Zombie Apocalypse Run and Shoot in Buckholts, TX Feb. 23, 2013

[TedKennedy]

My biggest worry at the moment is my shoulder - found out yesterday my right rotator cuff tendon is only attached about 10-20%. I might need a "cheese injection" before the run. I had the other one repaired 4 years ago...it ain't fun.

Seriously thinking about bringing a milsurp bolt rifle to this event, anyway.

 

[TedKennedy]

Well - doc said cheese won't fix it. Guess I'll be getting surgery instead of running with y'all. I hope to be well enough to get some running and gunning done this summer, we need to find someone with a bit of land that would let us do this for a day!

 

[henschman]

Not cool Ted. Or should I call you Merle now that you will be one armed for a while. I will try to find us a run and gun venue for the spring/summer. There is a guy I've been meaning to ask. Speaking of crippled old men, I am going to try to drag my Dad to this. Or at least Pecos.

 

[TedKennedy]

I should be good to go for Pecos. Won't be getting much shooting in for quite a while though. Y'all have fun at the Zombie shoot.

 

[TedKennedy]

well??? let's hear all about it.....

 

[henschman]

It was a blast. It was a very well thought out course -- you could tell Michael and Mark put a lot of work into it. It was about a 3.5 mile run with obstacles and 7 shooting stations, for rifle and pistol. About 50 runners competed on Saturday. We RO's ran it on Friday. I was the last one to run in the evening (though I wasn't the last one back, haha), and I barely finished before nightfall. There was a variety of terrain, including fields, deep woods, creek beds, and hills. Obstacles included steep piles of dirt to climb, huge tree trunks to crawl over, wire to high crawl under, tires to high-step through, a tractor tire tunnel to crawl through, and a narrow bridge to cross. There were plenty of natural obstacles as well, like fallen trees blocking the creek bed trail, tangling brush, and creeks to cross.

Stage 1 was for rifle, with several targets at varying distances around 100-150 yards. You had to hit a target 5 times from each of 4 different firing positions that made you use different types of cover. You couldn't get in anything lower than a kneeling position. Stage 2 was a pistol stage in the woods, that required you to get 5 hits on each pistol target from each of several small pieces of carpet, which your feet had to be on when taking your shots. This kept you from getting a perfect stance, and sometimes required you to lean to see the target around trees and brush. Stage 3 was a similar pistol stage requiring you to fire from pieces of carpet, but it was in the open instead of in the woods. Stage 4 was called "Finding Sophia," and was a pistol stage in the deep woods. It had 13 zombie targets that were fully dressed, with green steel plates for heads. You had to engage these from pieces of carpet, similar to the other pistol stages, and get 1 head shot on each. The last one was poor Sophia. Stage 5 was a rifle stage fired from 100 yards or so in which you had to get 5 hits on a torso sized target from kneeling, 5 hits on each of 2 head-sized targets while lying prone inside an orange traffic barrel, and 5 shots on a head-and-shoulders target from standing. Stage 6 was a pistol stage that required you to go through a shoot house, come out, and get 5 hits from each of several pieces of carpet. They required you to lean around cover, shoot between thin gaps between barriers, and shoot from a squat, as well as shooting from inside another orange traffic barrel. Stage 7 was a 260 yard rifle stage called the "speed wall," with a wall of various types of debris that had 9 different shooting positions, designed to make you shoot from awkward positions. You had to get 5 hits on the target from each position. It made you shoot through a chain link fence, through the hand rail of a deck, through a small gap in a pile of tires, through another damn traffic barrel, through narrow diagonal holes in plywood that forced you to cant, etc.

I ran it with an A4-type AR-15 with a Burris TAC30 1-4x scope, and a S&W M&P .40, with 6 mags for each gun. I carried a total of 240 rounds of rifle ammo and 225 rounds of pistol ammo. I carried loose ammo, and had to top off mags on the run between stages.

I don't know how I placed or anything... they haven't released the final standings yet (they just gave out trophies for the top 3 competitors in each class). They may not even be scoring us RO's with the other contestants, because they changed the rules a bit for the Saturday event... they only required one hit per position on the speed wall rather than 5, and they changed the time limits on the stages. Apparently some of the RO's were having trouble getting their hits on the speed wall. Anyway, it was an awesome event and I am looking forward to doing it again next year.

Here are some pics:

 

[TedKennedy]

Sounds like a blast! I'll be at the next one, Lord willing.

 

[Have Blue]

We had a great time. My daughter loved it.


My buddy Derek drove down from St. Louis


This dude was shooting his Grandfather's .44 Lever Action and his Great-Grandfather's .357 revolver. He said they were the only guns he could find ammo for!

 

[henschman]

They posted the scores: http://www.battleroadusa.com/zombie-aar.html

Apparently they didn't end up giving the RO's a shooting score, probably due to the fact at some targets were changed mid-day, and there was a SNAFU on scoring stage 7. Oh well, we got everything figured out, and gave the paying customers a well-run competition on The next day. Thats why RO's run the course first I suppose. Plus this was a first annual event, so it was expected that it might be a little rough around the edges.

Based on the running score, I came in 4th among the RO's who ran combat ready division. Not bad. Much better than I did at Pecos. A little 20/20 hindsight... If I'd known that I had plenty of loose pistol ammo to spare, I wouldn't have wasted that minute or two I spent picking up ammo that I dropped, and probably would have come in 2nd or 3rd! I still have a ways to go to keep up with Alonso though. He's a fast dude... I think he came in 8th at Pecos.

 

[henschman]

FYI they're doing this again on October 26!