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SHOP NOWClassic Firearms visits Barber Training Solutions for a three-gun course with rifle, shotgun, and pistol stages. The shooters compare times, penalties, and lessons learned on zeroing and stage planning.
The video opens at Barber Training Solutions with Trayvon Barber hosting the Classic Firearms crew on his range. The plan is to run a three-gun style course using rifle, shotgun, and pistol. Trayvon explains that the stage is built to emphasize movement and a higher pistol round count, while the rifles represent different setups from more tactical configurations to open-style builds. The group discusses that some shooters are more experienced in competition than others, and that Trayvon is a professional USPSA-style pistol shooter. The goal is to see how everyone handles the same course of fire, compare performance, and highlight the learning curve for newer three-gun shooters.
Trayvon walks through the rifle portion of the stage in detail. From the first barricade, there are three steel targets at roughly 80 to 85 yards: white, orange, and yellow. The shooter must fire two rounds on each color from that position. Then the shooter moves forward to a VTAC-style barricade and uses the staircase section, again putting two hits on white, two on orange, and two on yellow from different positions. At the final rifle barricade, there are two small steel poppers in front of tire stacks, with one hit required on each. After engaging these, the rifle is placed on safe and stored on a table before transitioning to the shotgun portion of the stage.
After stowing the rifle, the shooter runs forward to a table to pick up a shotgun that belongs to the range, not to the visiting shooters. The shotgun array includes two clay targets in one area, three more clays nearby, and then three large steel poppers. Each target must be engaged appropriately before the shotgun is safely stowed in a designated area. Once the shotgun is grounded, the shooter draws a pistol and enters the pistol shooting area. The pistol plan calls for approximately 33 rounds, with two hits per paper target under typical three-gun rules or a single solid A-zone hit. The layout includes multiple paper targets and several steel plates and poppers that must be engaged while moving through different shooting positions.
One of the shooters completes a full run and then walks the targets with Trayvon to verify hits. The pistol sequence involves entering the first position, putting two rounds on each paper target, then moving to engage additional paper and a steel plate, performing a reload, and continuing through more paper and a popper. The shooter notes taking a risk by engaging steel while moving, requiring one pickup shot but still maintaining control. After checking the rifle steel, shotgun clays and poppers, and all pistol paper and steel, the run is confirmed as clean with no penalties. The time is recorded at 96.48 seconds, and the group emphasizes how clean hits on all three platforms avoid costly penalties in three-gun scoring.
Another shooter struggles during the stage and later attributes many issues to an unconfirmed rifle zero and a new configuration brought out for the match. After the run, they discuss how the rifle’s point of impact was clearly off, forcing the shooter to muscle through shots and compensate on the fly. Trayvon reassures the shooter that it was still a solid effort for someone new to three-gun competition. The group stresses the importance of verifying zero before any match and sticking with equipment that is familiar and regularly trained with. They also note that the range has a low berm but is surrounded by over two miles of private woods, so rounds remain safely contained as long as muzzle discipline is maintained.
Later in the video, another shooter runs the stage using a Springfield Echelon pistol with iron sights for the first time. During the rifle portion, he has difficulty locating one of the distant steel targets, believing he is shooting at a target that is not actually there. Trayvon and others coach him to look outside the optic to visually find the yellow steel plate near the tires, then re-acquire it through the scope. It is revealed that a steel target had broken earlier and been moved, causing confusion about its location. The shooter also discovers he must hold slightly high with his iron sights to get hits, learning that his sight setup is not perfectly dialed in. The run includes a rifle malfunction that must be cleared instead of transitioning to pistol, reinforcing match rules and problem-solving under pressure.
The group gathers to review times, penalties, and lessons from the stage. Trayvon posts a 98.68-second run with a failure to engage a shotgun clay and one miss on paper, partly blamed on an optic that was spinning loose. Another shooter records a 96.48-second clean run but notes too many pickup shots that cost time. Jason finishes in 188.30 seconds with one failure to engage and one miss on pistol paper, largely due to an unconfirmed rifle zero. Kyle ends with a 225.52-second run and two misses on paper after struggling with target identification and equipment setup. The shooters conclude that three-gun demands solid rifle zeroing, careful stage planning, clear target identification, and staying with familiar gear. They highlight that failures to engage and small mistakes compound quickly across three different weapon platforms.
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