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Big Ben Blast & Dash Run n' Gun - Ben Lomond Gun Club
If you like cross-fit workouts, shooting and cross-country running, you'll love the Big Ben Blast and Dash 5K RnG! This event had more elements in it than any event I've attended. Put on by the folks at the Ben Lomond Gun club just North of Ramah, Colorado (look it up), it combined over 12 different physical challenges, some tough shooting stages, a 5K run and all at about 6,300 feet in elevation!
First, I'd like to thank the Club, the match organizers and the army of folks it took to put on this event. There were 8 stages, manned by at least 2 ROs each, every physical challenge was manned by an RO and the HQ was manned (or womanned, I should say, if that's a word) by some of the nicest and most competent folks you could imagine. All that plus everyone was fed lunch and supper; the smoked brisket for supper was some of the best I've had. To top that off, all the proceeds of the event and raffle was donated to a PTSD organization that helps our veterans.
Now, about the competition, the rules were pretty much 3 gun rules, with no loaded firearms while on the course, 180 rule, no hot re-holstering of handguns and the use of trash . . . I mean dump barrels and boxes. Scoring was 3 gun as well with penalties for procedural faults, failure to neutralize and failure to engage etc.
The range is laid out in what I consider old school shooting range style, With several three-sided bays cut in to the hillside with several bays right in a row. There are bays designated for rimfire, pistol, rifle, general purpose and a couple longer range areas for NRA high power and such. The ranges are well maintained and equipped. One could easily tell that the members of this club are heavily invested in this facility. I'm told they host many state and national matches there and it's easy to see why. All targets were steel and the only complaint I heard was that the rifle stage bays had a lot of steel targets set up, but only 3-4 were a part of the stage. Sometimes it was hard to distinguish between what targets were stage targets and what targets weren't.
For this event, there were rifle stages, pistol stages, combination stages and physical challenge stages. Competitors started at the club house and after a short run encountered the first stage. The trail led the competitors right along a long row of bays (I think 10 or so). Right off the bat, after shooting the first stage, the competitor faced the first of 4 physical challenges, each one in a separate bay, with one right after the other. After the first two challenges, you shot a pistol stage. then moved on to the next couple challenges. The first was a wheelbarrow walk with about 150 pounds on it, next was sled drag with about 140lbs on it, then came farmer's carry with 80lbs in each hand, for each of these you walked to a cone about 25 yards distant and back to the starting point. Finally a 5 gallon water can carry (one in each hand) around a course of narrow timbers (you had to walk around the course on top of the wobbly timbers). Once you completed the fourth of these challenges you ran right to the last of this series of bays and shot another stage. So, not even a half mile into the course, you've shot 3 stages and had 4 very hard physical challenges. Couple that with the 6,300 feet elevation and this old man was already suffering.
Thereafter you continued along the course encountering other stages, both shooting stages and physical challenge stages. There was a tall wall climb, heavy sandbag toss over 3 ropes about head high to me and back (for a total of 6 times) a tunnel crawl and a barbwire low crawl and a couple longer range rifle stages. After you completed these stages, you had a long run to another series of bays where you shot a stage, moved over to the next bay for a physical challenge, completed it, then moved to the next bay for a shooting stage and so on. These challenges consisted of a damn heavy (lots heavier than my tractor tires) tire flip (twice), a beer keg carry (I would guess around 75lbs), and an atlas stone carry (again about 75lbs). Once again, you carried the object to a cone about 25 yards distant and came back to the starting point. Finally after doing all this, you had an uphill run (and some downhill) to the final challenge and stage. For this challenge you had to negotiate some monkey bars, then shoot the final stage. From here you had a sprint to the start/finish line. Oh, and I forgot to mention, there were about 3 or 4 four foot walls you encountered placed at random areas around the course. The weights I give are either my guesses or what the RO's told me. As I advanced along the course, I figure I might have guessed the weights a little heavier than they were due to my exhaustion. All the running was done on the gravel range roads or on mowed trails through the short-grass prairie.
For the physical challenges, failure to attempt the challenge was 5 minutes added to your run time, and failure to successfully negotiate the challenge added 3 minutes to your run time. I might also add that along the course and at each stage was a water/refreshment area where you could get you a drink if you needed it. The rules allowed you to ground your rifle and equipment to negotiate the physical obstacles, if you wanted to, or in some cases, were required to by the RO.
Most stages required some movement from shooting point to shooting point. Target sizes were about right for this type of event in my opinion and the round count was pretty high . . . 60 rifle and 90 pistol. Ammo management was critical lest you had to do an unexpected non-mandatory reload (or worse yet, you be a dork and have to go to your grounded backpack to get some more ammo while on the shoot clock). Pistol targets were fairly close which meant that speed was emphasized. Rifle targets were out to 400 yards and the closer targets were fairly small. The wind was tricky as it would blow at times and then be almost calm. I'm not exactly sure of the final round count, but for the record I shot 96 pistol rounds and 79 rifle rounds.
Now, I suspect most of you know my thoughts about several aspects of this event. The original organizers of traditional Run n' Gun events emphasized trying to duplicate conditions (as realistically as possible) in the event of a "2nd Amendment event" (whatever that means to you). A true RnG allows for at least hot pistols to be carried, hot -reholstering, never abandoning your firearms, not removing your equipment to negotiate obstacles and no outside help along the trail. I don't shoot 3 gun for a variety of reasons, but mainly because of all the silly game rules (the rule book for the Blast and Dash was 22 pages!, to be fair about 15 of those pages were equipment descriptions). I just knew I was going to hot-hostler my pistol, or fail to insert my carbine in the trash can, but fortunately for me, I didn't. In life there are no equipment, age or gender divisions, or trash cans to put your guns in (why would you want to?). This event had age divisions, gender divisions and an armor carrying division. By the way, for all the carrying physical challenges, there was a male prop and a female prop (presumably lighter in weight).
All that being said, if you don't mind the 3 gun rules, and want to challenge yourself, this is the event for you. I think you'll like it much more than even the Tactical Games as here, there is no rest between "battles" and you can shoot modern firearms. So you 3 gunners who want to advance beyond sedentary shooting matches, get signed up for this. I'm told the organizers are trying to make this an annual event. It gives you left coasters a chance to really test yourself, assuming you can still possess real firearms and magazines. I doubt the organizers will adopt more traditional RnG rules as I suspect their club will not allow it. And, if that's the case, so be it, they'll just make the best of what they got.
I didn't know a lot of folks there as most of them were from western states. But Jon, Nick and Perry were there and made an excellent showing with Jon taking first place in the Armor division. There were a lot of very good shooters in attendance as I'm told a lot of their regular 3 gun guys were competing at this event. I think there were 109 competitors signed up, so I am very pleased with my 14th place overall, 6th place overall shooter and 2nd place in my division; not so pleased with my dismal running performance, but the altitude and my variety of ailments have prevented me from training very hard. I'm not sure I can remedy that anytime soon, but I'll train what I can.
The prize awards were quite unique. All the prizes were hidden inside USPS boxes, taped shut and they all looked the same. Competitors were called up in the order of the overall finish to get a box. No shaking the box was allowed and the box you touched was yours. Everyone got a box. At the signal, everyone opened their boxes to reveal their prizes. I didn't see a lot of prizes, as we had to leave quickly, but I did see some Vortex binoculars and lots of gift certificates from the various sponsors. So, no matter where you placed, you got a chance at some very cool prizes.
I had a lot of fun and met some new folks so, despite my perceived shortcomings of the event, I think I might just go again next year.
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