In about 13 days I’ll once again be hopping a plane, this time bound for Oregon. Crimson Trace is holding an invitational 3-gun competition out there, one with a rather big twist — the shooting starts after the sun goes down. The range will be completely pitch black, with the exception of whatever lights and lasers you bring with you. And for some reason, I’ve been handed an invite to participate. I’ve spent the last two months preparing for whatever they might throw at me since the stages had yet to be announced, but recently the site has been updated with the final round counts and stage descriptions. And let me just say that it blows the lid off the FNH Nationals from last year…

Let me just list the stage guns real quick — the ones they provide with free ammo:

  • FN SCAR-L Full Auto
  • Glock of some sort
  • M4 with Night Vision and IR laser
  • MG (looks like M249) with FLIR thermal sight

In short its shaping up to be pure awesome. I mean, what could possibly be better than machine guns and laser sights in the pitch black?

The reasons behind the competition are pretty obvious — Crimson Trace makes lasers and such and wants to show off their gear, and there’s no better way to do that than to have a bunch of people field test the gear under some pretty demanding circumstances. There’s even an incentive to use CT’s gear: The purse is significantly larger for the champion if they use at least one CT item on each firearm.

Since I received the invite (from Iain Harrison himself, no less) I’ve been practicing up. I’ve switched from my standard competition AR-15 to my .300 BLK AR-15 with silencer, hoping the more flash suppression I can get the less my night vision will be affected. I’ve even had a midnight shooting session over at the Kee ranch, killing steel from 100 yards away with nothing but the stars and my flashlight leading the way. And while I still haven’t figured out a proper flashlight solution for my shotgun, I’m hopeful that I’ll come up with something shortly.

Naturally I’ll be taking pictures and video of the whole thing for your enjoyment. Rumor has it we’ll also be visiting some kick-ass firearms factories in the area. And if you wanted to check out the stage descriptions, they’re online here. Stay tuned.

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11 COMMENTS

  3. Looking at those stages makes my very jealous of and happy for you, and makes me want to do that kind of thing. Time to get to work on building a black rifle, I guess.

  4. Lord have mercy! That sounds like more fun than wrestlin’ with your girl cousins.

  5. That sounds like it is going to be one hell of a match!!! WOW I am curious how they are going to do video of this match it seems like the low light stuff would be difficult.

  7. Oh man, that sounds like fun and grats on the invite also:

    “Naturally I’ll be taking pictures and video of the whole thing for your enjoyment. ”

    Thank you.

  9. WOW!!! Holy laser sites and flashlights batman!!!
    That sounds like a awesome competition! Jealous doesn’t even begin to cover it…
    Good luck and we look forward to your on location reporting as usual! 🙂

    Also for those in 3 gun comp, for those of us in CA, how are things usually handled given that unless we had a pre ban rifle we need a bullet button and 10 rnd magazine? I really would like to compete, but just wanted to ask.
    To that end the Richmond competition which happened last weekend looked awesome.

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