Having a good preparation will maximize the experience. With right equipment ready, you would be ready and eager to attend your first match.
One thing that could make a lot of difference is having a good handgun manipulation techniques. Equipments are hardwares and manipulation skills are softwares. You'd need both to maximize your experience.
There are people who claim that you will learn all the techniques from just participating in the games, but that is more akin to trial-and-error. You can learn a lot more when you are prepared and enjoy more.
There are some of skills you could learn to maximize your match experience. Those are,
- Drawing fron holster
- Reloading magazines
- Clearing malfunctions
These are things that could happen during a match and when you are prepared, you will enjoy it more. Here are something you might want to keep in back of your mind.
Reloading techniques:
In some venues, you have to be careful with the reloading technique of your choice. Most people use a form like this:
This is the most efficient and the fastest way to reload. You can see most if not all professional shooters use this as their loading technique.
However, there are somethings you have to be careful with. This is not a shortcoming of the technique, but rather a limitation posed by the range or the club. In certain ranges and clubs, if your muzzle is pointing up, they will warn you.
Like the above photo, your muzzle will end up pointing towards sky. In some ranges that means if a round is fired accidentally during reload, it will launch the bullet over the berm. In an indoor range it will put a hole in the ceiling.
Because of this some ranges have restricted such reloading technique. So instead of having it point upwards, you have to point it down range and parallel to the ground This can be a bit awkward, but an acceptable way in those restrictive ranges.
Another thing to note is when you cannot reload with the muzzle pointing up. Even though the range allows you to reload like that, if you are shooting a course of fire, be careful when and where you perform it. For a right hand shooter, trying to reload while moving from right to left side of the berm will result in muzzle covering every spectator that were behind the starting point. Not good.
Also, be aware of some loading techniques. In USPSA/IPSC, there is no use for tactical reload or retention reload. However in IDPA, there are rules that force shooters to use certain technique over another. So be aware of the difference.
Clearing malfunctions:
If you maintain your guns properly, chances of malfunction is really low. However, if it happens you want to be able to clear it. There are several different ways to clear the problem, but whatever you do, don't break the 180 degree rule or the match rule.
