Top Shot Recap

Top Shot All Stars Season 5 Episode 3 on the History ChannelIt’s Wednesday again and if you haven’t had time catch last week’s episode of Top Shot All Stars on the History Channel, here is your recap.

The main event was a speed challenge with the Sig Sauer 229 in .40 Smith and Wesson. Half the contestants names were pulled randomly and, one at a time, they were required to chose who they would shoot against. They’re seemed to be a lot of belly-aching about who each shooter might pick, how they were all friends and didn’t want to hurt each other’s feelings. It surprised me that they were so focused on the emotional side of shooting against one another. Most said they didn’t want to be the name drawn, who would then do the picking. Again, this seemed odd to me, since this person would have the opportunity to “call-out” a person they thought they could beat.

When it came time to chose the match ups, those whose names were drawn were gentlemen about who they chose, attempting to make each shoot out a balanced show of skill. While I found this to be chivalrous, it seemed overly sensitive and sappy. As for the match ups, here is how they shook out:

Adam chose Kyle, and Kyle proceeded to win. William chose Jamie, who some felt, intentionally, shot poorly in practice. Jamie, who uses the Sig 229 as his duty weapon, won. Brian chose Alex and beat Alex. Peter chose Gary, and Gary, who also uses this pistol as his duty weapon, won the match up. Joe chose Kelly, and though he is known to be “rifle-centric”, Kelly actually came in with the fastest time, over all. Chris chose Gabby, and while she was able to hit the first target, Chris was much quicker and won. Last to shoot were Chee and Phil, relieved that they did not have to chose or be chosen. Both of these shooters seemed to take their time with the three targets, suggesting that they really weren’t feeling the pressure of this event.

In the proving ground, the losers of each match up went shot for shot, again using the Sig 229. Chee and Gabby ended up with the shots furthest from the center of the target. It was somewhat poetic to see Gabby and Chee forced to compete for the right to stay on the show, as they did in the fourth season. At that time, Chee fired the shot that sent Gabby packing, and nobody wanted to see that happen again, least of all, Chee.

The elimination challenge was set with rows of steel plates that had to be knocked down in succession. A miss would bring back the entire row. The gun was a Schofield Revolver. During this episode, Gabby did not seem her normal happy self, that is, until she was practicing for the elimination challenge. At this point she mentioned that most guns, and this large heavy revolver especially, were designed for men. She stated that her goal was to figure out how to deal with this issue in order to shoot well. One of her tricks, was to load to rounds into the cylinder at a time, a solution that seemed to leverage a woman’s smaller, nimble fingers. Still in his head, Chee explained that he was intimidate by Gabby “a monster with guns”, and that he worried about remembering to cock the hammer.

The challenge commenced, and though it was a nail bitter, Gabby finished her last row of steel plates, long before Chee. As the episode wrapped up, the competitors could be heard describing Gabby’s shooting as precise and classic, while Chee, they said, was off his game. All in all, the competitors seemed exceptionally sensitive in episode three, too sensitive, if you ask me. It seemed as if too many of them couldn’t get focused and just shoot. Hopefully we won’t see more of this tonight.