WWII Pistol Qualifier Challenge

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A few years my family started receiving our CMP USGI surplus 1911's. This has spawned a fair bit of 1911 shooting. During this journey I looked into the pistol qualification requirements at the time these guns were entering service in WWII.  I found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enTnooHTsLY

This weekend we set up some two target stations and had a go at the qualifier. The shooters were my mom (79.5), me (55) and two of my sons (22,19). The shooting, if you aren't aware and haven't watched the video yet, is one-handed shooting.  Total course of fire is 45 rounds over 9 strings of five shots each.  Scoring is a combination of normal scoring + hit/miss scoring for the "quick fire".  Final score is an average of the percentage from slow, rapid and quick fire.

We were shooting 220 grain SWC over 5.4 grains of W231.  This is a 875 fps load and shoots pretty easily.  It normally feeds fine in these guns, but we did have a few malfunctions here and there.

Mom and I shot first.  Mom's heart and mind were in it, but after the slow fire strings her elbow was done.  She is only 4'10" tall, 120 lbs and nearly 80 years old.

I finished out the qualifier alone.  Then my two sons ran through the course.

Mom scored 29% on her slow fire string.  Room for improvement.

I scored 94% in slow fire, 57% in rapid fire and 93% in quick fire for a total score of 81% - Sharpshooter. I tanked (or mis-scored) my second rapid fire string, and it cost me "Expert".

The boys got 43%/56% on slow, 29%/42% on rapid and 40%/67% on quick for overall scores of 37% and 55%.  Both commented early and often how "wrong" it felt to shoot one handed.

All in all a very enjoyable time.  Next time Mom will shoot the Rapid Fire stages and the rest of of will hopefully shoot "better".

If you are looking for a fun time, this challenge is it.

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[Ten2six]

Sounds like everyone had a good time! That is always a win!