Francis Marion Memorial Swamp Fox Assault XXXVI

If I can have a moment to be serious... Recent tragic events have changed the silly stories behind our yearly match to something that is deadly serious, and unfortunately, more and more realistic. There are individuals and groups of people in this world that don't respect life or Western Civilization, and are willing to die to end our way of life. Although we have a ton of fun shooting this match, the skills that we practice and compete with are the pertinent ones for protecting our families from those that would take it all away. Don't let them. Cowering and hiding is for Europeans, not Americans. Arm yourself appropriately, train hard and fight back.

This year's match continues the changes we made a year ago, making this more of a “shotgun heavy” three gun match, with one stage being handgun / rifle, one stage being rifle / handgun / shotgun, and two traditional “woods and swamp” shotgun only stages. The round count and total shooting time increased again, by a large measure. The hot and dry weather didn't give us much of a swamp, but the course designers responded by stepping up the shooting difficulty. Tricky rifle shots from awkward positions, lots of no-shoot targets, sliding through tilted tunnels, shooting shotguns one-handed, zip-lines, long slug shots... Yep, this one had it all.

The usual suspects were at the top of the heap, but Nathan Wilson walked away with the top score in his division, and overall, shooting a trusty pump shotgun. Appearing for the first time in the Francis Marion, was a Keltec KSG, shot by Jason Henthorne. When we figure out how to shoot guns like this well (and the detachable magazine fed autoloaders) the game might change completely.

As we all get older, and this match gets bigger, setting it up and running it gets rougher. Luckily, the old standbys are still helping, and we manage to attract a few new people now and then to help with the grueling set-up, running and tear down. Without the dozen or so people that help out, this thing wouldn't happen. And as usual, the match was followed by my best meal of the year, a prime rib dinner made by the Fine Chefs of Combat Cuisine.

Name	Division	Stage One (Dry Land Handgun / Rifle)	Stage Two (Dry Land Rifle / Handgun / Shotgun)	Stage Three (Woods Shotgun)	Stage Four (Swamp)	Total Score
Nathan “Howling Mad” Wilson	SFS	106.89	181.69	102.63	134.22	525.43
Nathan “Ironmaker” Goebel	SFS	114.72	219.26	132.18	117.67	583.83
Mark Gordon	SFS	127.29	216.00	166.51	181.23	691.03
Rob Strodbeck	SFS	165.15	240.14	165.20	163.00	733.49
Mike “Zipline? Naa, bro.” McGreer	SFS	173.55	274.04	157.36	168.38	773.33
Mike “Doesn't need a nickname” Batman	SFS	153.70	257.99	172.10	233.80	817.59
Brian Barthelman	SFS	171.41	372.47	171.25	243.80	958.93
Kurt “Squid” Batman	SFS	233.42	408.48	177.83	226.10	1045.83
Nick “Keepin' it Real, yo” McClellan	SFS	267.03	360.40	175.00	254.70	1057.13
Ray “Swamp Rat” Taylor	SFS	242.57	379.37	176.05	260.60	1058.59
Matt Novak	SFS	180.05	568.31	192.54	341.40	1282.30
Andrew “Geez he's getting good” Miller	SRG	120.21	177.16	118.84	125.10	541.31
Tim “Ole Reliable” Swineford	SRG	133.41	185.26	121.32	121.78	561.77
Tony Zingale	SRG	146.62	216.37	157.31	154.62	674.92
Frank Abbey	SRG	170.02	310.50	159.57	174.83	814.92
Doug “Yeah Man!” Rogers	SRG	186.55	304.93	163.55	164.12	819.15
Matt Dunn	SRG	136.18	397.18	170.91	219.80	924.07
John “Old as the” Hill	SRG	211.65	407.88	203.20	286.50	1109.23
Niko “War Horse” Keca	SRG	298.60	543.90	348.70	345.50	1536.70
John “The Ring Master” Moson	SRG	210.10	230.41
Roy “Parma Hillbilly” Mitchell	ETS	142.55	187.98	116.45	139.27	586.25
Paul Rastetter	ETS	131.93	236.94	139.72	190.89	699.48
Jarrod Wenger	ETS	193.35	339.92	162.34	284.00	979.61
Robert Cottell	ETS	169.31	350.96	197.98	285.30	1003.55
Han Sim	ETS	186.55	174.12
Jason “New-Fangled” Henthorne	Open	136.30	243.82	182.98	144.03	707.13