Accepting Help Moving the Body – Back in the Game with the Glock 43

Ok, it wasn’t a REAL body, but I got your attention, didn’t I? I should write click bait for a living -LOL
The “body” was an old tire on the ground with a red-splashed IDPA target on it, representing my fallen partner, who I was required to drag out of harm’s way while firing on bad guy targets.
In case you hadn’t guessed by that scenario, yesterday marked my return to competition shooting – 6 weeks post-op. Now, I’m not a complete moron. I shot only the BUG portion of the stages, so I didn’t have to wear a heavy gun belt, and I sat on my folding stool like a good girl when I wasn’t actually shooting or changing bays. I felt bad not even pasting targets, but the match director gave me advance permission to be a lazy slug, so I tried to behave myself. This match was at my own club, so I am often there early helping set up, and late helping to tear down, in addition to helping run the clipboard. So being a total slug is rather foreign territory. But it was good in a different way, because it gave me an opportunity to chat with a couple women who came to watch. I am hoping that I’ll see them again with gun belts on at some point.
In the aforementioned partner-down stage, it was evident to me that chivalry is not dead. Since I’m still not supposed to do much lifting, both the SO and a squadmate offered to do the body-dragging for me, so that the attached mover would activate. I would just take a procedural penalty for it. How many gals have two men in one day offer to help them move a body? LOL – Of course I gratefully accepted πŸ™‚
Other stage scenarios involved burglars in my living room, thugs in the neighbor’s backyard, attackers at the office, and a pizza car-jacking. It must be a hoot to come up with this stuff.
It was hot out, and I was tired, but I’m very glad I went. The Glock 43 performed well on the six-shot BUG strings. There were no jams or misfeeds, and the new “01” magazines slid right in. (The original first-run magazines had a tendency to hang up sometimes, thus the second-run mags were produced to solve that). I only got my hands on the new mags the day before the match. (It pays to know the guys at the shop and to ask if you don’t see something – sometimes there is a newly arrived box in the back that hasn’t been unpacked yet.) My lovely cherry blossom holster from Gungoddess.com also performed well and brought some color to the black and khaki IDPA world.

This was only the third time I’d shot the Glock 43, so I did need to acclimate myself to the “snap” that I didn’t have last year with the G42. The jump from .380 to 9mm does indeed make a difference with such a small frame size. I had to concentrate more on “control” with this gun than I did last year with my G42. Interesting that a couple of squadmates also mentioned that they noticed the muzzle flip difference just watching me. But I was getting a better handle on things by the last stage, and didn’t feel too bad about my performance. I try to consider every match as a learning experience anyway, and for this one I had almost no expectations due to physical limitations and a new gun. And guess what? I STILL had fun!
That’s a win any day — even if if I did need help moving the body. πŸ˜‰