Starting on your knees (on carpeting) changed your point of view!
With 65 shooters plus staff, family, and friends, the 2016 “ASI Hand Sized Handgun Championship” broke records in Washington. “You guys are doing a great thing here,” said Russ Bates. “I had a great time, and I’ll be back.”
As a senior with physical limitations ASI’s relaxed, enjoyable style fits Bates perfectly. Others, like overall match winner Malcolm McIver and Match Director Rick Breneman got a chance to shoot their pocket pistols in a serious way.
Breneman designed the match with a 5-shot pistol in mind, and several people brought them. Brian Hallaq (who runs the ASI program at Norpoint Indoor Range) brought a modern 5-shot, .38 Special snubbie. “It’s rough shooting that double-action trigger, especially one-handed,” he laughed. His skills and the moon clips on his late-model S&W made quick work of required reloads.
Stage after stage showed Breneman’s ideas – ideas that often “just can’t be done” in other sports.
Brian Hallaq moving into position with his .38 snubbie.
On one stage, shooters fired two rounds from a supplied AR-15 in 9mm before switching to their pistol. Later they shot stationary steel targets (Steel Challenge style). Props were common – everything from plastic guns, to poker tables, to shooting from inside a real car!
As we said earlier, Malcolm McIver won the overall title in the “Non-ASI” group. Washington’s Regional Coordinator Marcin Pawlina topped the ASI competitors, with Blake Gruger topping the group for Non-Conforming Handguns.
Amid smiles and laughter as shooters waited for their scores, a prize raffle gave away two $50 Taylor Freelance, LLC gift certificates, along with ASI memberships, T-shirts, and more.
Breneman tells us the ASI Hand Sized Handgun Championship will return to Renton Fish & Game club July 29, 2017.
Scores are available on the forum now.