Another strong turn out for Steel Challenge

At Cheshire County Action Pistol we run two competition formats per month, PCSL and Steel Challenge.

The diehard following that Steel Challenge has impresses the hell out of me, and 2024 has me very excited to switch from USPSA to PCSL this season. The PCSL format has dominated our Wednesday night practice sessions over the winter and into this spring. We are constantly brain storming ideas of what we can do differently to be more efficient and exciting with the PCSL format of Action Pistol. We don't tend to have those conversations about Steel Challenge, and for good reason. The workings of Steel Challenge are simple because the 8 stages are the same every time and do not require the creativity of IDPA, USPSA or PCSL matches. With the stages being the same every time, it may seem like it could get boring, but it never does. It is actually very important to the growth of a competitive shooter in a lot of different ways. First, and what I would consider to be most important, Steel Challenge is less intimidating for new competitors entering the shooting sports arena. The introduction of new competitive shooters to a sport which consists of standing stationary and hitting 5 targets repetitively 5 times in a row is significantly less stressful than running through a course loaded with drop turns and Texas Stars. Knowing that the shooter drops the worst score of the stage definitely eases stress when they just can't seem to hit a target like they did the string before. So, if they really mess up on one run, it doesn't matter. It's forgiven. Secondly, Steel Challenge gets shooters back to fundamentals. Eight Stages and five strings per stage of working on par times, splits and transitions. The "Smoke and Hope" stage helps me with calling my shots and transitioning before hearing the audible ring. The "Outer limits" stage helps build confidence in my distance shooting. All the stages favor shooters who master these fundamentals but even the novice can compete and have a great time.

Saturday was another tremendous success at Cheshire County Shooting Sports Education Foundation. We arrived at 7:30 am to find that Dan had already been there for 45 minutes putting the final touches on the stages. Dan takes great pride in hosting the two matches every month. It is incredibly important to him that everything goes smoothly and every shooter goes home smiling. Registration completed at 9am, the 57 guns were divided into 6 squads and we proceeded to let the lead fly. We had competitors from the Canadian border of Vermont driving almost three hours to shoot the eight stages of steel. We had a number of people saying that we have one of the nicer facilities and layouts that they have come across. (I agree with them. I am proud of our facility.) We had several shooters that were new to the competitive side of the sport. We also had a lot of repeat shooters, which is possibly the biggest compliment of all. We blasted away throughout the day and the final shots rang at about 4pm.

Next weekend is our second PCSL match of the season and it looks like a lot of people have signed up on Practiscore to join us. I have heard rumor of some new and exciting additions which I cannot wait to see in motion. We also now have the ability to have shooters pay ahead of time through the Practiscore website. $25 for a match is extremely reasonable. Some of the shoots around us cost 3 and 4 times that much.

Click here to see past competition results or to sign up for future matches. https://practiscore.com/clubs/ccssef_steel_challenge_scsa

Thanks again to Dan for spearheading this operation and a big thank you to all the volunteers that spent countless hours setting up, scoring and tearing down the stages. These people donate a lot of their time so we can reap the benefits.