By Iain Harrison

Shooting the big 50 is always a fun experience. However, rapid firing 14 rounds, like Gary Quesenberry in this week’s show, is a good way to develop a nasty flinch, and to start doubting your own abilities. Running the numbers through my ballistic calculator and assuming that the 40 mph wind was at full value, it’s easy to see why some of the competitors were having the trouble they did. If the target was moving into the wind, the 9-m.o.a. lead required to hit a target moving at walking pace would be added to the 13-m.o.a. wind value. If the target and wind were in the same direction, they’re subtracted from one another. Get that bit of math wrong and your rounds don’t have a chance of connecting.

In the elimination voting, Jake’s strategy of selecting the strongest competitors to eliminate each other has been consistent throughout, but it was interesting to see that since it’s every man for himself, Alex has also adopted this philosophy.

During the elimination challenge, I enjoyed the fact that both Mike and Gary were forced to reload magazines while under the time pressure, as this tilted the balance hugely toward the accuracy side of the equation. While the players had full magazines, they could blaze away but once dry, the seconds spent on cramming rounds into them were seconds that could be used by your opponent to carefully line up the sights and make that perfect trigger press. Gary won because he took fewer rounds to make his hits.

In next week’s show, the drama looks like it reaches critical mass. Think you’ve seen the last of Mike?