The Inside Scoop from the TWSC — Kelly Bachand Reports
Kelly Bachand competed in the 2014 Trijicon World Championship. Here his TWSC report from Day Two, which involved a 3-Gun Nation-type stage, an F-Class rifle stage, and a .22 Rimfire rifle stage.
Report by Kelly Bachand, Kelly’s Gun Sales
3-Gun Action
Day Two included one of the more exciting events, the 3-Gun stage. My squad was just behind the squad with a bunch of 3 gun shooters in it, so I had fun watching Taran Butler, Daniel Horner, Jerry Miculek and others shoot the course. It was a pretty straight-forward course, 10 falling steel pistol targets, 8 clay shotgun targets, and six 3-Gun Nation rifle targets. We could shoot them in any order we wanted. The pro 3-gunners shot it shotgun first, pistol second, rifle last. When it was finally my turn to shoot I was pretty sure I had a plan made out in my head. I started with the shotgun and went 8 for 8 on the clay targets then burned the last round in the hill so I could just dump the shotgun into the barrel. To my extreme pleasure I went 10 for 10 on the falling steel pistol targets and then grabbed the rifle. I fumbled with the safety a bit but finally got it to fire and shot the two outside targets, one from standing and one from a high kneeling position. Then I kicked my front leg way out to a very low kneeling and shot the final 4 targets from beneath the barricade. Most folks shot those targets from prone, but I felt like it was a little quicker just to sit down into kneeling. I did that in about 36 seconds, the fastest shooters did it in about 20 seconds.
Kelly Bachand at TWSC (from Day 1)
F-Class Style Competition at 500 Yards
Next we shot an F-Class-inspired stage at 500 yards. The coolest part about this stage was the electronic scoring system (photo below). There were some other top rifle shooters (Carl Bernosky, Brandon Green, Rob Mango) here and I chatted with some as they came off of the line about the firearms and the conditions. Unfortunately they told stories of rifles that were shooting pretty tall groups, somewhat unpredictably. We shot .308 Win FN rifles with 20″ barrels and detachable box mags. There was a variable-power illuminated optic on top with a bipod and rear rest underneath. Unfortunately, I have to agree with my fellow long range shooters, the set-up wasn’t quite right for the F-Class target, and furthermore it was setup so that us long range shooters had no advantage at all in that stage.
.22 LR Rimfire — Position Shooting at 25 yards
Last stage of the day was a .22 Rimfire stage inspired by smallbore competition. We shot targets from 25 yards with the Magnum Research 22 (like a tricked out 10/22) with a Trijicon RMR on top. We shot standing, kneeling, and sitting. We got two sighter shots, but we had no spotting scopes or further feedback after those two sighter shots. I had fun with this match as this reminded me of my first introduction to competitive marksmanship, my high school air rifle team. I harnessed my inner high school self and shot a 148 out of 150, I think that put my towards the top on that stage. That was a very fun and accurate 22 rifle!
