Matt in TN

I had a great meeting with a couple of my SF counterparts this weekend, and we now have some of the basics nailed down. Here's what we know so far: 1. Registration will open in early July. I'll give a "two week warning" with a specific date and time. Plan to be close to a computer then with credit card in hand as these sell out VERY quickly. 2. We will have a 5k-ish run on Saturday with 5 shooting stages and a $100 match fee, and a 10k-ish run on Sunday with 7 shooting stages and a $150 match fee. 100% of the match fee will go to the Special Forces Association, Chapter 38. 3. There will be several other opportunities for fun around that weekend - the guys are going for more of a "family atmosphere" or "carnival feel", so think about bringing your families and be sure to look out for these other things. 4. All stages will be shot "blind" in that you won't know what you are doing until you run up on the stage and receive the stage brief. 5th Group doesn't know exactly what they're in for until they arrive onsite, so neither will you. Vignettes will be published ahead of time so you can understand the events each stage is based on - but that is more to share the stories and remember the heroes than it is to give you intel on shooting details. Photo by Lisa Stennett

Someone asked me for more details on the charity this match benefits: The Special Forces Association essentially takes care of the SF guys' families while they are gone - hopefully temporarily, but sometimes forever (in the case of the Gold Star Families). A water heater goes out while one of the guys is in Syria? SFA buys his wife a new water heater. A soldier is injured and stuck in a hospital in Germany/KSA/whoknowswhere? SFA buys his wife a plane ticket to visit him. An injured hero comes home and can't get around his own house because it's not handicap-friendly? SFA is there to help. Basically all the things Big Army doesn't do that fall through the cracks - SFA takes up the slack. Chapter 38 is the local chapter who takes care of SF soldiers at Ft. Campbell, so all your money stays local and supports the guys we all know. More info on the SFA in general can be found here: http://www.specialforcesassociation.org/ This is a National Association, with local Chapters assigned to each area. Anyone with direct knowledge PLEASE feel free to correct me or add to my description - this is the best I can do from my limited involvement so far. Any misrepresentations are due to my own ignorance.

As usual - the best place by far to stay up to date and informed of all the discussions of this event is the Facebook Event Page at https://www.facebook.com/events/603980326679388/. Click "Interested" or "Going" and check your notification settings and you should be dinged any time anything new is posted there. Maybe. Hell - FB is a big phat mystery to me most of the time so I just do the best I can! For anti-FBers I will try to repost what I think is important here, so here goes: This Match celebrates the traditions of the Green Beret’s and the legacy of Special Forces from WWII to present. Stages are based on the history of 5th Special Forces Group from Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq to the destruction of IS and the current fight. Participants will be challenged both mentally and physically to balance both their intellect and skills on the clock, or against the threat. This match is an opportunity to test rifle and pistol skills in stages based on combat situations faced by members of The Legion throughout their history. Both a 5k(ish) with [TBD] shooting stages and a 10k(ish) with [TBD] shooting stages will be offered, so you can choose your level of challenge. Match fees will be a little bit higher this year to better benefit the SFA: $100 for the 5k and $150 for the 10k. Proceeds from this match will be donated to the Special Forces Association, Chapter 38 – an organization dedicated to supporting the Soldiers and families of the Special Forces Community. For an idea what you might expect, check out last year's match video at https://youtu.be/_Y-38wzV29A or match pictures by Lisa Stennett at https://www.flickr.com/photos/163548466@N06/albums/72157699713389221/page1 WHAT YOU NEED: Minimum Rifle Round Count: TBD (10k) or TBD (5k) Minimum Pistol Round Count: TBD (10k) or TBD (5k) (Recommend carrying 2 x minimum rnd count. Also, there will be a side matches you can shoot as well) - Rifle that can reach out to 300 yds - Rifle sling - Enough rifle magazines to hold the minimum rifle round count at least - Enough rifle magazine pouches to hold your rifle magazines - Pistol with secure holster (must cover trigger guard) - Enough pistol magazines to hold the minimum pistol round count at least - Enough pistol magazine pouches to hold your pistol magazines - Headlamp for navigating the cave to/from the shooting portion (you cannot use a weapon mounted light for navigating the cave) - Tac light (pistol mounted or hand held) for the shooting portion in the cave - Clear Eye Protection - Hearing Protection TIMELINE: 7 SEPT 0630 - Registration 0730 - Shooters Meeting/Safety Brief 0800 - First Runner TBD - Awards Ceremony 8 SEPT 0630 - Registration 0730 - Shooters Meeting/Safety Brief 0800 - First Runner TBD - Awards Ceremony Questions - post on this event page as you're probably not the only one with the question. Or you can contact: Match Director Matt Stennett mstennett@twlakes.net All pictures by Lisa Stennett

This will be my last post on this match and I'll let it die a good death: One of my measurements to see if the match had an appropriate difficulty level is what I call the "DNF Rate" - in other words, how many people could not finish each stage in the required 3 minute par time. If everyone finishes every stage, the match is probably too easy. A 50% DNF rate for a single stage is not a deal-breaker, but a 70% DNF rate means the stage is too hard. And if we have MANY stages with a high DNF rate, that means the overall difficulty level is too high. The graphs below look at this in two different ways. The top graph shows me how many people DNF'd each stage (for example, 38% of the 5k competitors could not complete The Rifleman stage). The bottom graph shows me how many people had multiple DNF's (for example, 22% of the 10k competitors finished the match with only one DNF). I am happy to report NOT ONE SINGLE COMPETITOR DNF'd every single stage of their match. Sometimes that happens, and it's never fun. So overall, I think this was about the right difficulty - or maybe a smidge on the "too easy" side. I was a little surprised that The Rifleman is still the most DNF'd stage we have - that tells me I need to leave it in there awhile yet. :-)

Here's the official compilation video of the 2019 Rockcastle Run N Gun 5k & 10k. Share it with your friends and family to give them a 4 1/2 minute glimpse at the awesomeness you accomplished last weekend, to try to talk someone new into trying it next year, or to give our sponsors some well-deserved love. Big thanks to Rockcastle Shooting Center, Nosler, Tactical Tailor, Magpul Industries Corp., Samson Manufacturing, Dillon Precision Products, Inc, Vortex Optics, and Hornady. Photos by Lisa Stennett and Megan Dudley. Music by Steve Vai.

More pics: these come from Megan Dudley, wife of match winner Logan Dudley. As before, feel free to use them but please credit Megan when you do. https://www.flickr.com/photos/mmdudley/albums?fbclid=IwAR2AcPrcJGKhyhdql8aOiL7_UQSb79GI79K2nu_oYKF0po0AvKo6W5ENbeA

And the last piece of data: the equipment summary. I did collect rifle manufacturer data, but the list was just too long to put into a simple pie chart - it seems like there was pretty much one of everything!

The photos my wife took are now up at https://www.flickr.com/photos/163548466@N06/albums/72157707498359015/with/32500620447/ As always, feel free to use these however you like, but PLEASE CREDIT LISA STENNETT AS THE PHOTOGRAPHER if you do. Especially if they get used for any commercial function. There were a few other photographers out on the course, and I hope to have links to their photos here soon. Taking, editing, and posting this many pictures is LOT of work - so please show your appreciation to all of them!

19 hardy souls decided to run BOTH the 5k and 10k - so just for fun I combine their overall scores to see how they all stacked up against each other in the "15k Challenge". Five of these folks (highlighted below) deserve special recognition because they did this as ROs - that means they run their 10k, have 15 minutes to reload and regear, and then immediately run their 5k. And then go out and work their stage for the rest of the day & weekend. Impressive stuff! Here are the results -

More data: Only 61% of 5k competitors and 66% of 10k competitors provided age data during registration, so this data is a little incomplete. And I struggle a little with how best to show this while both keeping it anonymous and making it so you can see how you fared within your own age group. Here's my best efforts - let me know if you have any better ideas!

While we're waiting on picture processing, I figured I'd start sharing data: We had 167 total competitors over the weekend: 87 for the 5k and 80 for the 10k. 61 of those were Military (31 5k and 30 10k), and 8 were ladies (3 5k and 5 10k). 90% of the 5k people ran Race Class and 10% ran Combat Class, while 85% of the 10k runners went Race Class and 15% went Combat Class. We had people from 20 different states represented. The below map shows which states - the bigger the dot, the more people came from that state.

I just sent an email to all paid competitors with the final match details. Check your spam folders if you don't see it, and if you still can't find it let me know and I'll see what happened. Here's the most important part: Registration is between 6:30am and 7:30am on the morning of the match. You will sign a waiver and randomly draw your start time. If you do not get registered before 7:30am, you will not be allowed to shoot. Be there.

Today's final prize pack comes from Magpul Industries Corp. - who sent almost $1,100.00 worth of 30 rd .223 mags, 25 rd .308 mags, and 21 rd Glock 9mm magazines. I use Magpul exclusively in my AR10 and Glock, and as expected they are flawless! This gives us a grand total of $5,600.00 in prizes for the match - which will be given away in a completely random draw method during the awards ceremony. The prize really is the match itself, but everyone has an equal chance of taking home some great gear provided by our generous sponsors. BE SURE to thank them and help promote their products in return - or they most definitely will not see the benefit of continuing to do this in the future.

Samson Manufacturing donates so much to prize tables across the shooting sports, sometimes I wonder how they stay in business! This match is no exception, with two SXS-LW handguards coming from them. After seeing how well they did for Bryan Ray and Brian Vaught, I bought one for my daughter's M4gery a couple years ago. It went from a 1.5 MOA rifle to a sub-MOA rifle, all while getting lighter and cooler-looking to boot! Who else is running Samson gear, and what do you like about it? https://www.samson-mfg.com/

So we’re a little over a week from match day. I’m guessing several of you are second-guessing yourselves right now. Maybe you didn’t get in as much training as you’d hoped. Maybe you trained your a$$ off and didn’t see the results you wanted to. Maybe you’ve seen all of these crazy hints and promises about what’s to come, and are intimidated as hell about trying to do all of this while a bunch of Run N Gun regulars stand by and watch you. Don’t be. If you signed up and just SHOW UP to start this race, you’re already better than 90% of the shooters out there who stayed home on the couch on match day. If you FINISH, no matter how long it takes you, you’ve won. Trust me – you’ll feel it just as soon as you cross that finish line – and for many days (months?) thereafter. At some point in the course, you will ask yourself: “Why on earth am I here? I’m not ready for this. I don’t belong here.” The dirty little secret I can promise you: EVERYONE asks themselves that at some point. You DO belong here. The satisfaction and self-image you will get from just finishing this course will stay with you forever, and is something no one can ever take away from you. Many people have found matches like these to be a turning point in their lives, and in a year or two you may not even recognize the person you have become. Just remember - for every person you see pass you, there is someone behind you wishing they could keep up with you. Look behind you every so often just to acknowledge how far you’ve come. And before ANYONE judges anyone else as being "too slow, too fat, or too lazy" - bite your tongue and listen to their story first. Across the country at matches like these we've had people recovering from recent strokes, heart attacks, cancer, pregnancy, amputations, and any other issue you can think of; just because "F#$K CANCER", that's why! Give them an encouraging word when you pass them - it really makes a difference. Even better - if you pass someone really struggling on the course: finish your race, set down your gear, and run back out to find that person. You can run beside them and offer them all the words of support and encouragement that you can think of - you just can't physically help them in any way. Let's do this.

I just found out our own Lacey Caroline is not only working her butt off all weekend to RO for you and running her own 10k race - but is bringing her guitar as well. Maybe if you guys are extra nice she will treat you to a mini-concert one night. At the very least - like her FB page and check out her webpage. Even better, buy some stuff from her website! https://www.facebook.com/LaceyCarolineOfficial/?__tn__=%2CdK-R-R&eid=ARDDsx--hJeOzYdC5uACHkISYfeZ9toZYOKdM2aqPQMxz0yXgAfwLF2lhP3V8GGcAU0W4bZln-uyTMmr&fref=mentions https://www.laceycaroline.com/home

Reminder: tomorrow at midnight is the last day to withdraw and receive a 50% refund. ANY WITHDRAWLS AFTER SATURDAY MARCH 2ND AT MIDNIGHT WILL RECEIVE NO REFUND. Still please do withdraw through Practiscore after that if you can't make it though. We have a ton of people on the waitlist who would love to have your spot if you can't be there!

Today's prize pack comes from Vortex Optics. They generously sent FOUR Crossfire Red Dots for a total value of almost $900.00! Be sure to thank them, and post up here if you run a Vortex product to tell everyone what you use and why you like it! http://www.vortexoptics.com/product/crossfire-red-dots-2-moa

Reminder: If you want a t-shirt, you MUST have your order in by 5pm this Friday, March 1st. T-shirts are only being sold online and shipped to you directly. There will be NO t-shirts for sale at the event. Direct link to buy the shirt is here: https://www.shredderlife.com/shop/2019-rockcastle-run-n-gun/

Today's prize table goodness comes courtesy of Nosler. They sent over $600 worth of reloading components, including 500 70gr RDF bullets, 500 85gr RDF bullets, and 500 pieces of .223 brass. I've used their Custom Competition bullets for years in my FAL and AR-10 with great success, but have yet to try the new RDF bullets. Nosler makes good stuff! https://www.nosler.com/rdf-bullet

Someone pointed out I forgot to include details in the Course of Fire about the obstacle at Stage 3. I've fixed that and uploaded updated COFs to the Practiscore site, so feel free to visit and download the latest copy. But if you just want to see that obstacle, here it is: Stage 3 Obstacle: Drop your rifle (and pack if wearing one), and navigate the stepped balance beam down the hill to the cave entrance. If at any point you touch the ground, climb back to the top of the hill and start over.

Prizes are continuing to roll in. Hornady sent over $600 worth of gear for the prize table, including their Lock-N-Load Iron Press! Be sure to thank them for their support - most importantly as a note in your order when you buy some of their great gear. And post up here if you have some Hornady gear you like to tell everyone about it! https://www.hornady.com/reloading/presses/lock-n-load-iron-press#!/

Reminder: tomorrow at midnight is the 30-day deadline to get a full refund if you withdraw. Here's the full cancellation policy, which is non-negotiable: Full refunds will be given if you withdraw more than 30 days before the match. Half your fee will be refunded if you withdraw between 14-29 days before the match. NO REFUND will be given if you withdraw less than 14 days before the match.

T-shirts will ONLY be available online from https://www.shredderlife.com/shop/2019-rockcastle-run-n-gun/ Only one run will be made, you must order by March 1st to get one, and they will be shipped directly to your house. Big thanks to Shredder Industries for making this so easy on Match Directors! And there is the added bonus that $1 from each shirt sale goes to support Generation III Gun, a not for profit company founded to promote competitive shooting for Juniors (http://generation3gun.com/).

You guys can thank Bryan Ray for this: We're adding a rope climb as a "bonus" obstacle. Finish your race, take of your gear, and head over to the rope IF YOU SO CHOOSE. If you can climb the rope and ring the bell, we'll knock 10 minutes off your run time. This will be a 1.75" diameter poly rope 12' - 15' high. Climbing a rope is an important real-world skill, and I want to reward those who can do it! Speaking of obstacles - I also want to give a great big THANK YOU to Bryan Ray and his son Thomas, Ben Wolf, Ashley Edgcombe, Matt Webb, and my dear wife Lisa for spending a cold rainy Sunday with me building obstacles. The wall, the barbed wire crawl, and the balance beam are all on-site and available for training if you want to head up there - just check in with the Lodge first before wandering the property. I'm really happy with how the balance beam turned out. What started as a lame obstacle because I couldn't think of anything else that fit the geography there turned into something that I think is going to be really challenging for people. We'll see!