Bort's 2024 2-gun experience
Overall, this was a huge learning curve for me and I came out the other side a much better pistol and rifle shooter, and it challenged lots of preconceived notions I had. This isn’t meant to be a deep dive on gear review but what worked and didn’t work. Keep in mind, my gear is just for reference and is not meant to be seen as endorsement or a goal for the audience to match. You can do this with non-optimal gear, and I encourage it.
Do not wait on replacing sub-optimal gear to sign up for a match, just sign up.
Do it now.
Right the fuck now, go.
If you get anything from this document, it’s that you need to go shoot a match right now and you’ll learn what you like and don’t like and what you want to prioritize. I could write a 20-page paper on everything but frankly you will learn so much more just showing up. I promise you, you can do this.
Gear you need at a bare minimum:
-Electronic ear protection you enjoy wearing for the better part of a day. Use this as an excuse to buy Sordins or higher end, Sordins are the #1 quality of life upgrade I’ve made for shooting. However, your Walkers are just fine. Non electronic earpro can be used but it’s miserable.
-OWB holster with good retention and a pistol (3-4 mags minimum) with a belt that won’t sag if you sprint with it. You don’t need a Safariland first thing, you can get a Bladetech for a first holster and make it work. You can’t use an IWB holster here, and you’ll struggle with a sub-compact.
-Semi automatic rifle (I’d consider 4 mags minimum).
-Backpack/rifle case you’d use at any other range day, chamber flags.
-Medical gear (this could be a whole paper to be honest but consider a tourniquet and wound packing at a bare minimum.)
-Food, water, weather appropriate attire and sunscreen.
That’s it. Chest rigs and mag pouches are mandatory if you’re going to keep doing it but I have fucked up and forgotten both before and still ran the match using jean and hoodie pockets, I did not bottom score.
Here’s what I use:
My KP-15/BCM upper:
I started off with a Strike Eagle LPVO and I hate it for 2-gun. Upgraded to a Trijicon MRO HD mid competition and it was a significant improvement. If all you have is a red dot you’re actually not only just fine but it can be ideal.
Pistol:
Gen 5 Glock 19. I dropped a Glock factory performance trigger in. I'm one of those freaks who enjoys base Glock triggers, so this was nice but not necessary. I put a Trijicon RMR HD on it that was excellent. The auto brightness on this rules, the huge buttons rule, circle dot rules.
Chest rig/backpack.
Went through a few different belts, you can use any belt and the limiting factor is how much weight the belt can hold before it sags. Highly recommend a Hanks or a Kore ratcheting belt eventually. I use a Haley strategic chest rig and I hate it. If you want advice on what gear to get, just go to Esstac and they’re just about a one stop shop for what you’ll need.
Here’s how to survive your first match and not get sent home early:
The 180-degree rule: The RSO will always go over this, but every bay has the 180 rule. There is a line and if your barrel goes back behind that line, you not only lose that round you don’t get to finish the day. That’s it, you can spectate, but you’re done shooting today. I have seen geared out people in full plate carriers and helmets fuck up 5 minutes into the first round get disqualified breaking this rule and waste an entire day. You need to move only as fast as you can safely handle your muzzle. Consider that if you’re right-handed your muzzle with be on your left. If you turn to your left and run and don’t think about it, you just broke the 180 and are done. Plan your stages not just for scoring but ways to move where the muzzle is already facing downrange when you walk. I am left-handed and when I run to the right, I literally just grab the front of my hand guard with my left hand and force the barrel downrange, or I will switch shoulders. YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS DOWN PAT, FOCUS ON THIS BEFORE WORRYING ABOUT SCORING HIGH. You will have to learn to put a safety on before you walk from target to target. You will be shooting at targets close to the 180 and you need to learn why it’s safe and how to be safe doing it.
Other safety rules are to not elevate the barrel above a safe elevation, the RSO’s at whatever range you’re at will answer this question. Do not shoot targets or stage equipment you’re not supposed to shoot. Listen to the RSO’s, they will make it clear. Make sure you know how to clear your rifle of all ammo safely. Generally, you need to know how to be safe.
Height over bore for rifle:
The tl;dr on this is that your sights are above your bore on your rifle obviously, and for shots taken at close range (around 10 yards or closer) you need to aim higher than you’re zeroed for. This target, the red is where I aim with an AR-15 with a 50 yard zero. You need to practice this for yourself, but this is a good guesstimate for starters.
Walk the course:
Before every stage you’ll get time to walk the stage. Use every second you can to figure out the safest way to do the stage and consider the rules for the stage. When you get good at doing stages safely then you can walk them for finding the way to score higher. Don’t compare yourself to more experienced shooters; simply try to finish safely.
Practice a safe draw:
Pretty self-explanatory. Practice this nonstop, and ALWAYS re-holster slow and safely while looking at the holster.
Run drills:
When you go to the range in between competitions you should be running drills to brush up your skills. This is a topic that could be its own subject but I’m going to provide a short (but not exhaustive) list of drills and ask that you ask friends to do these with you and for other shooters to teach you these drills. You need to do these with rifle and pistol, you need to learn to shoot reliable doubles good to score better. You can use a free shot timer for dry fire and the live fire drills benefit heavily with a shot timer, but you and a friend can also get by with a timer app on a phone for “good enough” drilling.
-At home dryfire drills
-Bill Drill
-El Prez
-Bang/Click
-Dot torture
And that’s it, really. 2 gun was a serious challenge to consistently score slightly above middle of the pack every time. It’s more than I can or want to write down, but I hope these few pages can convince you that the limiting factor for shooting a match isn’t high speed chest rigs and plate carriers but simply your ability to safely navigate the range with a firearm. The goal is to leave the match having not been injured and not disqualified. I highly recommend doing something like Practical Rifle first and then elevating to 2-gun but just go shoot a match. I promise you’ll walk away from the match a better shooter.
MrItaliano’s 2-Gun Experience
What can I say that Bort didn’t already cover?
2 Gun is a competition similar to action rifle styles of competitions. Shooters will be using 2 guns (hence the name) throughout the match, a rifle and a pistol. This is a close-medium range competition with shooters using from maybe 30 to 100 yard bays. In each of the bays will be a challenging but fun course designed to test your skills with both weapons. The course is designed to be safe, of course, as there will be weapons transitions from rifle to pistol or vice versa. To account for this tricky transition, shooters are only allowed to use one firearm at a time and do the entire course with that firearm, only switching to their secondary after they’ve finished shooting all that they can with their primary firearm. At no point is a shooter allowed to switch back to the weapon they started with. This includes no holstering your pistol and then unholstering during the match. We actually saw someone get DQ’s for this last year. This is for their own safety, of course.
Last year, Bort and I attended 2 gun matches almost monthly together and needless to say, we had a blast. It was a consistent challenge to place high in the rankings. While practical rifle gives us a ton of experience on our rifles, 2 gun really pushed me to be better with both guns. During the course of the year, I found myself improving both my rifle and pistol skills. I remember during a camping trip in May, a few of us went to the range to practice Bill drills on a static range. I started off doing not so great. After doing this monthly course utilizing my pistol for most of the year, I improved my handgun skills tremendously so much so that by the end of the season, Bort and I both ended up qualifying for a championship match (although neither of us made it out to that match). I went from a sub-par performing in May to qualifying for a championship in October. Just. From. Running. Matches. The best way to improve is to just go out and run a match.
One of the best parts about this was that the people we were with for most of the matches were great. Everyone was friendly, there was no judgement, and people were helping each other out on how to improve. There were people of all skill levels participating and everyone seemed to have a great time. Even some new shooters showed up and rocked it.
I did learn a couple lessons from last season:
1. The scoring is much more forgiving from other competitions including practical rifle; so while shot placement still matters, time also matters just as much. Lots of shooters (myself included) spent a lot of time focusing on shot placement and my time and ultimately my score suffered because of it. I will try to increase my speed while still being safe.
2. It’s extremely important to have a good holster for your pistol. During matches, we had to duck under obstacles and run back and forth across bays. If that pistol falls out of the holster at any point, it’s a match DQ. We did see this happen to some people during the year. Additionally, as with any match, don’t break the 180° rule with either weapon.
3. Have fun! Cliché? Yes. But to me it was more important to improve my skills and have fun than try to place top of the match.
As far as equipment needed, minimally all you need is a rifle and a pistol with a good retention holster. The holster should not be a competition style holster. The RSO’s don’t want your gun falling out as you crawl under a barricade, etc. Optics, while helpful, are optional and you can still do fine without them. In fact, I went all season without a pistol red dot and still placed fairly well. Even for a rifle, you can run with just irons and be fine. I run an EOTech on my AR-15 with a magnifier sitting behind it, and this helped tremendously for some of the longer-range stages. My pistol was a Springfield XDM (without G R I P Z O N E) and no optic, and worked fine. This year, I’ve upgraded to a P226 with a Vortex Defender XL and I’m excited to test my skills with it. For a holster, I am using a Red Hill Tactical 3-gun holster which seems to be great so far.
What really worked for me was a solid 2-piece belt and a good, lightweight micro chest rig. The chest rig is an Unobtanium Gear DRIP and has pouches for 3 rifle mags. On my belt I have two Esstac pistol mags and one Esstac rifle mag attached. This worked well because some pistol courses required three magazines for each gun, so it helped to have the extra mag pouches on the belt. Additionally, we had to get on the ground and crawl under obstacles for some stages, so the minimalism of the micro chest rig worked really well for these scenarios. During some of the matches, I used my drop pouch, too, but there was never a requirement to retain our empty mags. This truly can be done with very minimal gear. Don’t stress over having the best gear. Start with what you’ve got and learn through the season what works and what doesn’t.
Chest rig/backpack.
Went through a few different belts, you can use any belt and the limiting factor is how much weight the belt can hold before it sags. Highly recommend a Hanks or a Kore ratcheting belt eventually. I use a Haley strategic chest rig and I hate it. If you want advice on what gear to get, just go to Esstac and they’re just about a one stop shop for what you’ll need.
The one upgrade I’d suggest to anyone looking to do these half-day-long matches is good ear pro. These matches sometimes run 7 hours long. You will be wearing ear pro that entire time. The Sordins with gel cups worked insanely well for me and I never once got a headache from the ear pro clamping on my head. They were comfortable to wear the entire day and fit over my baseball caps without any problems.
Overall, this is a series of matches that I would recommend everyone try out.
