Shootin’ Steel

by Lacey Rees

of the Sierra Star

 

AHWAHNEE — Anthony Grimes would like to be the fastest gun in the West … make that the United States … make that the world. And he might very well make it.

 

Anthony (photo on left), a 13-year-old freshman at Yosemite High School, will travel to South­ern California in August to compete in the Steel Chal­lenge, which is the world championships of speed shoot­ing.   For those not familiar with speed shooting, the contestant shoots against the clock at a series of targets, his total time being the score. The lower score wins in a competition.  The targets are steel plates — some 18-by-24 inch rectangles; others about 12 inches in diameter — that ring when they are hit by a bullet. A match consists of seven different target setups or stages, with each stage made up of five steel plates that the shooter tries to hit.  Each stage is repeated five times, with the four best times being recorded. Then the contestant moves on to the next stage.

 

When a stage starts, the competitor is standing, facing the targets, with his gun in the holster and his hands raised above the shoulders. When the buzzer goes off, he reaches down and pulls the gun out of the holster, takes off the safety and shoots the five targets. The time stops when he hits the fifth or stop plate.  The stages have characteristic names such as “Outer Limits.” In that, there are two steel plates that are 40 yards away, two at 18 yards and one at 12 yards. The 12-yard one is the stop plate.  Another stage is named “Smoke and Hope.” There, a person shoots four steel plates, each at seven yards and, of course, the stop plate at 12 yards.  “That’s the fastest one,” says Kurt Grimes, Anthony’s father and sometimes fellow competitor. “You don’t ever have to aim. It’s pure speed and instinct.”


Photo on right: Hands have to be above the shoulders and the gun in the holster when the starting buzzer goes off, as Anthony demonstrates at practice.

 

Mr. Grimes originally got interested in speed shooting about three years ago, and Anthony tagged along to watch and help a little. It wasn’t long before “I wanted to try,” says Anthony. He entered his first competition a month or two later.  “When I first started out, I finished dead last every time,” he says. “But he hit everything he shot at,” adds his father, “He wasn’t fast, but he was accurate.”  His turnaround came when he got his new gun in October of 1999. The first time out with the new gun, he won the California state championship in the preteen division. He was 12.  Since his shooting debut, Anthony has accumulated a multitude of first- and second-place trophies and plaques.  At last year’s world championships — which are always held at Lake Piru near Magic Mountain — Anthony won in his division and was second in the preteen for which he was awarded $200 and a trophy.  In the California Highway Patrol Combat Match, he was the first person younger than 21 allowed  to shoot in the contest’s pistol division. Last year he was the match winner and the year before took first in the junior division.  At the worlds this August 17-19, Anthony plans to enter in the juniors sub-category and in the open category, where there should be about 200 competitors.

 

Equipment does make a difference in speed shooting. Anthony uses an STI pistol that looks like a 45 caliber Colt 1911 that the GIs carried in World War II.  He then sends it to a gunsmith, Claudio Salasa of Briley Manufacturing, who customizes the gun to shoot 38 caliber bullets. It is modified to make it lighter, replacing heavier parts with lightweight titanium and cutting out unneeded metal.  Instead of a normal site, the shooter sights through a tube with a red dot on a holographic screen. A customized gun costs about $3,000.  “Most of the top shooters use that kind of gun,” says Mr. Grimes.

 




Photo: In practice, Kurt Grimes holds a timer close to Anthony’s head so he can hear when the start buzzer sounds.

Since new bullets can be expensive, Anthony has a sponsor, Vihta Vuori Prem­ium Smoke­less Pow­ders, who gives him gunpowder. To save money, he and his father reload their own ammunition by using the spent casings from purchased bullets. They have a special machine to enable them to load powder in about 1,000 rounds in an hour.  A person can go through 250 rounds in a match, and about 500 rounds in a whole show. They attend a match almost every weekend, mostly in the environs of the San Joaquin Valley, all year around, rain or shine. “We even shoot in the snow,” says Anthony.   Anthony practices about a hour a day, usually “dry shooting,” he explains. “It isn’t actually shooting, but you go through the mo­tions.”  The dry shooting builds “muscle memory,” says Mr. Grimes, “when you reach down and come to the same point every time. You want to be around one second from hands up to hitting the first target.”  He adds that the setup, Smoke and Hope, for in­stance, should take two-and-one-half seconds to complete.

 

Anthony says competing in the world championships causes him, not to get nervous, but to be excited.   He says that practicing helps to calm him down before a match, as well as the range duties competitors are ex­pected to do when not shooting— duties such as painting targets, picking up “brass” [empty shell casings], keeping score or acting as a range official. “It keeps your mind off the anticipation,” says Anthony.

 

The world contest this year will be dedicated to Gary Flynn, the Oakhurst gun-shop owner killed in a robbery last April. “[Mr. Flynn] liked to shoot steel and competed last year, and was going to compete this year,” says Mr. Grimes.   Anthony will probably be the youngest at the world championships. “We will be shooting with the best and fastest in the world,” says Mr. Grimes.   He explains that the Japanese, who are not al­lowed to own real guns in their country, practice with pellet guns. Then they come to the United States a couple months early and practice with the real thing. “They do real well,” says Mr. Grimes. “They are very dedicated.”  There will be shooters, for instance, from Australia and the Philippines, plus a U.S. Army team.

 

Speed-shooting matches are very safety oriented. “There are very strict rules that you abide by,” explains Mr. Grimes. There is only one place you can take your gun out and that is in the “safe area” and even there, no ammunition is allowed.   “You are not allowed to touch your gun until you step into the shooting box, and the range officer tells you it is OK,” he adds. “If you break a safety infraction, you are done for the day. They ask you to put your gun away and to go home.”

 

Photo on left: Anthony gathers about half of the speed shooting awards and trophies he has earned the past two years including the first-place plaque from last year’s world championship under his right hand.



There is another STYLE of speed shooting called IPSC [International Practical Shooting Confederation] that Mr. Grimes and Anthony compete in two times a month.  “It is a whole different ball game,” says Mr. Grimes. “You shoot paper and steel combined.” The targets move, disappear, hide from the shooter and block other targets. The pistol is different, too.  Anthony wants to, but won’t, attend the IPSC world contest this year, as it is held in September in Illinois. “School is more important,” says Anthony, who is taking high school honors courses and wants to become a doctor.  Anthony likes “the adrenaline, the action” of speed shooting and the social aspects. He and his father agree that the other contestants and the members of their pistol club are a “fun bunch of people to be with.”  They belong to the Mother Lode Pistol club. “Anthony would not be doing as well and continue to grow in the sport without the help and coaching from the local club members,” says Mr. Grimes. “Even though they give him a hard time, they all want to see him do well.”  Especially, though, “It’s something that he and I can do together. We can needle each other,” says Mr. Grimes. He admits that when they compete together, (usually in local gun matches) Anthony “usually beats me.”