Greetings,
Not sure if I can make it to this, but was considering it. I have a new AR-15 with flip-up sights and 30 round magazines. I also have a stock pistol and scabbard holster.
I do NOT have any method to carry magazines or a rifle sling.
[snip]
So should I wait and get some magazine pouches before I try this? At least if there is some equipment that would be "nice to have" but not required, I could claim my poor performance was due to my lack of equipment.
Lastly, how many handgun and rifle rounds should I bring?
Fly
You aren't going to need a sling for our matches.
A lot of people for starters just stick an extra rifle mag into their back pocket, and extra pistol mags into a coat pocket/front pocket somewhere. Not a problem. It is certainly slower for reloading--but for a first time out, being fast isn't going to be your goal. Having a safe, fun match will be your goal.
Koenig is spot-on regarding the ability to carry shotgun shells, though---some sort of pouch will be necessary. If you want to shoot all the stages, you'll have to have/borrow a shotgun and have a way to carry extra rounds. (For example, the shotgun stage last week was a 25-round stage if you never missed.) You can simply skip stages with shotgun---but you won't like it. (This coming week, two out of the four stages require a shotgun---one is shotgun-only, the other is pistol/shotgun.)
Go buy a Federal 100-round package of 7.5 or 8 shot from Walmart, and come on out to the match. If Koenig's shotgun isn't available, you can use mine.
100 rounds of pistol and rifle ammo each should be more than enough. I tend to bring a little more, but that is in case I need to reshoot something, or calibrate something, or someone needs to borrow some. Never lost a match yet because I brought too much ammo.
Regarding "suitable" shotguns: I started with a 18" Rem 870 pumpgun, and it worked just fine. I've seen people use shotguns with 3-4 round tubes, and while they were reloading a lot, they still had fun. It would be interesting to see someone shoot this with a double-barreled shotgun....