Tac SHAC DPC: Enter Sandman League Shoot

Tac SHAC Defensive Pistol Club (Tac SHAC DPC) held our first Defensive Multi-Gun League at Cecil Payne Shooting Range on Sunday the 1^st of October 2017.

Although shooting is a serious sport, where safety is paramount, it should still be fun and entertaining.

Earlier this year, Tac SHAC DPC, a relatively new SADPA (South African Defensive Pistol Association) club, held our first Handgun League on Easter Sunday. The theme was “John Wick”, and it was a huge success. We are now planning an annual ‘Easter Sunday’ Handgun League.

SADPA is a relatively new ‘action’ sport shooting discipline in South Africa, and it officially started in May 2001. It is affiliated to the International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA), and is based on self-defence scenarios and real-life encounters. IDPA has been in existence since 1996 and boasts over 17 000 members in 50 different countries.

Not content with one league a year, and mindful of the need to offer more shoots that utilise our long guns, we decided to host an annual Defensive Multi-Gun League around Halloween every year. We based our first Halloween shoot on the Metallica album “Enter Sandman”. Songs from the album served as the inspiration for the 7 stages. Using our well-worn artistic licence, we renamed DMG – for this league – to “Death, Mayhem, Gore”.

DMG is a shooting sport that uses practical equipment to solve simulated real world self-defense scenarios. It requires use of practical handguns, rifles, shotguns, ammunition carriers and holsters that are truly suitable for self-defence.  This is a great sport where one can transition between handguns and long guns.

Let me take you on a journey through Sunday’s match.

Stage 1

We called the first stage “Say your prayers little one, don’t forget my son to include everyone”.  This was a Rifle & Shotgun (slug) stage and themed around werewolves chasing you through a dark forest. You first have to retreat while engaging three targets (werewolves) with your rifle. On the way to cover you have to engage another three targets, and upon reaching cover you must engage a further three targets. Competitors must do this in accordance with “Tactical Priority” – basically, engage the greater threat first. Finally, you have to dump your rifle and retrieve your shotgun and engage the final two werewolves with two slugs each from a prone position. This stage was interesting in that one does not often get to shoot slugs from a prone position.

Stage 2

The name of the second stage was “Hush little baby, don’t say a word, tuck you warm within”. This one freaked some shooters out. The stage was themed around Dracula’s wife and vampires. One of our club members made us an excellent super-sized wooden coffin with “RIP” emblazoned on the lid, and there were also some additional scary props that joined shooters in the coffin. This stage started inside the coffin with the lid closed. After the start buzzer the shooter had to engage 11 vampires while remaining seated in the coffin.

There was a two-fold challenge on this stage. Firstly, the shooters were enclosed in a coffin with eerie sounds playing in their ears, and they were forced to overcome their fear and discomfort.  The secondary challenge was the targets. We designed the array to be confusing. It was one solid mass of targets with different hard covers and even non-shoot targets (which attract heavy penalties if shot) all interlinked. We designed this stage for rifle only.

Stage 3

The next stage was probably the most complicated of all the stages. Shooters made use of their handguns, rifles and shotguns. This stage was called “Dreams of Dragon fire and of all things that bite”. The scenario starts with your car breaking down and you needing to look for help in a nearby castle. You knock three times on a door, and then enter the castle where you encounter the stuff of nightmares…..

Stage 4

“Heavy thoughts tonight and they are not of Snow White” was the next Shotgun-only stage. The stage was based on the Freddy Kruger motif, and started with you having a nap on your porch. What made this stage interesting was that all the clay and steel targets had to be engaged from a small balance board. Recoil handling of the shotgun and reloading on the balance board made this stage particularly tricky.

Stage 5

“Sleep with one eye open, clutching your pillow tight”, was a shotgun and handgun stage. The stage involved three witches and their ravens. You started on a bed, with your shotgun next to you on a table, while you are clutching your pillow tight. When the buzzer chimes the shooter must engage all the “ravens”(steel and clays) with their shotgun. The shooter must engage the final targets, the Three Witches, through a VTAC board.

Stage 6

“Take my hand , we are off to never, never land” was a 3-gun stage – handgun, shotgun and rifle. The inspiration for the stage is the gaming character Vecna: his disembodied hand attaches itself to people, and then leads them to commit evil acts. Shooters started with a shotgun, then dumped the gun and retrieved said hand from a bowl of slimy green goo. While holding the hand they had to engage three targets with their handgun while on the move to a bucket of ‘acid’ – to dissolve the evil hand. They then had to drop the hand in the bucket, holster their handgun and engage the final targets with their rifle from a prone position.

Stage 7

We baptized the final stage as “Exit light, enter night”. It is themed after Poveglia island, just outside Venice, where plague victims were dumped literally in their thousands.  The shooters are paranormal investigators on the island, and dark entities attack them. While seated at a table they had to engage rifle targets at 15 and 30 metres, and three gongs at 60 metres. They then dumped their rifle and retrieved their shotgun to engaged some clays while moving backwards to a final shooting position. The course of fire ended with participants shooting their handgun through a VTAC board. What made this stage difficult was the fact there were small targets (gongs) at 60 metres, and maintaining a 180 degree muzzle safe point while moving back with your shotgun.

Although rain interrupted the end of the match, we hope everyone had fun and enjoyed the day.

Next year Tac SHAC DPC will run at least 64 shoots: every Thursday and one Sunday a month.

I hope to see you all at Tac SHAC DPC shoots next year!

Written by Lynette Oxley.

Lynette runs Tac SHAC along with her husband Paul. You can reach her at lynette@tacshac.co.za and 011 888 4037.

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