by James C. Fulmer | Past President, NMLRA
3-Gun competition essentials, then and now! Top Down: FN SLP 12-gauge shotgun; Scar 16E FDE rifle; FN-9 DA pistol; .69-cal. Tower pistol; .45-cal. Lancaster rifle, and .69 cal Charlesville smoothbore.
It’s a new calendar year, 2014! I can only hope it will be as exciting as 2013. January of 2013 started me on a new track of memories that will last me a lifetime. I have been accused by many of my friends that I think life is like a giant roller coaster ride made just for me. I believe life is what you make of it, so I go for the ride.
In January, I won the grand prize, donated by FNH USA, at a 3-Gun event in Las Vegas. It was a rifle, pistol, and shotgun combination of some of the finest firearms used for modern 3-Gun matches. Due to all the excitement and demands on the modern firearms industry going on at that time, it took four weeks to get the FN SLP Standard Shotgun, five weeks to get the FNS-9 DA pistol, and the Scar 16S FDE arrived in April. But my excitement was not only about the firearms I’d I won—also included in the prize package was an invitation to shoot in a modern FNH USA 3-Gun Championship in Glen Gary, WV, on Sept. 17-21.
So, the roller coaster ride began! I have shot in “three gun” events for years, but with muzzleloaders. The Brigade of the American Revolution (BAR) has shot the three guns that were a part of our American Revolution for years. I shot for the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment. We shot Pennsylvania/ Kentucky style flintlock longrifles, with open fixed sights and barrels of 38” length, used for four-man team competition.
Smoothbore muskets, copies or originals which were used from 1775- 1783, were also used. At the time, everybody on the team could shoot ten shots or more in four minutes starting with a loaded firearm. Many could get 13 shots or more off in the time allotted. Firing offhand, we had to hit clay bird size targets at 50 yards with a rifle and at 30 yards with the smoothbore musket. As for pistols there were two types—rifled and smoothbore. I shot both. The matches I won were usually in the rifled pistol class, using a Pennsylvania/Kentucky style pistol in .45 caliber. We never shot rapid fire or team shooting with the pistol. The pistol matches were all for individual score. I was surprised at just how much modern 3-Gun matches had in common with the matches I shot with the BAR.
Tes Salb, manager, Marketing and
Communications for FNH, left, with Jim
Fulmer. She beat him by over 100
points in the modern 3-Gun match.
I was soon signed up for the shoot in West Virginia with Linda Chico, who does the registration for FNH. By August, it was getting close to the matches and I had nothing ready.
Shooting muzzleloaders is what I do and getting ready for this modern match wasn’t a top priority until then.
That was when I started looking for the “stuff.” Shooting muzzleloaders for 40 years, I’ve collected a lot of muzzleloading “stuff.” But my modern shooting supplies were limited— especially the right “stuff” that goes on what I like to call the “Batman utility belt.” In muzzleloading, everything fits into one hunting bag and is pretty simple. In 3-Gun competition, everything fits on your belt. You also need a holster for your pistol. Being new to the 3-Gun game, I didn’t know where to look. The FN-9 Pistol holster wasn’t common in my world, but I finally found one online.
The computer became my friend for searching for the “stuff.” Local “tactical” shops in my area reminded me of how muzzleloading was 30 years ago. The Bicentennial had just happened, muzzleloading deer seasons had just opened up, and there where many, many people getting into muzzleloading supplies to make money. Only about one in ten knew the business and what they were doing. I ran into that in many of the new tactical shops which have sprung up in my area. I found a good shop near me, Lanco Tactical, LLC, and they had about everything I needed.
The good news is that by asking a lot of questions of Larry Houck, the team captain of the FNH team, NMLRA Managing Director Morgan Mundell, and other 3-Gun shooters, all of my equipment turned out to be exactly what I needed. I had learned from the mistakes I made when I first started shooting muzzleloaders. Back then, I read books and didn’t talk to the people who were actually doing it.
You can learn more about muzzleloading by going to a rifle match, watching, and asking questions, than you can by reading and looking through catalogs or online. I can’t say that all my muzzleloading equipment was just what I needed, because I have a lot of muzzleloading “stuff” that I used once and put aside.
Left to right, Larry Houck and Mark Passamaneck, the people who help make shoots happen.
It just wasn’t the right tool for the job.
When the day of the 3-Gun event arrived, you can bet I was nervous. It was like the first day on a new job. I may have shot muzzleloaders for 40 years in competition, but this was different, or was it? I was assigned to Squad 11. Here for the next three days I learned a lot about the 3-Gun sport. I will admit it was more than I ever expected. I can’t say enough good things about the people who made me feel at home on Squad 11. There were Michael and Cheryl Fordyce from Tallahassee, FL, who were terrific and were able to answer many of my questions about “What’s next?” They kept me pointed in the right direction.
I paid a lot of attention to Nick Siesser and Joel Fox who were fun to watch.
They made it all look easy. They shot for the US Air Force 3-Gun team. The people who I met and shot with in these matches made me feel welcomed.
They did everything they could to make me successful and to want to come back to shoot again and again.
The winner in my division, Tactical Optics, was Greg Jordan with a score of 835.8547; the High Woman in my division was Kay Miculek with a score of 580.8530. Then there was me: I shot a score of 149.3540, which was last place of the people who completed the course of fire. At one point I didn’t feel too bad because I came in 257th and I knew there were 300 competitors; 43 competitors had quit the course due to malfunctions or disqualifications.
I was in last place of those who successfully completed the course! Those three days in West Virginia sure flew by. Now, looking back on it all, I know it was an experience that I will never forget. I had to laugh, after the 3-Gun match, Rick Porter, president of Turn-Key Tactical Solutions, sent me a five-page list of shooting tips. Many of them I had already heard and all of them apply to all shooting sports. Such gems as: “A slow hit is a better hit than a fast miss,” or “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail,” and “In a crisis, you will not rise to the occasion, but merely default to your level of training.” So, now it’s a new year—2014, and once again the 3-Gun National Championship will take place on Jan.
15, at the Clark County Shooting Park in Las Vegas, during the same week as the NSSF SHOT Show. If you get an opportunity, hop on that roller coaster of life and go watch a 3-Gun match near you. You will be glad you did, and it might even give you ideas to improve your muzzleloading skills! Have a very Happy New Year!
