Desert Brutality 2019

I signed up. Feb. 2nd & 3rd, 2019, I will be in Southern Utah shooting the 2nd Annual InRangeTV Desert Brutality. Hopefully I’ll win something.

If you don’t know what DB is, here’s the premise: A 2-Gun (rifle & pistol) practical shooting competition, where the difficulty comes not from complex stage design and target presentation, but through the physicality of the stage’s non-shooting components along with the high levels of the fundamentals of shooting required.

If you’ve got 10 minutes, I’d watch the embedded video.

So, why am I doing this? Why now? Well, because I run my mouth a lot. Generally I insert key phrases like ‘probably’ and ‘usually’ so that I have a way out, but not this time. I watched the coverage of the first Desert Brutality (2018) and said to myself “Man, that looks like fun”. I heard about the prize table situation [Quote: “We had too many prizes”] I said that I will be going to the next one. Not ‘probably’, not ‘I’ll see what my schedule looks like’, but will.

Obviously this is something I want to do, and just as obvious should be the fact that if it truly interfered with my life in a serious way I’d skip it, but since I don’t have a legitimate reason not to, I cannot break the promise I made. What kind of example am I setting if I don’t do what I say?

Desert Brutality 2019 will set me back on some other stuff I was trying to get accomplished (carry gun mod, upgrading my AR, various other projects, etc) but this is a limited-time offer. As of writing, there are only 8 spots left, so by the time you read this Desert Brutality 2019 may be entirely sold out. After seeing the change in Red Oktober from 2016 to this 2018, I want to make sure I get as close to the original experience as possible. I also don’t want to set a precedent of not going. I want to be able to look at a match/event that is actually feasible and not have that mental block of ‘I’ve never done something on this level before’. There needs to be a first time for everything, and I figure that this is as good a time as any.

I also may not have the opportunity to do this in the near future. I’ve got small children at home, and my time commitments to them are only going to go up in the next 5 to 12 years. Even if my financial situation improves and I can spend more money on matches and training, I may not be able to be that far from home for that long. If nothing else, I’ll be able to look back at this and be glad that I didn’t give up the opportunity when it arose. Most of my regrets in life are of things I could have done, but chose not to. I don’t want this to be just one more thing on the list.

Also, the fact that I won’t be running a 5K always helps 🙂

I’ll leave you with Sinistral Rifleman‘s match footage. He’s a darn good competitive shooter, and he finished 2nd Overall in 2018.