They start this Sunday, April 9th at the Del-Tone/Luth range in St Cloud.

Don't expect a huge match but you will get a chance to play with all 3 guns for only $10. Set-up will start at 9:00 am and the match will start at 10:00 am or as soon as the stages are ready to go. Directions at www.dpmsinc.com/Tri-Gun_Directions.pdf

Mini match dates:
Sunday, April 9th
Saturday, May 13th
Sunday, June 11th
Sunday, July 23rd
August 18-20 Tri-Gun Challenge (advance registration required - not a mini match)
Sunday, September 24th

Care to enlighten us less informed members what a 3-gun competition consists of?

Composed of shooting the following weapons during the match
Handgun
Shotgun
Rifle

Just in case you don't blast away enough ammo at a standard pistol match

I understand there are 5 gun matches also, for those who just can't get enough of that smell of gun powder fumes!

Mostly-

Run-n-gun with pistol, rifle, and shotgun. Sometimes all in the same stage.

Or in other words, more fun than you can shake a stick at. At least legally, anyway.

Here's some video from, arguably, one of the premier 3-gun matches in the world down at the NRA Whittington Center in New Mexico. It is the JP Enterprises/Rocky MT -Gun. This video was made by the Cavalry Arms team. If you keep an eye out you may see me ROing the stage where you shoot the steel plates with the supplied frangible ammo at muzzle contact distance. Great fun.

http://www.cavalryarms.com/RM3G/RM3GMV.wmv

Wow. Hehehehe, I might have to go buy a nice AR-15 and good shotgun for that. Hey, would an M1, M1A or M14 work for that competition? I was looking at buying one of those for service rifle competition anyway. Do you have a link to rules for this?

ETA: Well, I can't afford guns to get into this for the April 9th date, but I might be able to get into it in the future. Cool beans.

M1As work fine. In fact there is a fairly new category called "He-Man" or "Heavy Metal" division depending on which match you are attending. He-Man usually consists of

1. A .308 or larger caliber rifle with no more than 20 rounds loaded per mag and iron sights. No comps. No bipod.

2. A 12 guage, or larger, pump shotgun. Iron sights. No comp. No speedloaders. 8 round mag capacity.

3. A .45 handgun, or larger. Mag capacity varies from 8 to 10 per mag, depending on the match. Iron sights. No comp.

I shot He-Man at last years Rocky Mt 3-gun with my M1A scout rifle. My 870 pump. (my house gun) And my Glock 37 in .45 Gap. (my other house gun) Targets were anywhere from point blank out to 350 yards. Long distance rifle targets are usually steel plates 8-12" in diameter. Gets interesting with iron sights.

Right now rules vary from match to match. The only matches that will have a set standard of rules is a USPSA 3-gun match. The other matches are affectionately known as outlaw 3-gun matches. But for the most part you have

Limited/Standard division:
Iron sights on everything. No comps. No speedloaders for the shotguns.
No bipod on the rifle. Muzzle brakes can be no larger than 1" diamater by 3" long.

Tactical division:
One optic is allowed on the rifle. You may have a back up iron sight on the gun. No bipod allowed on the rifle. Limited division rules apply to the handgun and shotgun.

Open division:
Anything goes. If you can drag it to the start position, you're probably good to go. Multiple optics on the rifle. Bipod. Large muzzle brakes. The shotgun will usually have a dot scope on it and wil be reloaded using speedloaders. The pistol will have a dot scope, comp, and 28, or so round mags.


Scoring can also depend on the match. Some go by the Major/Minor power factor that penalizes you if you are shooting 9mm or .223 and you don't get good solid hits on the target. If you get good centered hits then you get scored the same as the larger caliber guns.

Some score by neutralizing the targets. You either have to have two hits anywhere on the target or one good hit in the "A" zone. (center mass) Or head shot. so either take your time and aim or hose two shots at each target which seems to be the preferred method.

3 gun = GOOD FUN

If I were worth a crap with open sights out to 200 or so I would shoot He Man - Till I get the eye transplant that I so deperately need - Standard Division will have to do.

Cool, thanks for the link. The shooting stages look like fun, though the knifing of the (guard?) dummy at the start seems juvenile, kind of like high school kids in a role playing game.

Also, what's with the death metal sound track? Talentless, boring, annoying, and again... juvenile. Is there some unfortunate link between this (alleged) music and the shooting sports? I've noticed the folks at Bill's seem to favor that dreck too. It's quite annoying to have to suffer through that alleged music while trying to shop there. Causes one to leave the store early rather than browse (and maybe buy). Might help business if they just turned it off (hint hint )

Pinnacle wrote



I had my optometrist grind me a set of glasses (really only the dominant eye lense and not with bifocals) with the optical center at the portion of the lense used when sighting. He had me assume a sight picture I would use on a rifle and put a mark on the lense. Then he specified that mark to be the optical center when that lense was ground.

A tremendous difference. The sight picture was bright and crisp. Literally, the first time I used the glasses, I put the rifle up and was so surprised at the clarity of the sights I put the rifle back down in amazement.

I used the "Health Care Dollars" of my health care benefits that must be used up each year or you loose them.

sounds fun but I only have a bolt rifle