“Maybe I should throw in a couple more boxes.” This was my thought as I packed my shooting gear for the 2026 PSA Shootout. This is the big, annual falling steel event at the Palmyra Sportsman’s Association. The PSA Shootout was my first pistol shooting competition back in 2022. I’ve done a lot of pistol shooting and different competitions since then. I’m far from an expert shooter but have become a lot more competent and confident. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I told myself “No. You don’t need more ammo. There is plenty packed already. More will just make the bag heavy.” I went to my ammunition cabinet and grabbed several more boxes and packed them. It doesn’t do any good at home.
Back in 2022, our little group that shot together was myself, my friend Ed, and his friend Matt. This year (and the last couple years) we have added my friend Joe, and Ed’s son Ed. Jr. (Henceforth referred to as Junior.) Junior has the advantage of youthful hand/eye coordination and the benefit that Ed had him shooting handguns likely while he was still in diapers.
I’ve posted details of the PSA Shootout and similar events in the past but as a brief refresher, or for those that stumbled upon this post whilst searching for cat videos, the premise is straightforward. There are six stages of active steel targets. Essentially, the participant’s goal is to begin shooting at the range officer’s command, and commence knocking down targets as fast as possible. The shooting stops when a) all the targets are knocked down. This is ideal. b) the 90 second par time elapses or c) the shooter runs out of ammunition and has to walk away while still-standing steel plates mock from down range.
These days when not staring at my work computer screen, I spend far less time on my phone and seldom think to take it out of my pocket. I’d rather enjoy life than stare at another screen. This noble statement on tech phobia is my way of saying I failed to take any pictures save for a couple videos of my friends shooting. I did steel some pictures of this year’s stages from an Instagram reel I found. I hope amargolin91 doesn’t mind me screenshotting from his Instagram. I also got a couple videos from my companions.
Like past years, I shot two divisions: Open Auto and Stock Auto. In brief, both divisions require only 10 rounds per magazine at a time requiring at least 3 reloads for each stage. The main difference is that Open Auto allows optical sights, trigger updates, etc. Essentially anything goes but only 10 rounds at a time. For 2026 Palmyra now has a Division called Open Unlimited which is the same as Open Auto minus the magazine capacity limit. Perhaps next year . . . 🤔
The first couple years I did this shoot with Ed and Matt, I shot one division in the morning and another in the afternoon. As much fun as it is, for me this makes a long day and I start to tire of the event by mid-afternoon. The last two years Joe and I have split over 2 days staying locally overnight instead of driving back and forth. It makes for sort of a pleasant getaway with friends and definitely makes the second division a bit more fun.
Thursday afternoon I started with Open Auto and Joe shot Stock Auto. We had shot the same divisions at a small club shoot the week prior at a Blue Ridge Sportman’s club. That had gone well and, unlike 2022, I felt confident coming in to this year’s PSA Shootout.
Until last fall, my “Open” gun had been my Glock 34 which was a model designed toward competition. It featured a longer barrel intended to give a person shooting traditional iron sights a longer sighting plane. Meanwhile, Glock had come out with the Glock 47 which is a Glock 17 sized gun, but with a Glock 19 (shorter) RSA. The end result had become the hot setup for the top Glock shooters. I’m not a top Glock shooter by even a wild stretch of the imagination. I have proficient enough to realize I was struggling a bit with the long slide of the 34 getting back on target quickly after the shot. At the end of the season, I acquired a Glock 47, equipped it with the Glock Performance Trigger/Vex trigger shoe from the 34. I also moved the Holosun 507Comp from the 34. But the big addition was a Radian Ramjet/Afterburner barrel and compensator. That, along with a Radian adjustable RSA makes a far better, flatter shooting gun than I should be allowed to own. I will probably never shoot as well as that combination allows.
By odd luck, we started on stage 6 both days we shot. At a first glance, the stage was a bit intimidating with a long row of smallish targets that required fairly precise hits to get them to fall. Shoot low and they simply wobble and, like a Weeble, don’t fall down. (Wow. I must be old to remember that.) But none of the targets are particularly difficult if one aims and shoots properly. When the timer goes “BEEP” that is always a big IF.
My opening gambit at stage 6 was not great. In retrospect, it may have been a good idea to shoot the side match as a warm up first. I think I will plan to do that in the future. Ed and Junior commented that I had improved when I was done but I knew it wasn’t a great result. There were way too many shots that weren’t aimed and too many second and third attempts to knock down targets. Over the course of both days, I wound up shooting stage 6 with my stock gun 5 seconds faster that with Open Auto. The good: I was pleasantly surprised with my Stock Auto scores. The Bad: I gave up way too much time on Stage 6 in Open Auto.
Stage 6:
Open Auto: 50.76
Stock Auto: 46.56
50 anything wasn’t really in the plan for the day. And, frankly, it shouldn’t have been. Stage 1 went much more according to plan. For Open Auto I guess I got my “stuff” together and shot much cleaner. Hence the reason I think shooting the side match as a warm up isn’t the worst idea.
Stage 1:
Open Auto: 34.31
Stock Auto: 47.22
Stage 2 featured the Texas star which is a wheel with spindles with plates at the end that fall off when hit. When all the steel plates are present the wheel is stationary. But as the weights fall off the imbalance causes it to spin. The shooter must still knock the rest of the targets down to be successful. It is quite fun! The way Palmyra sets up the stage makes it one of my favorites. More experienced shooters knock all the plates off the Texas star first. Lots of practice on them makes it easier to time when each plate stops at the top of its arc. For me, I knock a couple plates down and move on to the stationary targets before coming back to the much slower moving star. I find this stage to be super fun and therefore wind up doing pretty well on it.
Stage 2: (Maybe I should just shoot stock auto . . )
Open Auto: 38.24
Stock Auto: 34.92
From there we moved back up around the corner to stage 3. This was truly a tale of two stages for me. I sucked wind here with Open Auto and smoked it in stock auto.
In retrospect, I realize I got a bit overconfident in my hot rod red dot setup for open auto and got a little fast. Regardless of time, open sights are a bit of a struggle for me and therefore I worked a bit harder to aim more carefully. Clearly, more deliberate shooting with more careful aim is as fast or faster than hurriedly aiming and yanking the trigger. I believe it was after this stage that Junior pointed out all of my hits were way to the right and that is where it appeared I was missing too. That was useful information. I believe under the duress of the timer, I was applying too much trigger finger and pushing the gun to the right. My sight didn’t suddenly change.
Stage 3:
Open Auto: 51.26 (This was really terrible)
Stock Auto: 40.20 (Yay me!)
Stage 4 was probably the most challenging of the day. It featured some pretty small targets. The pattern was deceptive as well with the shooter tempted (like me) to go up and down. I think the better concept would be to shoot across all on same level then go back at the next level. Moving left to right all the while going up and down made it very easy to shoot over the high, small targets. Here is Junior almost showing how it is done.
I say “almost” because what I failed to capture in the video is that he forgot to shoot the right-most popper on the ground. At the end of the video you hear someone yelling “right”. I couldn’t see that target from my view.
Stage 4:
Open Auto: 43.29
Stock Auto: 47.54
Stage 5 was the easiest, most fun targets. Most fun because, in theory, the shooter should be able to rip through them. Last year and even last week I did just that in Open Auto. Perhaps I had those runs in my head as I stepped to the line but in both divisions. There were far too many misses and one too many reloads. I definitely left some seconds on the table with both guns here. In Open Auto, I cleared this stage in 27.59. Compare this to the week prior at Blue Ridge where I cleared about 4 additional targets on this stage in 23.85. That said, even though I feel that I left time on the table in Stock Auto as well, I was 8 seconds faster than a week ago. (Again, more targets a week ago.) I think this just exemplifies that my overall Stock Auto performance was a bit sloppy at the PSA Shootout.
Sorry if this post was a little bland. I can’t blame you if you didn’t make it this far. Nothing worse than someone reporting out there times stage by stage. I wanted to write it for my own analysis and try to come up with places to improve. The biggest way to improve would be to shoot more events but I don’t necessarily want to do that. I’ve had a habit of obsessions with various sports. Obsession ultimately leads to burnout. At this point, I’m pretty happy with my times and happy with the amount of participation. I wouldn’t mind trying USPSA at some point to add a bit more challenge and get more time to do dynamic aiming. But we’ll see. All that takes time and money neither of which are in abundance. For now, I’ll probably plan on getting to a couple club falling steel shoots throughout the summer.
If you’ve never tried falling steel, I’d encourage you to give it a go. You don’t need to worry about how good or bad you are. Everyone is out there to have fun and we all start somewhere. I’m really happy I let Ed talk me in to signing up in 2022. This event and similar are ones I look forward to all year.
It turns out I didn’t come close to needing all that extra ammo I took. I put about 500 rounds back in my ammunition cabinet when I got home. Better safe than sorry though. Nobody is selling extra ammo between stages.
Bring it On 