It's a NEW RECORD..38 SHOOTERS!

Welcome to our new shooters, Jerry Garland, Ryan Feikls, Dylan Feikls, Raul Salinas, Sergio DeLeon, Kyle Mueller, and Kyle Ellis. Great turnout, great time, the day was a little long but thanks to everyone who stayed to help tear down, we got off the range at a reasonable hour.

With today's match we have finished tweaking props and concepts for our upcoming Pirates match. We do plan to post the stages for that match in advance and hopefully, that will happen around the first week of February. Speaking of the big match, there are less than two weeks left to qualify for a free t-shirt so get your applications in soon because the shirts will be way kewel.

For those who are not on the ccsteelchallenge mailing list, we want to remind everyone that Roy will be putting on a sanctioned, full-scale Steel Challenge match the weekend of March 24-25 so head on over to ccsteelchallenge.com for details.

We also want to remind everyone that Mike Merkler is holding a Safety Officer class on Sunday, January 22nd. It will be after the Steel Challenge match at CCP&R starting around 2pm. This class is open to anyone who would like to attend and there's no charge. If you're interested in attending the class, please contact Mike via mlmerkler@yahoo.com.

In closing, we would just like to say thanks to all our customers who helped us set a new attendance record today. For such a young organization, having that many folks interested in your match meant a great deal to us. And don't forget, our first Tactical Shotgun match is coming up on Sunday, January 29th followed by the Pirates of Texas Carbine Championship on February 19th.

A great day for our first match of 2012 with 30 shooters! Welcome to our new shooters, Ryan Pendergraft, Cliff Pennington, Ben Lederman, Kevin Worrell, Ken Nugent, Charlie Barfield, Marian Kupczynski, and Jeff Schumacher..thanks for giving us a shot.

A BIG welcome back to Todd “AK” Garland who made his first appearance since he injured his hand..GREAT to have you back!

We are still refining our props and concepts for the Pirates of Texas match however we had very few problems today and we will be posting the final stages probably the first week of February.

Speaking of Todd, he and Ben 1 are the co-Match Directors for our first Tactical Shotgun match on January 29th. So, bring out your favorite gauge, some bird shot..Ben 1 says about 100 rounds should do ya (but we’ll give you a more exact number soon,) and #6 shot is best.

Remember the cutoff for a free Pirates of Texas match t-shirt is January 27th, so be sure and get your applications in early because the shirts will be Way Kewel.

We know it was a much longer day than usual but then, 170 rounds was a lot more than usual too but, we want to once again express our sincere thanks to everyone who helped set up and tear down..we needed that help more than ever today.

Thanks to every single one of our 32 shooters who came out to the last Carbine match for 2011. Welcome to our new shooters; Ryan Seymour and Mark Soto, and our old friends, Johnny Gregory, Taylor Latham, and Bill McClanahan, who shot their first Texas Carbine match. We hope you enjoyed yourselves and will come back and join us again in 2012.

To close out our first year, Texas Carbine would like to express our gratitude to all our match customers from 2011. We realize you have a choice on multiple weekends each month and we sincerely appreciate those of you who have chosen to shoot with us. We of course want to wish everyone a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season and we are very much looking forward to an even bigger year in 2012.

Welcome to our newest shooter, Hector Ramirez, we hope you enjoyed the match. This match had a bit higher round count than we have had recently but, with the cooler weather, (yeah right!), we thought you wouldn't mind a little more shooting and moving. These were not the exact stages we plan to use for the Pirates of Texas match but serve as proof of concept on props, walls, and max time for stages.

Unfortunately, we had an our first injured shooter today when Todd Garland slipped while moving on Stage 5 and fell to the ground and was unable to finish the match. We certainly hope it heals quickly, Todd and do let us know when you're back at a hundred percent.

Harold Carter generously volunteered to skip shooting bullets and instead, shoot photos for us so those images will be in a gallery Real Soon Now. (Of course, I haven't had time to get Ian's sister Alyson's images up from a while back either but I promise I'll get all of them in galleries soon.)

Harold has also put Texas Carbine on Facebook so we'd appreciate help with "Likes" from any other FB users who shoot with us and thanks in advance.

Sorry the scores were posted considerably later this time but, it was a high round count match with complex stages so we finished about an hour later than usual. And, we had about a dozen folks at one big table at lunch and that took awhile, too. Anyway, we managed to get them up by 5:10 which isn't too bad.

OK, one quick reminder that there are only 10 days left to take advantage of the discounted match fee for the Pirates Match so if you haven't signed up yet, now's the time.

And finally, as always, thanks to everyone who attended the match, to those who helped set up on Saturday, and to everyone who stayed around to give us a hand putting the gear away. Hope everyone enjoyed the match and we'll see you next time.

Maytag and Nightmare

As hoped, the weather was superb for the match today AND, we set TWO new Texas Carbine records..first, 19 shooters is the most we've had at a pistol match to date and second, the scores were on the Web at 3:15 thanks to my good friend and helper, Spider. That's an all-time earliest scores posting so we're rather proud of that. It helped to only have one minor problem with a single scoresheet too so a big thanks to all the scorekeepers for doing such a great job today.

As always, we want to welcome our first-time TC shooters: Ryan Ware, Harold Carter, Allen Ricketts, and Sean Benners. We very much appreciate your patronage guys and sincerely hope you enjoyed the match enough to come back and shoot with us again in the future.

Congratulations to Rick Lilly for taking 1st place in the Open Division and to Allen "Diesel" Ricketts for topping the charts in the Revolver Division. [grin] No surprise Master Blaster turned in the best score overall but equally impressive to being fast, JK also had the fewest penalties so it would appear his regular chant of "A Zone Hits" worked out very well today. [another grin] And of course, congrats to the other Division winners; Mike Merkler and Peter Callo.

Last but not least, a BIG thanks to everyone who came early to help finalize the stage setups and to those who stayed after to help stow all the props. It may not seem like a big deal but believe me, it means a LOT to us at Texas Carbine.

Finally, a reminder about our upcoming Pirates of Texas Carbine Championship on February 19th. The applications are up on our match website and we'd like to have anyone who has volunteered to work as match staff to please fill out the app and email or mail it to us soon because we need to get shirt sizes, contact info, etc. Thanks in advance.

So, thanks again to everyone for attending, we sure appreciate your support and we hope to see you again soon. Speaking of which, we'd like to remind everyone that our next match will be Carbine/Pistol on Sunday, November 20th..

Nightmare

It’s a new record for Texas Carbine..32 SHOOTERS! That certainly made us happy and of course, we’d like to say thanks to everyone for coming and a hearty welcome to our three new shooters, Nasario Cruz, Peter Callo, and Mike Marlow.

The scores were up at 4:30 and considering we had 32 shooters, we thought that was doing pretty good.

Today’s stages made you watch your angles with non-threats but fortunately, most were reasonably close. <smile> Look for a little longer distances next month though.

Congratulations to Thunder who remains Pistol Champion (even with other pistol shooters this time.)  <bigger grin>

Spider’s sitting here telling me to make sure we thanked everyone for sticking around to help tear down and put the gear away and he's right, we really appreciate that each and every time. Also, a big thanks to Danny Garcia for tearing one stage down on his way home even after working all night! That is definitely above and beyond..thanks, Danny. Oh yeah, I almost forgot..a big thanks to Merlin for picking up the tab at breakfast this morning, especially considering the large number of guys at the table..really appreciate that amigo, and very happy to have you back in South Texas.

Finally, we are asking everyone who has volunteered to work as staff for our Pirates of Texas match to please fill out page 1 of the application and email the PDF file to us or mail us a printout so we can get to work on shirt shirt sizes, contact info, etc. Thanks in advance.

So, thanks again to everyone for attending, we sure appreciate your support and we hope to see you again soon. Speaking of which, we’d like to remind everyone that our next pistol match is on Saturday, November 5th and the next carbine match is on Sunday, November 20th.

Welcome to our new shooter, Alan Clark, and thanks to everyone else who came out to shoot with us today. As always, we had five original courses of fire and we added a new non-threat variation that made you pay attention. On top of that, the abundance of non-threat targets made most people focus on their front sight a little more. Maytag says he could not have messed up more than if he had just had a lobotomy but good company and sunshine still made it a great day of shooting.

Equally good was that we set a new record for scores posting..3:45pm and that was with a long lunch break at Rudy’s. We're getting better at it..finally. [grin]

We also had our first award ceremony this morning which was given to The Whitemore Guy following Maytag’s previous challenge of M1 Carbine skills at the last match. Unfortunately for Mike, The Whitemore Guy came out on top and for his excellent skills he was awarded a free TC ball cap so congrats to Rick.

We'll close with a reminder for our carbine/pistol match on Sunday, October 16th. Hope you can make it and bring a friend, we love new shooters.

A BIG thanks to everyone who shot with us today and we''ll seeya next time,

Maytag and Nightmare

Welcome to our five first-time TC shooters, William Lowery, Scott Goodman, Christopher Colon, Danny Garcia, and George Jahant..thanks for coming, folks. We also want to thank Kim and Rick Lilly for taking the time to shoot through all three squads and get videos for us so we can add some of those to our website media gallery and maybe even upload to YouTube. (9/20 Update: The combined match video as well as individual videos of each stage are now available via the "Videos" menu.)

Scores were up at 4:15pm again so we tied our previous record.

More good news..we got to break our OMG "it's hot" record string of baking days. It was a darn nice morning and early afternoon thanks to the overcast skies and a little breeze.

Speaking of which, with the weather continuing to cool, our plan is to step up the complexity of our stages, (at least a little,) and we have been thinking about some ideas for new props to make the matches even more fun. On that subject, we would very much like to hear from any of you, especially if you have fabrication skills that lend themselves to this sort of thing and of course, we're open to any ideas you might have for way cool props.

Hope everyone had a good time and enjoyed the five new courses of fire today and we hope you will come back again soon for another Texas Carbine match. Speaking of which, our next Defensive Pistol match will be on Oct 1st, (which just happens to be Maytag's birthday..he'll be 27..again,) and the next Carbine/Pistol is on October 16th.

Thanks again,

Maytag & Nightmare

Well, we certainly didn't need those rain bags for the targets today and yep, it was definitely another scorcher but thanks to everyone who came early to help and, those who stayed after their final stage to help tear down, we minimized the "baking time". I also want to offer my personal thanks to Michael M. for filling in for Maytag with pre-setup yesterday. It would have taken me half the day to get it done but with his help, we finished up in just a couple hours..thanks old buddy.

The scores were on the Web at 4:15 which I think is the new TC record. Spider had his first ever encounter with post match scoring duties and he did a heckuva job..thanks, Terry.

Congrats to Master Blaster for taking first place on four of the five stages but unfortunately, Michael M. and Sam M. (the famous "M" squad from Sinton,) both beat out the ace of the base on Stage 5. [smile]

OK, hope you all enjoyed the match today and that you will come back for another Texas Carbine shoot real soon. Speaking of which, this month's Carbine/Pistol match is coming up in two weeks on Sunday, September 18th.

From all of us at Texas Carbine, thank you for your patronage, it is very much appreciated and we will leave you with a couple snapshots compliments of Thunder's better half. Talk about a BIG helper (and thanks, Mel!) :-)

Regards,

Nightmare

And, for those who are not on our mailing list, we have a couple favors to ask. The first favor is, if you have any old t-shirts that you don't really need any more, please bring them to the match. We no longer have access to the shirts many of you donated in the past so we need to restock because we'd like to be able to use them in future courses of fire. And, they need to be size Large or bigger to fit over the targets. The other favor is, (and it will be a standing request for at least a few months until we get our financial heads above water,) please bring your shot timer if you have one to any of our matches. Thanks in advance for both.

Maytag is on a little vacation that will eventually include a wedding in Boston but he's walking around the Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum today. Und zo, I will be the MD for this match and for anyone bored on Friday morning, I'll be doing early setup at Starry around 0900 with regular setup Saturday at 0800. Email me if you feel like braving the heat Friday morning.

Thanks to everyone..this is starting to sound like a broken record (a dirty CD to the younger crowd,) but it was another hot one. We had 27 shooters (some of which shot two guns,) who braved the heat to shoot the match. The match ran smoothly thanks to everyone helping and we were finished and cleaned up by 1:45. So again, thank you so much for really making it a group project.

Congratulations to Stacy "Thunder" Jorgensen for his overall win in the Pistol Division. Yes, "Thunder" you're winning! (grin)

On a very sad note we say goodbye to Izzie and Jerrie Garza who are moving up north and on behalf of Texas Carbine, thank you Izzie for your service to the country in the USCG.

And a VERY big thanks to Ben 1 for the donation of a trailer to use at the range. That was extremely generous and it will come in very handy for setup and tear down.

On a personal note I will miss the September pistol match as I will be in Boston attending a wedding, but "Nightmare" and the guys will be there and I am looking forward to seeing everyone again at the September Carbine match so come on back and bring a friend.

Thanks to everyone who came out and braved the heat for our first Saturday match. We had five fun stages with a few twists including a supplied derringer to start one of them. As has become the norm, almost everyone stayed around to help with tear down and we were off the range by 1:00pm. So, a huge thanks goes out to everyone who participated and a special thanks to Stacy "Thunder" Jorgensen who drove all the way down from San Antonio just to make our first match. Needless to say we are grateful for that kind of support.

We also managed to get the scores posted by dinner time which is always a good thing. And, speaking of good things, we'll leave you with the "photo of the day" and I think it speaks for itself.

Even better than that is we all survived another scorcher of a day and everyone seemed to have a good time. Apparently our plan to keep the stages fast paid off and based on previous experience, getting off the range before 1:15 for a rifle match is better than average. So, since the plan worked today, we're going to keep this formula of fast stages throughout the Dog Days of Summer and wait for cooler temps to prevail before we go back to more complex stages.

Obviously, finishing at such an early time was also due to the fact that so many of you stayed to help tear down and put all the gear away so thank you, thank you, thank you for that. More thanks to the seven shooters who came early to help set up, that REALLY means a lot to us and we truly appreciate it.

Don't forget, our inaugural Defensive Pistol match will be in three weeks on Saturday, August 6th. It too will consist of five original courses of fire with a round count in the 100-120 range and as soon as we have them all drawn up, we'll post them on the forum. As we mentioned in a recent mailing list message, we're diverging some from the typical IDPA match and one of those changes will be that concealment is not required. If you would like to see the other differences, go to the FAQ page where we have them all listed. Again, this is a work in progress so if you have any suggestions regarding rules, please let us know.

Finally, a quick reminder for our second match in August which will be Carbine/Pistol on Sunday, August 21st. Thanks again to everyone for supporting our new endeavor and we hope to see you all again next month.

Thanks to everyone who not only came early to help setup but also to everyone who stuck it out in the heat to help us tear down. A special thanks to Terry "Spider" Panknin for ALL his hard work on the new steel and barricades.

Our next match is July 17th and we will again have five new courses of fire but we will try to design them so as to make them more weather-friendly.

Finally, don't forget our defensive-style pistol matches starting Saturday, August the 6th and be sure to check the website for any updates on these matches as well as our regular carbine matches.

14JUN

Great news!  We are expanding our match calendar and starting in August, we will be holding a Defensive Style Pistol match on the 1st Saturday at the Starry Range.

17MAY

Thanks to all those who attended our first match I believe everyone had a good time. For those of you who missed it check the photo section for highlights.

Our next match is the 19th of June. That match will have some longer range targets for the carbines.

I want to express my thanks to Terry "Spider" Pankin, J. K. "Master Blaster" Rowzee, and Rod Henderson for their work on the stands. Thanks to Ben Crabtree for allowing us to use his wall and for his other contributions to the cause.

As I told everyone at the match brief we are a work in progress. If you have any suggestions to make the matches better please let us know. We encourage everyone to submit COF and to volunteer as MD. Thanks,Maytag

16MAY

The photos from yesterday's match are now available from the Photos menu.

15MAY

Our first match is behind us and based on the large number of compliments we received at the range today, I think it's safe to say we are on the right track. There were too many generous setup helpers to mention you all by name but please accept our sincere thanks for lending a hand and we hope you will all join us again next month for five more original courses of fire and the camaderie that those of us at Texas Carbine believe is so important.

Additionally, we were able to do a little bit of photography for all three squads and I'll do my best to get them posted this week.

Those of you who know us will not be at all surprised by this news. For those folks who do not know us, we are a group of individuals that were members of another club for many years but recently decided that we would like to start fresh with our own organization.

Collectively, we have an enormous amount of experience in course of fire design, match set up, and putting on major matches, so we are very confident you will be pleased with what we have to offer.

Our goals are to give you challenging, and enjoyable matches but most importantly, strive to ensure that everyone has a good time.

Also, do not be misled by our club name. We plan to have stages that are short range and fast so we welcome and encourage handgunners to join us if they do not as yet own a black rifle or simply prefer to shoot their pistols.

Our mission is simple, we want all our match customers to enjoy themselves and we will do our very best to put a smile on your face at least once during every match. And, if you want to be kept up to date on our events, go over to the Contact page and sign up for our mailing list.

So come on out and give us a try, we guarantee that you will be made to feel welcome.

09MAY

We got the word today that our insurance is in place so we're go for the match this coming Sunday, May 15th at Starry. It will be five brand new courses of fire all of which are both rifle and pistol-friendly so bring what you want to shoot. And speaking of courses of fire, our goal is to do our best to give you stages you've never seen before..EVERY time you come to shoot with us and of course, we're always open to having you submit your own stage designs as well.

So, be sure to sign up for our mailing list or at least make a habit of checking the site regularly and we hope to see a whole bunch of eager shooters this Sunday.