RED EYES AND RED DOTS –KAOHSIUNG LEVEL TWO SHOOT

IT’S BEEN HALF A YEAR SINCE STEWBACCA LAST GOT BEHIND HIS SIGHTS IN ANGER FOR A TAIWAN PRACTICAL SHOOTING ASSOCIATION ORGANISED COMPETITION (THE KAOHSIUNG LEVEL 3 WEEKENDLONG CHRISTMAS SHOOT FEATURED IN ISSUE 158!), AND WITH THE CLOSURE OF THE MORE LOCAL SHOOTING CENTRE THAT USED TO HOST THREE HEATS A YEAR, AND HIM MISSING OUT AGAIN ON THE PENGHU ISLANDS SHOOT SINCE COVID CANCELLED THE PRIOR ONES, IT WAS FINALLY TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH ALONG WITH A REASONABLY NEW GUN!

Regular readers will no doubt remember my Christmas spirit being somewhat rekindled by the arrival of the ASG licensed KJWorks CZ Shadow 2 Orange and its initial review in Issue 159, and it’s been working very nicely ever since, relegating my earlier heavily abused standard Shadow 2 to a wall hanger for now. With the advent of the new year the TPSA big-wigs appear to be catching up to the real steel world and decided to announce the opening of the Production Optics subdivision for competitions as of 2024. Missing out on PengHu again was a shame, but it did at least give me a little more time to settle into using a red dot on my competition setup.

I’ve used red dots on pistols before, indeed my venerable KWA HK45 which was my first and only gun for the first half year of me being in-country ended up sporting a replica Docter sight red dot on a rear sight replacement mount and bagged me many an OpFor scalp at Action Bunker back in my first year of playing in Taiwan. Similarly I’ve slung SRO replicas on the likes of the Krytac Maxim 9 for review purposes and gotten used to aiming with them almost as intuitively as optical sights on my SMGs and long guns. This, coupled with the generally excellent outof-the-box accuracy of the Shadow 2 Orange with its fixed outer and inner barrels, means it really has felt a bit like cheating since putting the Vector Optics orange-cased red dot my friend John of Gaosen Kinetics down in Kaohsiung was kind enough to send me for experimentation and to match the rest of the Shadow 2 Orange’s aesthetic!

The intervening months at the beginning of 2024 have hence been somewhat of a ‘brave new world’ for me; running an optics-enabled pistol has allowed me to significantly close the gap between my performance and that of my SPPT teammates who tend to favour open guns with cantilever red dots, Clarence Lai was good enough to give me his Shadow 2 Red Dot sight mount to replace the rear sight with a multi footprint optics mounting plate, and in my case I went for the RMR/SRO footprint originally and then switched out to the SRO-like Vector Optics offering John sent me later on.

It really does change the game an awful lot, and having bounced ideas around in the team chat page with Bill and our newly assigned deputy editor for the US in the shape of Dan (who’s also had a lot of recent red dot experience in both airsoft and real steel usage, so we may make a bit of a thing about that in future) I’ve always been firmly of the opinion people should learn on iron sights and understand marksmanship principles with the fewest force multipliers to begin with.

Having switched to red dots on pistols really has made a noticeable improvement in my transitions, ease of maintaining accuracy and stacking rounds on each other on paper targets as well as eliminating Charlies in many cases; I tend to be shooting stages clean with relative ease and minimal misses or makeup shots now the hovering red dot of clarity is my guide instead of the fuzzy front sight and focal plane issues of before… ‘learn on irons, win on dots’ has become a new maxim for me, it seems.

“WITH MY SPPT TEAMMATES DRIVING THEMSELVES DOWN ON THE SATURDAY IN SOME CASES, AND MYSELF AND THREE OTHERS TAKING THE BUS FROM TAIPEI AT JUST BEFORE 0300 ON THE SUNDAY I WENT HOME AFTER WORK AND GOT SOME SHUT EYE AFTER PREPARING MY GEAR THEN HEADED TO THE CITY CENTRE BEFORE PUBLIC TRANSPORT SHUT DOWN”

In The Shadow Of The Temple

Thus it was announced that our next opportunity for team mischief would be a one day Level 2 match in Kaohsiung at the TPSA shooting ground in the shadow of the Taiwan Tian Tang Temple as with all the previous Kaohsiung shoots. This time it would be six stages of varying lengths, with three short courses, two mediums and one long course totalling 96 shots for minimum scoring requirements.

The upside of this was I didn’t need to take any time of the day job for the Saturday on this occasion as all the shooting would be done and dusted on the Sunday in particular the 14th of July. The downside was logistics and getting all the way to the opposite end of the country for a 0900 sign in and briefing and then back to Taipei that evening; luckily I still have Monday and Tuesdays off to help recover, but it was definitely going to be a sub-optimal ‘red eye’ overnight bus ride down there!

With my SPPT teammates driving themselves down on the Saturday in some cases, and myself and three others taking the bus from Taipei at just before 0300 on the Sunday I went home after work and got some shut eye after preparing my gear then headed to the city centre before public transport shut down for the day, hanging out at my favourite pub a short walk from the central stations and ‘taking on fluids’ to help my try and sleep through the bus ride; at least we had the peak of luxury; with electronic controlled reclining lazy-boy style massage chairs and enough leg room on the bus – bliss!

We all managed to rest relatively well for a few hours at least and I awoke just as the sun was creeping up over the central mountain range to the East around 0500, with some good photo opportunities at least, and a surprisingly tranquil and epic view to start the day. Transferring by Uber from the bus station to the shooting ground at the other end we were actually there a bit early and spent some time acclimatising to the increasingly blazing sun, but as others started to arrive we soon shuffled over to sign in along with our teammates who had arrived in their own cars.

In the end it seemed there were only 18 competitors in total (normally the competitions wane a little over the summer months, the MilSims and even regular game days likewise) as a lot of the locals aren’t daft enough to go out and shoot in the weather here during the mid-year thermonuclear inferno! Nonetheless many of us came from Taipei and Taichung to compete given the shortage of opportunities in Action Air IPSC as of late, the advantage being we all went in a single squad and played all stages in numerical order making logistics and everything else a little easier on shooters and range officers alike.

STAGE 1 – CROSSROADS

First up was a medium course of 18 rounds total for score; 8 paper targets, 3 with no shoot obstructions, one popper and the ending plate, all arranged in bays to the front and rear left and right of a cross shaped fault line boundary in the middle of it all, with the shooter starting at the rear centre of the back limb of the cross. 90 points up for grabs, and a condition 2, a magazine in but chamber empty start, actually preferable for me sometimes as I’m fast on the draw and slide rack and it avoids me having to use the long stroke double action first shot.

I shot it all clean apart from one Charlie towards the rear; I fired 21 rounds in total with a few extra in there on papers to make sure, and a pretty slick reload during my move right to left through the middle of the cross; 88 points in 17.13 seconds. Fairly clean, but a little slow all told, only 82.97% of the stage winner and putting me in 5th out of 6 in the production optics division. Not a disaster, but it seems my movement is always the limiting factor; when it comes to marksmanship or shooting from fixed or inconvenient positions or stances I seem to do fine, it’s just my old-man knees holding me behind the whipper-snappers.

STAGE 2 – ARROWHEAD

Our first short course, this comprised an inverted V of fault lines with a further inverted V of barricades inside its angle with barrels obscuring targets that had to be accessed from both sides of the V, and opposing barricades at the point, with a central opening to engage through. Just four papers, two with no shoot obstructions and a lone popper to the front right as well as the stop plate rear and centre. 50 points up for grabs, condition one start with the magazine in and chamber loaded.

I began at the rear right and shot it clean, aside from a no-shoot on the left which I put a grazing shot through due to it being close and not being used to my height over bore with the red dot, then unfortunately as I slid backwards at pace on the final left leg of the V I rode up over the soft corrugated piping of the rear fault line without realising!

Most places including our training space use hard wooden bars for fault lines that offer a more tactile response through your shoes, and a few people had similar issues elsewhere in the day, so two procedural penalties for shooting with my heel out of bounds as well… only 20 out of the 50 points as a result, in 12.13 seconds which put me in last with only 33% of the lead score as a result; I guess I kept a lot of F^%& ups in one stage there…

STAGE 3 – SQUARE CIRCLE

The long course of the day was our third stage, a large square ring fault line box with an island of barricades and targets in the middle, and various targets radiating out behind barricades in the back and front corners and along the front edge, all papers able to see over a lot of the barrels obstructing the targets, the miss and charlies just ate into that benefit.

PAUSE, HYDRATE… AND REPEAT!

We broke for lunch and retired to our competitor’s gazebo to try and escape the midday blazing sun, in this case. 13 in total with 3 sporting no shoot obstructions, and the stop plate rear and centre again. 135 points for 27 shots total to score, with a rear centre start in condition one again.

I got 116 points in 29.50 seconds giving me just 58% of the winner’s score. Not ideal. I fired 32 rounds with two reloads on the move to ensure some makeup shots and despite that I still ended up with 2 charlies on some of the longer targets and a total miss on the first low right close one through a window; I’m not sure if it was a gun problem or me just missing something which should have been an easy point and shoot target at that range, but there was only one hole when they checked it… sad times. Otherwise I was pretty happy with the stage optimisation and movement which took advantage of my height being although I ended up with lobster legs and arms as it was a very dry and sunny day with the UV hitting ‘extreme’ and the temperature hovering around 40 degrees Celsius!

We were all chugging water and sports drinks (see Bill’s article on hydration this issue for more on this!) to try and stave off the dehydration and heatstroke, with mixed results; a few of us really started feeling it in the afternoon stages with some folks having the typical ‘buffering’ brain fart moments pausing mid stage to gather their thoughts under the searing sunshine.

STAGE 4 – GET THE L OUT OF HERE

After the usual Taiwanese lunch box of rice, meat and veggies accompanied by sports drinks and team

“WITH THE ADVENT OF THE NEW YEAR THE TPSA BIG-WIGS APPEAR TO BE CATCHING UP TO THE REAL STEEL WORLD AND DECIDED TO ANNOUNCE THE OPENING OF THE PRODUCTION OPTICS SUB-DIVISION FOR COMPETITIONS AS OF 2024” chatter, we congregated for the next short course of the day, an L-shaped fault line box with a single no shoot obstructed paper and popper behind barrels on the targets through the bars I somehow ended up dead last in 6th out of 6 with a lone charlie on one of the rear targets; I was just slow at 13.69 seconds its right rear limb, and a popper on the right with 3 further papers and the stop plate at the front of the other limb.

Condition one start, 60 points with 12 shots total to score. Starting at the rear left corner of the limbs of the L shape I did much better on this one placing 4th of 6 with 92% of the winner’s score, shooting it clean in 10.71 seconds, with 12 shots fired; reasonably happy with that, and not so far behind the lead!

STAGE 5 – BEHIND BARS

Another short course, this consisted of a small lateral bounding box of fault lines with paper targets either side and a further two paper targets hidden behind a barricade with a window featuring vertical bars that the rear targets had to be engaged through. 9 shots total, 45 points to score and a condition 2 start with a magazine in but empty chamber again.

Despite having a bit of a height advantage spotting and 56% of the lead score. I think the heat had been getting to me and the gun perhaps… I fired 13 rounds and had to do some makeups but still ended up with a charlie as the rounds pinged off the barrels obstructing the side targets; I guess at least I realised that and corrected for it somewhat, but it ate into my speed and time too much.

STAGE SIX – PRESS F TO REPEAT

Closing out the afternoon was an inverted L / F shaped bounding box of fault lines with two papers in the front end, one obstructed with a no shoot, and 7 more papers two with no shoots, a single popper and the stop plate all arranged in multiple barricaded bays along the front edge.

Condition one start, 21 shots to score and starting at the front right edge of the fault box; unfortunately I ended up with a somewhat hard to explain Charlie Mike on one target but shot the rest clean. Some of the other shooters noted that my gun didn’t seem to cycle fully or made a wired noise on that target so perhaps the heat was making it less reliable with the gas pressure in the magazine fighting the hammer and its spring opening it; whatever the case I had a paper with a single hole in again and lost out as a result…24.17 seconds. I shot 23 rounds and it also seems like the ending plate didn’t register my first shot, so I lost a few seconds re-acquiring it and making sure; it’s kind of annoying when that ruins an otherwise good run, and some of the IDPA guys dabbling in IPSC that day almost forget to bother each time as they usually use more modern acoustic timer sensors that pick up shot noises even with airsoft guns, so don’t have to bother with the electronic stop plates. Regardless it felt fairly fast when I was shooting it, but the penalties incurred sunk me to 88 of the 105 available points and just 52% of the winner’s score.

With all the business end of things dealt with we all retired once again to the gazebo and unloaded our magazines and stowed them before going to the safety area to unholster and stow our pistols while the scores were being finalised. Despite the hiccups and losses on some of my stages, I was otherwise fairly happy; the gun and red dot had largely performed well aside from a few minor issues caused by the extreme heat, and me having to get used to the height over bore, and personally I’d planned the stages well and executed the plans well without missing things stupidly like in the previous competition. Nothing was left unengaged, I just had a few inexplicable misses and the one no shoot from quite close in, overall not terrible from my point of view; it’s all a learning experience each competition, especially with a whole new set up that’s a departure from the last four years of competing. At least it seems it has helped me speed up in general while making my usual accuracy even easier.

With that we retreated to the inside upstairs of the imposing TianTang Temple for the awards ceremony; as a result of the atypically low turnout some of the divisions only announced the lone champions, however Team SPPT walked away with champion positions for standard division. Ou YiChing, and open division, ‘Mars’ Liu HanLin. Lin DongLiang took second place in open division, while James Chou took third place. Li YaoZhong took Champion for production division, Tsai Min Shu took second place, and Jake Chen took third place. Tsai YiCheng took champion for production optics division, and Jordan Huang took champion for classic division running his 1911 and a lot of magazines!

With the award ceremony dealt with many of us dispersed, while a few of us waited for our Uber back to the HSR station for the homeward trip, the weather suddenly turned and we were treated to a pretty epic thunderstorm with driving rain and gales that we finally managed to escape as our ride arrived. We made our way to the high speed rail at the other end and thankfully managed to get a whole row of seats for the three of us heading back to Taipei, a pleasant departure from the usual nightmare of Sunday nights returning home in Taiwan.

Many thanks as always to the TPSA staff and range officers for organising the shoot despite the lower turnout, and to all the competitors for their usual sportsmanship and supportive banter environment, as well as of course my team SPPT teammates for helping to arrange everything and travelling with me. Until the next challenge, which will probably be Kaohsiung again for the usual Level 3 at Christmas, fellow shooters… AA

THE AWARD CEREMONY DEALT WITH MANY OF US DISPERSED, WHILE A FEW OF US WAITED FOR OUR UBER BACK TO THE HSR STATION FOR THE HOMEWARD TRIP, THE WEATHER SUDDENLY TURNED AND WE WERE TREATED TO A PRETTY EPIC THUNDERSTORM WITH DRIVING RAIN AND GALES THAT WE FINALLY MANAGED TO ESCAPE AS OUR RIDE ARRIVED”