Gunsite 250

Gunsite 250

I almost did not go.

The trip was not planned very far in advance, and my main goal was to get Charlie into the youth 250 class.  Money has been tight, and I was planning to spend the week working.  I asked for and received approval to work remotely . . . and then spent a few weeks pondering what I should do.  All of this was really just a smoke screen that I was using to hide the real issue:  fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of being embarassed in front of my peers, fear of not meeting the instructors' expectations.

Fear that I would not be able to find even a small piece of the old me, and that there was nothing left to find.  Fear that the younger, healthier "two-gun Greg" from years ago at a place that no longer exists, was simply dead and gone. 

I did not expect to finish the week.  To be honest, I wondered if I would make it through the first day.

So what happened?  Why did I change my mind and go?  I was reading their monthly newsletter in an email from Gunsite.  The June 2025 edition featured the story of a young man with heart trouble.  He showed up for the 250 class while waiting for a heart transplant, explaining that he had to live his life.  It clicked, and I immediately changed my mind about sitting this class out.  Besides the inspiring story of the youngster with heart trouble (or, if you prefer, the self-accusing guilt trip about being a wuss for deciding not to go), there is the simple fact that I have wanted to go to Gunsite for at least the past 25 years.  All I had to do was to arrange for payment, convert my remote work to a week of vacation, and start gathering the items I would need for class.

Before getting into the class itself, I am obliged to explain why I thought that I might not make it through the entire week.  Four reasons:  1) my sleep disorder and the general fatigue that goes with it; 2) my experience with Thunder Ranch; 3) foot pain; and 4) festination.  Thunder Ranch took their show on the road several times, and I attended their Urban AK in January 2021, and Urban Rifle (with an M1 Garand instead of the usual AR) in January 2022.  In both cases I was so tired by the end of the day--especially on day 2--that I had to sit out for a while.  How, then, do I account for the fact that I was able to complete the entire class--not just two days, but five--at Gunsite?  One reason is that Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch was teaching a 3-day class that was compressed into two days.  He crammed a lot of material into both days, resulting in long hours (and a short lunch break).  We worked hard at Gunsite, but the schedule allowed some flexibility that just was not possible in the Thunder Ranch classes.  Specifically, we had a larger number of shorter days, with more breaks to rest and hydrate--not to mention to give everyone time to absorb the material.  Then there are my sleep issues; I expected to be sleepy.  Foot pain--ah, my old nemesis from last year.  The orthopedic surgeon who examined my left foot last year indicated that there was nothing (that he could fix) wrong with the foot, and that after recovering from surgeries this Spring, it would be all rested up and healed.  Sadly, even though I did little other than walk for about two months, there was pain and swelling throughout the entire recovery.  Even on the day I packed up the car and drove to Gunsite, I felt pain in my left foot.  Somehow, when I started actually doing the activities that comprise the class, I felt no pain.  Festination was similar--at home I frequently have near-falls due to festination.  Not at the range, though.  Although I did have trouble walking at least part of each day at Gunsite, there was none of the dreaded festination (on the range . . . I diid experience a small amount at our lodging).

One question I had before I even arrived onsite is how/when to tell them that I have Parkinson's.  I learned that the paperwork that everyone fills out first thing on day 1 has a section for current medical conditions.  That seemed a bit too little--even bordering on inadequate--but I went with it.  Hand-written forms?  I can no longer write legibly . . . but I have a teenager!  I had Charlie fill out my forms, and then I got busy with the class activities and forgot all about PD.  There was no big announcement, and initially no discussion about it at all.  I was wearing one of my Team Fox shirts on day 1, and everyone put two and two together quickly.  The instructors took it in stride, incorporating my medical condition into the questions that they asked of me (and everyone else in their attempt to get to know us).  Fellow students offered to help me, typically with loading magazines.  They also offered congratulations for my grit and my (reasonably good) shooting, both of which I appreciated.

Speaking of loading magazines, I decided to go old school, at least in the beginning.  By that I simply means that I used my fingers instead of a loader.  That's how I did it 20 years ago, and I wanted to renew that skill, among others.  It takes strength, dexterity, and tough skin, and I worked on developing all three.  Doing so means some pain in the fingers, especially the right thumb.  It is a process of wearing down the skin during the day and then partially healing up at night.  Each day the condition of the thumb is a bit worse than it was the day before until you reach a limit.  I hit my limit midway through day 4, and from then on I mostly used a borrowed loader to load mags.

My situation regarding medication has changed post-DBS.  I used to take pills five times per day, but lately it has been just three times.  On at least one day I added a fourth dose back, but more important than that, I postponed the final dose of the day to the middle of the night.  This came about because of my lack of perceived need for any meds Sunday evening, combined with my 3am wakeups.  Sunday night I felt fine and skipped my meds, and then I took the Sunday night pills at 4am on Monday.  That allowed me to take the Monday morning pills around 7:30 to 8am--just as things were kicking off for the day.  This arrangement got me to lunch and was repeated each day, except Friday.  We stayed late on Thursday, until 9pm or 10pm or thereabouts to shoot in the dark, and I needed the evening meds that evening.  This threw me off a bit Friday morning, which was when we shot for scores and thus was a case of bad timing.  I think the impact was minimal, though, since I improved daily throughout the class and got my best results on day 5.

There are times each day when I cannot stop shaking, typically when I pick up a spoon or fork, or I try to take some pills, or I try to do anything on a touchscreen.  Years ago my friend Mark at Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) asked how I could hit the target at all, let alone get good hits, while dealing with a strong tremor.  My answer was that, unlike when I have a spoon in my hand and the tremor hits hard, when there is a gun in my hands, the tremor goes aaway.  There are plenty of other PD issues to deal with--including slowness of movement, reduced coordination, and fatigue--but shaking is key on a gun range.  If I were to stand on the firing line shaking hard enough to wave my pistol around, I'm sure I would be removed from the line.

I did little speaking with my fellow shooters, which kind of sucks.  I know how hard it can be for folks to understand what I'm saying, and I know how frusrtrated I have felt when faced with a friend who is no longer able to speak clearly and is slurring his words so much that I can't understand what he is saying.  I did not want to put my teammates into that situation, so I kept most of my comments to myself.

Closing Observations and Thoughts

While I continued to sleep poorly at Gunsite, I did get more sleep than normal each night (5 hours instead or 4).  

Shooting in high heat wears everyone down.  It pays to show up hydrated and in good physical condittion, and of ccourse to stay hydrated.

Night sights are good, but rarely essential--even at night.  If the stock Glock sights were more robust, I would probably never bother with night sights.

My old 65 lumen lights are still 65 lumens (still bright), but it's time for an upgrade to something smaller, brighter, and cheaper.

While the laser sights of 25 years ago were not worth their weight in excrement, the same cannot be said of the various modern pistol optics.   I have a new appreciation for them after seeing several in action.  They are generally small enough for use with an unmodified holster, and they are efficient enough to last a long time--well in excess of a year--on a single battery.

I shuffled my feet in the shoot house, making far more noise than I liked.  On the flip side, my natural slowness was a plus.

My inability to scroll on a touchscreen seems to be related to a lesser inability to seat a magazine.  In each case I end up moving my hand or finger faster and faster over a shrinking distance, all the while accomplishing nothing.  I was chastised on more than one occasion for spanking a mag.  "Has your magazine been misbehaving?"

Although I failed to achieve my goal of reviving the old Greg fom 25 years ago (how's that for an unrealistic goal?), I did make progress, and lots of it.  For example, it has been exremely difficult for me to draw from the standard strong side OWB position for many years, but I got that back and actually started to move a little faster.

If I could go back in time and stick with my Glock 17, I would do it.  I have nothing against the .45 ACP or the pistols that are chambered for it, but 9mm gets the job done (nine is fine!).  It is also cheaper and lighter, and it just might be easier to shoot fast and accurate with it.

They promised us the best instructors in the world, and then they delivered.  If you ever get the chance to go, and you have any interest at all, I highly recommend Gunsite.