Back in the World!

Back from a week at U.S. Training Center/Blackwater at the the advanced shotgun seminar put on by Mossberg. Had a wonderful time...any day breaching doors with a shotgun is a good day. Mossberg shotguns are what they are...tanks...the ultimate pieces of debugged self-defense technology. They're also willing to get out there and produce some exotic stuff still available for civilians, like the Roadblocker above or the too-cool Just-In-Case gun in a tube. Yee-haw! We filmed a full day for SHOOTING GALLERY's 10th season, including my personal worst simulation.

I've been trying to think of some excuses for my miserable performance on a ship-storming scenario...the only thing I can claim is that I've been traveling so much that I'm simply exhausted and my brain needs a hard reboot. I found myself in the middle of the sim going, "What the frack?" Jeeeeeez. I somewhat redeemed myself to myself in the final competition, where I was narrowly (2 seconds on a 115 second course) bumped out of first place and winning a gun by Eric Poole from Intermedia, who is in fact a much better shooter than me. Things were going swimmingly on the run-and-gun shotgun/pistol course when I got cocky, missed a close-up plate with the 14-inch NYPD Mossberg 590A1 pump and had to pick the shot up. That was the difference.

Loved the 14-inch NYPD 590, BTW. 3-dot night sights (yeah, I could do without the rear dots) with the rear sight on the rear of the barrel rather than the receiver, shorter fixed Speedfeed stock. I would happily replace my trick Vang 870 with the NYPD gun once I got the tax stamp and had Hans Vang re-do the barrel just on principle. First shot in the competition was a 50-yard slug shot on a 12-inch plate after performing a buckshot to slug ammo transition. I hit it first shot no problemo, despite the shorter sight radius.