On April 6th the Beckley Gun Club, a 3GN Club Series affiliate, recently held its first installment of the “Black Bear Pistol Series” events. The series, produced by Match Director James Long, features the 3-Gun Nation Pistol rules. The 3GN Pistol rules are a part of the multi-layered ruleset that offers 3GN Clubs the opportunity to run single-gun disciplines within the 3GN Classification system.

While many pistol tournaments consist of bay stages featuring technical movement and shot placement, the Black Bear Pistol Series showcases this with an additional ‘outlaw’ style. The inaugural event featured five stages with high round counts on each.

“Stage one was modeled after 3GN multi-gun stage ’16-13 Long Run’ with a 36 round count” said Long. “All combined the match featured over 190 rounds.”

Stage one entitled “Clear the Field” featured a 50 yard run engaging targets on the move. The remaining stages featured a jungle run, a double-bay stage among other challenges that utilized the natural terrain available to Beckley Gun Club. Each featured diverse array of targets such as swingers, texas stars, falling steel and plate racks. With up to 80 yards of movement on these courses, Long didn’t hesitate to pull out all the “outlaw” stops for this event.

“We wanted to create something different, and the 3-Gun Nation rules helped us accomplish our goal” said Long. “We wanted to create a pistol-match with an outlaw style to give our competitors a tougher physical challenge.”

At the next Black Bear Pistol Series event 3-Gun Nation Classifiers will also be used to allow shooters to obtain classifications and leader board placement in the Pistol category. With one event complete, two more are scheduled for June 8th and October 26th. The classes for these pistol matches are Unlimited, Practical, Factory, Heavy, Unlimited PCC, Practical PCC, Unlimited Rimfire Pistol, Factory Rimfire Pistol, and Practical Rimfire Pistol.

“There have been high standards set by other pistol competition organizations using various scoring methods for paper targets.  However by using 3-Gun Nation scoring rules the center circle scoring allows competitors to either run full throttle or slower with accurate shot placement. To me it combines playing basketball and playing chess at the same time.”

To register for the June 8th event log in to the 3GN Membership Site >>>  

or visit Beckley Gun Club online >>>

To learn more Email the Match Director, James Long at: jameslongbgc@yahoo.com