In the last few years, USPSA has added two new divisions, one of which I think is stupid and one of which I think is pretty cool. The cool one is Pistol Caliber Carbine, and the dumb one is Carry Optics; we can talk about Carry Optics later. Today we’re talking about PCC and why I plan on shooting it for the majority of next year.
Most of my long-term readers know that I’ve been relatively absent from the competitive shooting scene for a couple of years. It was a combination of factors ranging from burn-out to a lack of free time, and had some other stuff rolled in to it. But this year I got the bug back again, I’ve shot some club matches, and even managed to get two majors under my belt this year, both of which I did crappy at. A large part of that was because my stage planning skills are officially in the toilet, which is what happens when you take nearly three years off from shooting matches seriously.
Plus, my priorities have changed a little bit as well – before I went into the Air Force, my shooting goal was purely to get more gooder at shooting. Now I still want to get more gooder at shooting, but there’s a bit of a purpose behind it as well. I sat down and took stock of my skills, and I don’t just mean my gun skills either. Where is my hand to hand game at (the toilet), where are my medical skills at (next to the toilet), etc. That’s what brings me to PCC, and to this gun in particular. After I took Ernest Langdon’s excellent pistol class last month, I realized that I actually have improved as a pistol shooter from where I was a few years ago, but also that making more gains at this point will require a significant investment of time.
I also looked back at all the times I’ve had to use a rifle, and it is a HUGE hole in my skills. Sure, I can do the Air Force rifle qual and shoot expert every time, but that’s because the Air Force rifle qualification is easy. When you put a rifle in my hands, it’s sufficiently different from a pistol that I feel uncomfortable, and I’ve missed easy shots with a rifle that people who are less talented pistol shooters than me would have made with a long with ease. Plus, any sort of movement with a long gun is basically witchcraft to me.
Now where could I find a place that allows me to focus on training up my gun handling, movement, and rifle marksmanship skills without being distracted by things like body armor or tactics? HMMMMMM I FUCKIN’ WONDER. In all seriousness though, this is pretty much the perfect application of competition shooting as a way to improve skills I might need for other stuff. Working the PCC means I can spend dry and live fire time building up my rifle handling skills to where I’m able to manipulate, mount, and fire the gun without thinking about it. Being able to do that means I can free up brain processing power to address other things, and that is a good thing.
Also the nice thing about being in Florida is that there are literally 5 major matches before July within 4 hours drive of me.
