2019 is a new year for me in many ways, including a fresh start in both my personal and professional lives. It only seemed fitting that my first shooting competition of the new year would be in the organization that I started with what seems like a lifetime ago, IDPA.

I began competition shooting as an extension of my law enforcement career after the horrific Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting. When I first read the news story, I asked myself if I could make a headshot on a body armor-wearing suspect in a panicked, crowded movie theater. I wasn’t happy with my answer when I was being completely honest with myself.

I immediately sought out my local IDPA club after learning that IDPA emphasized defensive and scenario-based shooting that seemed to offer what I was looking for. My first match left me feeling painfully slow while watching the other experienced shooters, and showed me how much I had to learn. Instead of discouragement, I found a challenge and excitement for my next match and my love for competition shooting was born.

The 2019 Healy Arms Arizona State IDPA Championship gave me an opportunity to evaluate my skills all these years later and decide if the journey had improved my original answer to that life-and-death question.

The 2019 Healy Arms Arizona State IDPA Championship was hosted at the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club and run by match director Eric VanHaaster. Eric consistently puts on efficient and well-run events and the match started exactly on time as it always does. The Arizona weather was outstanding that morning and several of my squad mates from last year had again made the long trek from Michigan to escape the freezing north and bask in the Phoenix sunshine.

Variety is the spice of life, and I often try new divisions and change things up frequently to keep learning and improving on a variety of firearms platforms. I opted to compete for the first time in the CDP Division with my Fusion Firearms 1911 I had picked up in a scorching deal from my shooting teammate.

The horse prop that kicked off the match.

My first stage of the match was the exact same stage I ended on the year before, the crowd favorite simulated horseback stage. This year the props department upped the ante by including a fresh pile of horse manure behind the prop, which was probably a teeny-tiny step too far in the realistic defense shooting department.

We all got a good laugh at the joke and ignored the smell as the first shooters began to navigate the relatively quick stage. The start position was seated on top of the horse with your weapon resting on a flat surface, one hand on the reigns of the horse and the other with a toy sword resting on the shoulder of a no-shoot target.

On the buzzer, you retrieved your pistol and had to lean left and right around several no-shoots, engaging in a series of increasing-in-range target arrays. On first glance, the stage is a thoughtless endeavor, but the Phoenix Rod and Gun Club has one small nuance to it; the blinding Arizona sun coming over the mountains in the morning.

At certain times it’s hard to see for about an hour during our weekly matches and I was hurrying the shooters in front of me along before the sun broke the peak. I could see the mountain getting brighter and brighter as the sun rose and, unfortunately, time was not on my side. I could see as I sat down on the horse to begin the stage that one of the targets was a brown blur against the blinding light pouring over the mountain peak.

Once the buzzer sounded, I worked the stage up to that point and aimed at the blurry center of the target and hoped for the best. After I completed the stage, my hits on the hidden target held up and I breathed a sigh of relief as the first stage jitters began to dissipate. The match was off to a good start.

The next stage started with some hands-on interaction. Three threat targets at point-blank range stood in front of you and you were required to hold down a swinging target with your dominant shooting hand to start the stage. At the buzzer, you released the target causing it to rapidly swing back and forth in front of you as you engaged the three targets and navigated the rest of the stage along a shooting fence line.

This proved to be trickier than it sounded and some shooters who failed to take a big enough step back got a nasty whack on their hands from the swinging targets. A few shooters nearly lost the grips on their weapons, which would have been a match DQ. Having the no-shoot target whizzing by your face as you engaged targets was a fun rush if you managed not to get your hands whacked to end your match.

Our squad worked through the next few stages and then broke for the traditional lunch from Firehouse Subs. IDPA never leaves you hungry, and the lunches were quickly consumed as we all traded range war stories and tried to compare our results to other shooters and squads.

We moved on to the chronograph and inspection stage, which featured a cool new addition to this year’s chronograph process. Gone are the days of shadow boxes and sunshades as the match featured a table-top radar chronograph from LabRadar.

The LabRadar chronograph simplifies the chrono process.

If you haven’t seen one yet, they are about the size of an iPad and stand vertically next to you on the firing table. You no longer have to wait for a ceasefire to collect your equipment or make an adjustment. It can sit right next to you while prone or from any other position. This piece of equipment is going on my shortlist of future purchases.

This tight hallway headshot was the most difficult of the match.

The next stage featured the hardest shots of the match and was the one I had been waiting for. You started the stage with your hands flat on a solid wall and, on the buzzer, you worked around the wall to a simulated hallway. A paper target concealed a popper that, when activated, presented an impossibly fast turning no-shoot target that gave you one look at the required paper target behind it.

The only viable option was to fire your two required rounds on the paper popper combo and then take two headshots at about 20 yards with the no-shoot directly under the neck of the head. After the difficult hallway shots, you navigated a few more twists and turns and engaged targets. If you missed your earlier headshots, you could make up the shots at about 10 yards.

The theater scenario that brought me to competition shooting all those years ago lay in front of me and I was about to find out if these years of work had made a difference. At the buzzer, I made my way to the hallway and activated the popper with two quick shots.

A quick turn of the no-shoot target came and went and I carefully aimed my headshots and squeezed two rounds off. I continued working the stage, and as I fired my last shots, I didn’t bother to look if made my hits or not as I wanted to know if I made them the first time, when they counted the most.

As I walked to the headshot target for scoring I could see two, large .45 caliber holes in the head of the target and not a mark on the no-shoot. If anything, the last several years of shooting has allowed me to pick up a weapon like the 1911 I rarely use and make tight headshots if I need to, hopefully on the range and in the real-world if I ever need to.

No matter how the rest of the match turned out, I was satisfied with this one small moment of victory. Everything else was just icing on the cake.

Healy Arms shooters picking up multiple CCP awards.

Ironically, the last stage of the match created a similar scenario. It included another paper target concealing a steel popper that released another headshot-only target in front of a no-shoot target. With my confidence already riding high, I finished the match with two additional hostage-style headshots and my match was complete. We all gathered at the prize table as the awards were handed out including division winners:

SSP: Eric France (overall match winner and high law enforcement)
CCP: Jacob Wedge
CDP: Eric VanHaaster
ESP: Brian Puller
Revolver: Jason Steiber

Though I didn’t receive a division plaque or any special accolades in the match, I received something I cherished more: the peace of mind I had sought all those years ago while I pondered that nightmare theater shooting scenario.

I still have a lot to improve in my shooting skillset, and my journey and training continue. We all shoot IDPA and competitions for a variety of reasons and each of us finds fulfillment in chasing those reasons. 2019 will continue to be a rebuilding year for me and I’m excited for what small and large victories the rest of the year will bring in my shooting, professional and personal lives.