Not with 400 of the world's deadliest sportsmen and women in Missoula on Wednesday to open the United States Practical Shooting Association national championship at Deer Creek Shooting Center, each one of them intent on blasting their way to the title.
“When the pros start shooting you hear the starting beep and then all you see is a cloud of dust,” said Oregon City, Ore.'s Paul Meier, one of the event range officers. “Those guys are fast.”
The targets are human-shaped and every stage is different from the last, each with its own unique guidelines and stressors. The stages for this year's event - each designed by a local shooter - have names like “Shootout,” “Bunker Bust,” and “Warehouse Rats.”
Dave and Joe Bridgway drove 21 hours from San Diego to - ahem - take their shot at being the best in the U.S.
“We'll go halfway around the world if we have to,” said 24-year-old Joe, who along with his dad works as a instructor at a shooting range in California.
Competition in all stages is broken into two different firearms divisions. The “limited 10,” division calls for stock weapons with 10-round magazines. In the “open,” division, shooters use specially modified pistols sometimes called “race guns,” that cost between $3,500 and $5,000.
“It's a true equipment race,” Dave Bridgway said. “You're constantly trying to build the better mousetrap.”
The gunslingers are also arranged by skill level, grand master being the highest.
To their knowledge, the Bridgways are the only grand master level father-and-son shooting team in the nation. They are regulars, traveling the country from April to August every year to attend USPSA events.
By 10 a.m. Wednesday they were on course at Deer Creek - located between East Missoula and Bonner - to gameplan for a stage called “Float Trip Ambush.” That event required shooters wear life jackets while taking out a gauntlet of 11 brown cardboard “bad guy” targets and sparing white cardboard “hostages.”
Hitting four steel baddies at the end of the stage tripped a pair of moving targets, but the Bridgways said the course looked pretty easy and the winner at the grand master level would probably be decided by a hundreth of a second.
Both also said practical shooting is as much about strategy and as it is about good, smooth shooting.
“You take an 18-year-old grand master and a 45-year old grand master and make them run the course, the 18-year-old is going to outrun the older guy,” Dave Bridgway said. “But then again, old age and treachery usually beat youth and skill.”
Meier concurred.
“Most of the guys who are in the same (skill level) classification usually have the same physical abilities,” he said. “After that, it's a mental game.”
The shooters are a diverse lot. Most of them wear brightly colored shirts emblazoned with sponsorship logos. Some wear jeans and cargo pants, others athletic shorts and baseball or soccer cleats. Some are covered in tattoos and others look like they sing in the church choir.
In the stage called “Request For Proposal,” the participants started seated, with a gun and small box on a table in front of them. Grabbing the gun and knocking the box to the ground tripped a set of moving targets and then the shooters ducked through a pair of makeshift walls to shoot around a half a dozen more.
Women in the grand master class ripped through the course in about 10 seconds, shooting each target twice.
“There are a fair amount of women that come out and compete,” said Rebecca Jones, an “A” class shooter from Richmond, Virginia. “There are some of the top women (in the nation) that I'll be competing against. I'm looking forward to seeing how I do against them.”
There are 18 stages in all, with competitors completing around three stages per day. The national championship runs through Saturday at Deer Creek Shooting Center.
Spectators are welcome, but eye protection is required and ear plugs are recommended. Organizers also ask those interested to try to carpool, as parking may become an issue.
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