Shooters News - The Week Ahead - 6/1/11

Shooters News for the MN Area -- 6/1/11  

The Week Ahead

   Small Bore takes a rest this next weekend while Highpower offers matches both North and South of the cities.  Northwestern Gun Club has its annual "Atkinson/Luebke Memorial Match" and will be shooting 80 shot Over the Course (OTC) matches each day, Sat. June 4, and Sun. June 5. See Match Program - click here 
The weather looks good and I'll be heading up for at least Sat's match.  I've shot a lot of my best scores there -- It must be the pine scented air. 
South of the cities, on Sat. June 4th, Post 435 will be having a Service Rifle Clinic and 50 shot approved OTC match at their range near Newmarket and 35 south.   Click Here for the match program.
   So, you see that there are good choices for a match to shoot this weekend. Come on out and pull some triggers.  

Last Weekend
Sm Bore

The "Big" match last weekend was the Regional Sm bore Prone Championship at Mpls Rifle Club. The lure of two days of tough prone shooting competition lured in some of the areas top Sm bore, and Highpower shooters.  These included champion sb shooters, Larry Swayer and Morgan Dietrich, -- former Long Range National Champ Randy Gregory,,  National Development Team shooters, Stacey Tamulinas, and Steve Knutson.

  Saturday-- Iron sight Prone 160 shots

It was a little windy but warm and sunny, but was a great weekend for the Prone Regional Sm Bore Championships at MRC this past weekend.  Once again a full line of shooters showed up to enjoy some of the best conditions for shooting a match at MRC that folks can remember in quite a few years.  Saturday was ideal conditions to test the wind reading skills of the shooters in this championship match.  The wind was up but readable to all who paid attention.  Those who didn't paid the price.  8s were not uncommon .  Sunday was paradise for the any sight match.  It was almost dead calm most of the time.  You could test your hold, position, and trigger control on every shot.  We really were shooting for Xs. Even the loss of one pt might lose the match today-- and it did!

   Even though there were 20 shooters on the line, only two, Larry Sawyer and Stacey Tamulinas, had the tempo of the wind and were able to clean the first two targets and post a 400 score for the 50 yd match.  Sub Junior MK Lori H. beat most of the adults with her superb 398 in that match. The wind came up a bit the Dewar match and no one could clean the target for the 40 shots, but Morgan Dietrich and Larry Sawyer posted 399s to stay on top of the leader board.  The 100 yd match featured  wind that was a good fresh breeze rotating from 10 to 2 o'clock a little faster than I could get the shot off some times. Most everyone lost a few pts(or more) to a quick shift, but Larry Sawyer showed why he has won so many titles by taking his time and getting his shots off in right condition.  Larry shoots the only 400 in this match and goes 7 points up on on Morgan with only the 50 M match to be shot. Even with the difficult wind,  Larry drops only one pt in the 50m match, and just doesn't give anyone a chance of catching up for match win.  Ross Ewert, and Sacey Tamulinas came the closest with their 396 scores, but Larry takes the 50m match win and the Iron sight Championship with his 1596-106x.
  Sunday - Any sights prone 160 shots

It was partly couldly but almost no wind when I got to MRC on Sunday for the Any sight match.  Again there would be an almost full line. Unfortunately Brian Shiffman and Pete Zenner could not be back for todays matches, but Emile Quinar, was home from Murray State College, where she shoots on the Murray State Racer Rifle team, and she would be shooting with us for the day. 

  The wind was 2 mph or less. and it was scope day.  It was a day when you could shoot a 1600 if you paid attention. It would be a day of trigger control.  Just put the crosshairs in the x ring, breath, relax,  and get the shot off with good trigger control. Be very careful on that first target at 50 yds as you cant drop a point. A 1599 score could be a loser today.  

  50 yd match  Seven competitors shoot clean 400 scores for the two targets and 40 shots, and 6 shoot 34 Xs or better.  I'm still in it.

  Dewar match The wind is still about zero to 1 mph, for the 50 and a 100 yd targets and the Masters and Experts all fire 400 or 399 staying within one pt of the leaders.  I shoot a nine low and am one down after 80 shots. Both Steve Knutson and Larry Sawyer shoot cleans with 37 Xs !  (awesome)   Junior shooter Eric Hazleton scores a 399-19x topping the junior class.

  100 yd match this match starts to separate out the possible winners as the breeze frustrates everyone on one shot or more.  Ex class Ross Ewert, and Master Larry Sawyer are the only ones to take all 400 pts from this match and now are both the leaders as neither one has lost a point in the 3 matches and 120 shots fired.  

  50m match    With Morgan Dietrich only one point back, Stacey Tamulinas 2pts back, and Steve K. with Wayne Anderson 3 back, The leaders would have to hold hard to keep that lead.  Six shooters separated by 3 points and 40 shots to g

o.  Emily Quinar posts her 2nd  400 for the day along with 34xs.  Larry, Morgan, Jim Biles  and Stacey all post 399s, but it's not good en ough.  Ross Ewert has shot his 4th clean 400 score for the day and finishes with a personal best and match winning perfect 1600 score.  This is
Ross's first 1600/1600 and follows his 50 yd match win at the Nationals last summer.    Ross is wasting no time showing that he is ready for a master card.  Congratulations to Ross Ewert  1600-122x!    
  Larry Sawyer didn't win today's match he did come close (2nd) and he did win the overall championship.

Larry Sawyer is the 2011 Reg. Prone Sm Bore Champ after dropping only 5 pts in 320 record shots.  3195-241x  Awesome shooting!  Congratulations Larry !

The Next Sm Bore prone 1600 is June 19th

Complete Regional Results - Click Here
Slide show of pictures from this match --  Click Here


Highpower
May 29 OTC match at Northstar--

Kevin Bangen sends us this picture from the Northstar Rifle Club's 80 shot OTC  match Sunday May 31.    It looks like Kevin is keeping up his winning ways and took top spot in this match with a 791-37x score.  Not far behind were Capt. Bob Peasley 777-25x, and Omer Hamer 773-15x.  Other good scores in the 760's were fired by Larry Wiedell and Erik Rohde, and it should be noted that Tom Torberg fired a solid Master score of 755-15x including a great 193 at the 600 yd line.
For complete results -- Click Here

Next OTC match - June 4th and 5th at Northwestern Gun Club

                              program click here

Two Weeks Out
June 11 and 12  - 1000 Regional at GRRC  -  Program Click Here
June 12             -  300m Match at MRC
Our guys
Jake Mccann, MN soldier and shooting compeitior was deployed with his unit from W. St. Paul this past Sunday, and will be heading for Kuwait and who knows where. Please keep our warriors in your thoughts and prayers.
Freedom is not free!   

 Notes:
1.  Most match bulletins are posted full time at -   http://minnesotarifleshooting.blogspot.com/
2.  Its not too early to start planing to be on a team for the Mid range prone team match at Northstar on July 2. This should be a great match.  Find 3 other shooters from your club and get entered.  See match program Here
 
That's all folks
Hawkeye