Matt in TN

For those who have shot my March matches or other Run N Guns - this match is a little different. I decided early on I can't "out badass" 5th Group, so I'm not even going to try. My March matches are simple fun events which test your skills and fitness level. The Legion match is a chance for civilians to actually experience a watered down version of what our 5th Group friends live every day, and is the closest we can get to "real world" in a safe competitive environment. For example - 5th Group rarely knows exactly what they're in for until they get there, so all stages will be shot completely "'blind" and there will be no stage details released before the match. 5th Group never quits, so you can't either. You must keep shooting until you either run out of ammo or the RO makes you stop. There is no "taking the penalty and moving on." It's not always clear who the good guys and bad guys are in the field, so you will be briefed on various intel items as part of the match and be expected to remember, analyze, and decide who and when to shoot and who not to shoot. On the clock. While you're exhausted. In other words, you must be able to perform physically. You must be able to shoot well. And you must be able to think and process information while doing both of the above. More info coming soon. Good luck!

I'm honored to announce I'll be helping to put on the second annual Legion 9/11 Memorial Run N Gun on Sept 8th and 9th, 2018 at Rockcastle Shooting Center in Park City, KY. Details are still sketchy this early, but I wanted to get this out there now to get on everyone's calendar. This will be a benefit match for the Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 (who takes care of 5th Special Forces Group soldiers and their families out of Ft. Campbell, KY). See last year's event page to get an idea what you might expect: https://www.facebook.com/events/1623894691019344/ All photos by Lisa Stennett BACKGROUND: When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, the country needed a response. The Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group, known as “The Legion,” answered that call. From crushing the Taliban in Afghanistan, to dismantling Al Qaeda networks in Iraq, and combating the Islamic State in Syria, The Legion has carried the torch in the fight against America’s enemies. Many of the battles have been fought in the shadows, known only to those who were there. This 9/11, the Special Forces Association invites you to honor the dedication and sacrifice of The Legion by participating in the second annual Legion 9/11 Memorial Run N Gun This match is an opportunity to test rifle and pistol skills in stages based on combat situations faced by members of The Legion throughout their history. Both a 5k with 5 shooting stages and a 10k with 7 shooting stages will be offered, so you can choose your level of challenge. All proceeds from this match will be donated to the Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 – an organization dedicated to supporting the Soldiers and families of the Special Forces Community. WHAT YOU NEED: Minimum Rifle Round Count: TBD Minimum Pistol Round Count: TBD (Recommend carrying 2 x minimum rnd count. Also, there will be a side matches you can shoot as well) - Rifle that can reach out to TBD yds - Rifle sling - Enough rifle magazines to hold the minimum rifle round count at least - Enough rifle magazine pouches to hold your rifle magazines - Pistol with secure holster (must cover trigger guard) - Enough pistol magazines to hold the minimum pistol round count at least - Enough pistol magazine pouches to hold your pistol magazines - Headlamp for navigating the cave to/from the shooting portion (you cannot use a weapon mounted light for navigating the cave) - Tac light (pistol mounted or hand held) for the shooting portion in the cave - Clear Eye Protection - Hearing Protection TIMELINE: 8 SEPT 0630 - Registration 0730 - Shooters Meeting/Safety Brief 0800 - First Runner TBD - Awards Ceremony 9 SEPT 0630 - Registration 0730 - Shooters Meeting/Safety Brief 0800 - First Runner TBD - Awards Ceremony

Sorry, no. These are the "outlaws outlaw match", with no set rules or governing body. Several of us know each other well and copy each other's good ideas - and several of us have never even met and disagree on what a Run N Gun should be. So they are all different, and they are all good in their own way. Probably the best way to hear about upcoming matches is a Run N Gun discussion group/community on Facebook. Like any FB Group it has has its share of stupid stuff, but it also has a good amount of good stuff.

I lied - one more post. I keep getting questions like "why am I just now hearing about this 'Run N Gun' thing, and where can I find one near me?" So here's a quick graph showing the exploding growth of Run N Gun recently to answer question #1, and a map of all the current RNG locations to answer question #2. Every Run N Gun is slightly different, with different rules and expression of the centerfire biathlon idea. I love the variety and think it's a good thing they are all so different, but be sure to ask a lot of questions and understand what you're in for before you just show up and expect it to be exactly like the last one you did.

This is my last post and I will let this thread die a good death: Here's a short compilation video you can share with your friends when they ask "What on earth is a 'Run N Gun'???" It is 3 days of awesome crammed into less than 5 minutes, so it is an assault on your senses that you will likely have to watch multiple times to catch everything that's in there. Hopefully it provides just a glimpse of what it felt like to participate. Stay tuned until the end for a special announcement!

I fully intended to do a "Ladies of Run N Gun" group picture at the event, but I got distracted and forgot so this collage will have to do. We had 4 awesome ladies shoot the 5k, 5 shoot the 10k, and 2 freaking AMAZONS shoot both in the 15k challenge. Note to all the big beefy guys who really struggled with the slackline - every one of these ladies made it across. :-)

I'm not sure if everyone saw these guys, but we had three different young men shoot the 5k Saturday. These kids showed more fortitude, respect, and skill than I EVER had at their age. I really look forward to seeing what they'll do with our world as they get older and we hand things over to them. Ben Trumble is 11 years old, Thomas Ray is 12, and Logan Carmical is 13.

We had a bunch of people not fill out the gear data in the registration form, but here is a summary of the data we do have. The Rifle Manufacturer data is so cluttered it's useless - other than it's a list of various rifle manufacturers represented at the match. No surprise that the vast majority of competitors shot an AR-15 in 5.56x45. The pistol data was better filled out. Again, no surprise that a Glock 9mm seems to be the pistol of choice. The Pistol Manufacturer graph is cluttered with too much data and hard to read, but I was a little surprised that the XDM beat out the G19 in the models carried, and the G17 wasn't nearly as dominant as I thought it would be.

Since so many people had trouble with the slackline I asked the two time Combat Class winner this weekend to demonstrate his technique for getting him and his 50lbs of gear across the 40' span. There are several different ways to do this based on your own personal strengths and exactly what you're carrying, but this one worked very well.

I saw several of you frustrated on the course because you did not finish (DNF) a course of fire before your time was up. Here's some data to put that in perspective - you were not alone! I know it hurts to not finish, but from looking at these numbers I think the difficulty level was about right this year. Even better - we had a very similar VTAC stage (but actually easier) last March and 62% of the people could not finish it. The Rifleman stage was almost identical with the exception of more visible targets this year (and MUCH better weather!). Last year we had 56% of people DNF that stage. No matter which way you cut it, we are seeing a HUGE improvement in both shooters and runners year over year.

Here's the 10k age data with the same caveats: only 55 out of the 72 competitors gave me their ages (so the others are left out of this data) and Combat Class and Race Class are mixed together.

I had many people wanting to see how they did against people their own age, so I collected VOLUNTARY age data during registration and tried to think of a way to present it that would make sense. There are two problems with this data: 18 out of the 81 people that ran did not give me their age so I left them out, and Combat Class is thrown together with Race Class in this data. But knowing all that - here's what I came up with. Knowing your own age and times/scores you should be able to figure out where you fell in this range. Here's the 5k data summary. 10k is in the works.

Hard to say - none that I KNOW of, but we didn't take names or anything.

Pictures are up! Feel free to use these however you wish, but please give a photo credit to my wife, Lisa Stennett, as the photographer when you do. ESPECIALLY if you use them for commercial reasons. More to come - https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisastennett/albums

Here's one of the coolest match videos I've seen yet:

Enough bad news. Here are the 15k results. My ROs are highlighted in yellow because they deserve special recognition. They had to run the 10k and then only had 15 minutes to reload and regear before running the 5k. Everyone else got a couple meals, a shower, and a full night's rest before doing it again. The people highlighted in green ran Combat Class, but in the 15k challenge there was no class provision so they had to go head to head against the Race Class folks but with 25%+ of their bodyweight on their backs. But every single one of you are badasses to the extreme.

Everyone: I am physically ill over this and I cannot express to you how sorry I am, but I found a fairly major error in the scores this afternoon. The short explanation is that my spreadsheet that calculates net run time did not take into account the wait times on Stage 6 and 7. This was 100% my error and the lovely ladies helping me do the scoring were not at fault at all. While I was correcting this error I also improved the accuracy of the net run time calculations to include partial minutes instead of rounding off to the nearest whole minute. Some of the scores were close enough that this mattered. Unfortunately, this changes three of the trophies I handed out yesterday. Logan Dudley was the true 1st Place Race Class winner and Greg Reynolds should have been 2nd Place Race Class. Trevor Saunders was the true 1st Place Combat Class. Logan, Greg, and Trevor - I'll have new trophy glasses made and ship them to you if you'll email me your addresses. Bryan Ray, Logan, and Greg - please keep the trophy glasses I already gave in error with my sincere apologies for the mistake. Top Grunt and Top Amazon results did not change. 5k Results did not change. Again, I can't express how sorry I am for this mistake and will do my best to be sure it (and the faulty scale SNAFU) never happens again. Please do look over your scores and don't hesitate to let me know if anything else doesn't look right. "Stage 8" in Practiscore is your net run time in minutes (NOT "seconds" like it says). The other stages should be fairly self-explanatory. 5k Results are here: https://practiscore.com/results/new/52965 10k Results are here: https://practiscore.com/results/new/53116

Last one (I think!). Last night waiting on my front porch was a package from Nosler for the prize table: Two 500 packs of their .223 70gr Ultra-High BC RDF Match Bullets, and two 250 packs of new .223 brass. Thanks Nosler! https://www.nosler.com/

Today Vortex Optics (http://www.vortexoptics.com/) delivered me FIVE Impact 850 rangefinders for the prize table. These can range a reflective target out to 850 yards, and correct for a true horizontal distance if you're ranging up or down at an angle. This puts us at a mind-blowing grand total of over $25,000 in value up for grabs this weekend. There will be give-aways for everyone during registration, and four out of every ten people will take home a bigger prize. I know we are all here to run and the match itself truly is the real prize. But I'm blown away by the generosity and support of not only the vendors but our fellow competitors as well!

Yesterday out of the blue I had a 5th Special Forces Group Chaplain donate EIGHT certificates for a 4-day training course for Defensive Handgun, Shotgun, or Rifle from Front Sight Firearms Training for the prize table. These retail for $2,000 each, so that's SIXTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of training that's up for grabs. What a great surprise! https://www.frontsight.com/

OK - I just sent an email to all competitors with the final details and reminders. If you did NOT get an email but think you are registered and paid, check your spam folder. If you still can't find it message me and we'll see what happened.

Today's prizes come from Samson Manufacturing - who donated two of their new SXS-LW handguards. I bought one of these for my daughter's little M4-gery last year and it went from a 1.5 MOA rifle to a sub-MOA rifle, all while getting lighter and cooler-looking to boot! Thanks Samson! https://www.samson-mfg.com/

Yesterday's prize package delivery was from TRU-SPEC. They sent six different prize certificates so you can choose the size and/or color you really want on these great products: 24-7 Series Grid Fleece Pullover Circadian Backpack Trek Sling Pack 24-7 Ascent Shorts & Drirelease T-Shirt 24-7 Series Tactical, Ascent, Delta, Vector or boot-Cut Pant (x2) Thanks TRU-SPEC! https://www.truspec.com/

More reminders for newbies: You will need EYE and EAR PROTECTION for this match. Yes, running with glasses on sucks. Either deal with it, or take the extra time to take your glasses off when you run and put them on before you shoot. We just have too many opportunities for ricochets and plenty of loud noises to let this go. If you show up to a shooting stage without eye and ear protection you will not be allowed to shoot and receive a zero score for the stage. You will also need a STOPWATCH of some sort. There's a good chance when you run up to a stage there will be someone shooting there already (and quite possibly a line of people waiting to shoot). At that point, the RO will tell you to start your wait time. Start your stopwatch, and let it run until it's your turn to move forward. During your wait time you are NOT allowed to sit, take off your gear, eat, drink, or do anything but just stand there exactly as you ran up - it's like a "timeout" and it should not give you any advantage over those who didn't have a wait time. Photo credit: Lisa Stennett

Prize table surprise: a competitor reached out to me yesterday who does BEAUTIFUL leatherwork and pledged an AR mag pouch with a certificate for a holster and a pistol mag pouch to fit your choice of weapon. It looks like George Johnson (https://www.facebook.com/george.johnsoniv.5) is your man if you want to have some leatherwork done - thanks George!