very few stages had arrays that forced you into slide lock. As usual the round count was low, and long range standards was again the longest stage. There seemed to be high number of table starts.
When we arrived on Friday to walk the stages we found that Nils had already shot on Thursday.
Being a National Limited Champion, and being the only contender so far to shoot, he was, of course, in the lead by a huge margin. The question was; would it hold up? The RO's were saying that Nils shot like a man possessed, his times were outrageous, but he had a fair number of Deltas, 9 to be exact...
We walked the stages and watched Max, Blake, and Manny shoot several. Nils was still out in front of Max.
Max had just won 2 Area matches in SS and was the favorite coming in. But, after he was done, he was 90 match points behind Nils.
I shot on Saturday and a blast. Unfortunately, I also had tremendous gun issues, and I shot kinda lackluster to a 167th place finish. My STI decided to stop feeding, the bullets ended up nosed level into the feed wall right where the barrel ramp and frame meet. Oh well, the theory is that the barrel has 'set forward' and created a small gap at this point. I was done shooting SS for this season anyway;-)
My team mate, Tim Proctor, finished at 46th, a top 50 in his 1st Major. Proves that practice pays off. Good job Tim!
Our squad had to wait a short time at many stages for the squad in front of us. This gave us the opportunity to watch Smitty shoot a few. Whew, the current National Limited champ, was in fine form with blazing speed. I thought he would be a contender.
So how was everyone else shooting and would TGO return to the top? In the end, Nils score held up, and he became National Single Stack Champion, only the 3rd person ever to win it. Sevigny, in 2nd, was only 14 points behind. Our own Phil Strader was in 4th again, just behind TJ. Smitty came in 5th. Seeklander put in a solid performance for 7th.
2 of my squad mates, Shawn Hopkins and Corey Estill, were 13th and 15th...solid guys.
Fuson made the top 20 again at 19th.
Kelly was 27th, just ahead of BJ. Good job Kelly.
Greg Martin was 33rd.
Proctor 46th.
My buddies:
Shawn Armstrong #138th
Chad Stanton 111th.
David King 150th
Jeff Brumbaugh 163rd
Me 167th
Allie Cat Barrett 209th (not bad for a 15 year old girl with an ankle brace, shooting 190pf ammo)
Jeff Alderson, 4th in Open.
And TGO? Well, late in the day the word started to circulate that TGO had DQ'd. Stage 12 was a 23 round all steel stage. All targets had to be shot thru 18" conduit pipe that was set in ports on a wall. They swiveled to expose the targets. Most of us know that you dont want to go 'into' a port if you dont have to. This match had several stages with ports that you definately had to go all the way into. According to TJ, he was turning the gun in his hand to hit the mag release, as he did this, his front sight snagged the lip of the barrel/conduit pipe. The gun, 1.x pound trigger and pinned grip safety was now spinning and cartwheeling thru the air and prob swept everyone there. TGO tried to catch it, but it ended up on the ground pointed uprange. TJ said it was one of the scariest things he'd seen in a match, and he was up next. He said he was really nervous when he shot that stage and gripped extra hard! Another witness said it was "disturbing". It was like watching the mighty Casey strike out I guess. The lesson is that even the best will DQ eventually. No one remembers the last time that The Great One, DQ'd.
9 shooters DQ'd in this match. Which seems high. But it works out to 3% which is near average for a National match.
9 shooters also got bumped into Open. Most were overweight guns, or magazines in front pockets.
Rumor has it that a world renowned gunsmith to the stars had his 1911 go overweight.
Stage 4 & 5 shared a bay and a start position. We shot stage 4, then stayed 'hot' and made ready for stage 5. A few guys stuck their mag from stage 4 into a front pocket and then shot stage 5...welcome to Open.
But the whackiest thing I've seen in a while was Jake Martens running across to a postion, all of his mags went 'pffttt' out of the mag holders. He picked them up to finish the stage and jammed them into his front pocket...and jammed himself into Open.
Team CZ/DW shooter, Sara Dunavin was favored to beat Julie for High Lady...but she went sub-minor at Chrono and shot for no score...that had to be fun.
It was an interesting weekend.
My Crossbones team mates and I crossed the Mississippi to compete.
Single Stack Nationals (aka The Single Stack Classic, or SSC) is a neat match, because everyone shoots the same Division and same type of gun (obviously, the 1911)
The platform continues 101 years later to be proven as a fantastic competition machine. The match is set up to accomodate and yet challenge the SS platform. I thought the stages were more interesting and fun than last year. They were mostly typical Ray Hirst designs; shoot and shuffle at a mix of open targets and 'speed bumps' to slow you down. Very few stages had arrays that forced you into slide lock. As usual the round count was low, and long range standards was again the longest stage. There seemed to be high number of table starts.
When we arrived on Friday to walk the stages we found that Nils had already shot on Thursday.
Being a National Limited Champion, and being the only contender so far to shoot, he was, of course, in the lead by a huge margin. The question was; would it hold up? The RO's were saying that Nils shot like a man possessed, his times were outrageous, but he had a fair number of Deltas, 9 to be exact...
We walked the stages and watched Max, Blake, and Manny shoot several. Nils was still out in front of Max.
Max had just won 2 Area matches in SS and was the favorite coming in. But, after he was done, he was 90 match points behind Nils.
I shot on Saturday and a blast. Unfortunately, I also had tremendous gun issues, and I shot kinda lackluster to a 167th place finish. My STI decided to stop feeding, the bullets ended up nosed level into the feed wall right where the barrel ramp and frame meet. Oh well, the theory is that the barrel has 'set forward' and created a small gap at this point. I was done shooting SS for this season anyway;-)
My team mate, Tim Proctor, finished at 46th, a top 50 in his 1st Major. Proves that practice pays off. Good job Tim!
Our squad had to wait a short time at many stages for the squad in front of us. This gave us the opportunity to watch Smitty shoot a few. Whew, the current National Limited champ, was in fine form with blazing speed. I thought he would be a contender.
So how was everyone else shooting and would TGO return to the top? In the end, Nils score held up, and he became National Single Stack Champion, only the 3rd person ever to win it. Sevigny, in 2nd, was only 14 points behind. Our own Phil Strader was in 4th again, just behind TJ. Smitty came in 5th. Seeklander put in a solid performance for 7th.
2 of my squad mates, Shawn Hopkins and Corey Estill, were 13th and 15th...solid guys.
Fuson made the top 20 again at 19th.
Kelly was 27th, just ahead of BJ. Good job Kelly.
Greg Martin was 33rd.
Proctor 46th.
My buddies:
Shawn Armstrong #138th
Chad Stanton 111th.
David King 150th
Jeff Brumbaugh 163rd
Me 167th
Allie Cat Barrett 209th (not bad for a 15 year old girl with an ankle brace, shooting 190pf ammo)
Jeff Alderson, 4th in Open.
And TGO? Well, late in the day the word started to circulate that TGO had DQ'd. Stage 12 was a 23 round all steel stage. All targets had to be shot thru 18" conduit pipe that was set in ports on a wall. They swiveled to expose the targets. Most of us know that you dont want to go 'into' a port if you dont have to. This match had several stages with ports that you definately had to go all the way into. According to TJ, he was turning the gun in his hand to hit the mag release, as he did this, his front sight snagged the lip of the barrel/conduit pipe. The gun, 1.x pound trigger and pinned grip safety was now spinning and cartwheeling thru the air and prob swept everyone there. TGO tried to catch it, but it ended up on the ground pointed uprange. TJ said it was one of the scariest things he'd seen in a match, and he was up next. He said he was really nervous when he shot that stage and gripped extra hard! Another witness said it was "disturbing". It was like watching the mighty Casey strike out I guess. The lesson is that even the best will DQ eventually. No one remembers the last time that The Great One, DQ'd.
9 shooters DQ'd in this match. Which seems high. But it works out to 3% which is near average for a National match.
9 shooters also got bumped into Open. Most were overweight guns, or magazines in front pockets.
Rumor has it that a world renowned gunsmith to the stars had his 1911 go overweight.
Stage 4 & 5 shared a bay and a start position. We shot stage 4, then stayed 'hot' and made ready for stage 5. A few guys stuck their mag from stage 4 into a front pocket and then shot stage 5...welcome to Open.
But the whackiest thing I've seen in a while was Jake Martens running across to a postion, all of his mags went 'pffttt' out of the mag holders. He picked them up to finish the stage and jammed them into his front pocket...and jammed himself into Open.
Team CZ/DW shooter, Sara Dunavin was favored to beat Julie for High Lady...but she went sub-minor at Chrono and shot for no score...that had to be fun.
It was an interesting weekend.
