Quick blurb of shit I learnt.
These are things I've heard before, blah blah blah... but as usual I got a slap of reality tonight.
1. I've had weapon lights for years now but shooting live ammunition IN THE DARK for speed, accuracy, use of cover, can make you feel like a gun virgin again. There is no substitute. I swear, the shit you never even think about like the amount of smoke and flash from different ammo and how it messes with your follow-up shots because your new 800-lumen weapon mounted light reflects off of the smoke like a sob. I'm wondering if my go-to ammo will suffer from the same blinding reflection now that I have an 800-lumen light.
2. Good event (thanks Sean!) that has a low-cost and potentially high return in knowledge and skill improvements. I'm not an operator, I'm not military, I'm an average joe and I pay for every round of ammunition I shoot and manage to squeeze in rangetime between working 60hrs/week. The high-return in knowledge and skills all depends on your mindset and how you choose to seize an opportunity like this. For me, I genuinely put effort into every shot, I had plenty of lame excuses for misses... and I appreciate events like this, especially when there's smoked chicken (thanks whoever brought that!)
3. Maybe the most important. Don't get comfortable. Going to the range at 11am every weekend is good practice but I feel like I stopped learning. The last time I shot in the dark was a little over 1-year ago, I thought I was decent. I was wrong. I have to shake up the routine. The dark was just half the complexity, the other half was jumping jacks before start, and dashing 40yds in the mud between stages, while on the timer. My first run in daylight was a respectable 75 seconds, my run in the dark was fucking 244 seconds (after penalties).
4. If you somehow manage to shoot all of the no-shoots on a stage designed by Sean, your score will be >200 seconds.
Thanks again to the peeps who continue to put these together.