Tactical Games Competition – Lessons Learned from Brownells – Part IV

Over the course of the last month I have been detailing the full kit of equipment that I ran at The Tactical Games event in Iowa near Brownells. While I have been hunting, shooting, and training with firearms my entire life (plus I drank some CrossFit Kool-Aid during a period of my life), I have never been a competition shooter or attempted a Tactical Games event before. With all that being said, I could manipulate a firearm under stress safely with no issues, but I had no idea what I was getting into. Will I ever do a Tactical Games event again in the future?… I absolutely will and am currently planning for it. Did my 1st Tactical Games competition go well?… Well, that depends on how you measure success. My goals were to not get hurt, be safe, and have fun. I had no delusions of reaching the podium. So, I accomplished all of my goals, but I also had significant bumps and lumps along the way. In this final article about my Tactical Games competition experience, I will share all of my lessons learned that I hope to improve upon next year. Let’s dive in!

Fitness/Competition Coverage on AllOutdoor

The Tactical Games is a physically grueling competition that couples weapon manipulations with real-world fitness tasks. Accuracy and speed are paramount, but safety trumps everything. If you participate in The Tactical Games you are acknowledging the danger and difficulty that this competition demands of the competitor. Only participate if you can safely and effectively deploy the firearms you are competing with.

Herein, all of the information provided is the opinion of the author through his personal experiences in The Tactical Games as well as his background leading up to the event. The gear and tactics suggested ahead are a way, but not the way. Take it like a grain of salt.

Tactical Games Competition – Lessons Learned

The Tactical Games is EXPENSIVE, and your Kit can’t Buy your Place on the Podium – In my previous 3 articles I outlined the MSRPs of everything I competed with and it cranks up to a grand total of $5,819.29!!! And this doesn’t even factor in your travel, time away from your job, hotel expenses, etc. I ran mid-tier quality gear for everything – if not better – and bear in mind since I am a gun writer a lot of my kit was borrowed or on loan. So, prepare your wallet if you want to compete. Also, I was extremely middle of the pack. I placed 30th out of 48 guys in my division. Your kit can’t buy your place on the podium.
The Tactical Games is NOT Transparent in their Event Instructions – I incurred more penalties for shooting steel plates out of order, with the wrong hand (right-hand only versus left-hand only), and doing too many reps while working out, or too few reps than I did receiving penalties from missing targets. They don’t tell you the events you’ll be participating in before you show up, instructions for events are only explained once per day (and I was often competing elsewhere on-site and unable to listen), and repeatedly when I asked questions to Range Safety Officers (RSO) they discourteously stated: “You should already know that.” The best thing you can do is listen to as many event explanations as humanly possible, talk to as many competitors who have gone before you on a given event as possible, and watch others compete in the event (if possible; not feasible if you’re first).

The Tactical Games Should NOT be the 1st Test of your Gear – I joked in a previous article that “Competing is my Training” might be my workout motto because I am so exceedingly busy that I don’t do CrossFit or weightlifting like I did as a younger whipper-snapper, but the Tactical Games competition shouldn’t be the first test of your kit (and it wasn’t for me). You don’t want to embarrass yourself by having parts of your kit catastrophically fail on competition day; or worse yet, you inure yourself or others. One piece of kit I didn’t train enough with is my plate carrier. During a 2-mile run from my Tactical Games competition, my plate carrier bounced around and massively bruised my clavicle leaving me in tremendous pain during the run. Lesson learned.
Safety is Paramount – One thing I will commend the Tactical Games competition on is their commitment to safety. You muzzle somebody? Your ass is gone. You unholster your pistol to show someone how cool it is? Your ass is gone. You flag anyone while competing? Your ass is gone. Safety is no joke and I applaud them for their strong stance on it. So, you better be buttoned up on your safe weapon manipulations even if you think you’re about to puke.

Run your Race – Don’t get sucked into chasing someone else’s shooting cadence or workout speed. I repeatedly watched a poor competitor chase a good competitor’s shooting cadence to their detriment. The poor guy shoots faster to keep up (constantly missing) while the good guy gets his hits. After the event is over, the poor competitor thinks he did good (by keeping up), but all of his misses destroyed his score. This brings us to our last point-of-information…
“You Can’t Miss Fast Enough” – There is something to be said for working out fast because all of the fitness is Pass/Fail. Do the things and do them quickly. Yet, just emptying your magazines quickly doesn’t always translate into first place. You need to get your hits. World Champion shooter Josh Froelich told me a long time ago that “you can’t miss fast enough” meaning it doesn’t matter how quickly you blast and sprint through a stage; you have to hit your marks.

Tactical Games Competition – Final Thoughts

So, with everything I experienced at my one and only Tactical Games competition, I have got to say that I am excited to get back to another event and compete. I am not John Wick nor do I pay my mortgage with my shooting abilities (not even close) so I will likely do a Tactical Games competition once per year; not 6 or 7. It’s a great “measuring stick” to see where my skills are at. It tests real-world fitness, precarious shooting positions, and it gets you out of your comfort zone. I look forward to hopefully taking 15th out of 50 people next year. I always want to better and improve myself. I am not there to specifically beat another gun bro or withhold super-duper secrets I learned. I have a tattoo on my back that states “rising tide raises all ships” meaning we all do better when we all do better. My success or anybody else’s – in life or the Tactical Games – does not bring anyone else down. We should all help each other out and I hope this Tactical Games competition series of articles helped you out, too. As always, let us know all of your thoughts in the Comments below! We always appreciate your feedback.

Adam Scepaniak