Traveling shooters are gathering in Phoenix for the Western WildCat prone SB matches, which start today with the team match and the "Made in America" match. Tomorrow, the real competition begins on Day 1 (Iron sights) of this 4 day match. This looks to be one of the best attended WildCat matches in a decade. Haven Williams, Match Director. told me last Saturday that he already had 87 paid entrys, and thought he would fill all 100 firing positions by Monday. Over 20 marksman are entered, and that is a great prediction of things to come.
This is the 4th weekend of Championship matches in the "March Madness" Phoenix Sm Bore series, which started with the Tarantula 4800 Metric, then the Road Runner 3200, and last weekend with the Diamond Back 3200 Regional.
I'm ready to go, and ready to contest the Ex class against what I know will be a tough tough competition.
Last year you had to shoot high 1580s to win any match in the EX class, and 1600 to win in the Master class, as the conditions were perfect.
I was not pleased with my scores in the Tarantula 4800 metric (who was?). While I could blame a lot of it on the windy conditions, I really did not shoot well-- period. Same thing in the Road Runner matches -- poor shooting with a lot of vertical spread in the Iron sight match. I was shooting the new Shilen Rachet Groove barrel that I won at last years WildCat matches, and a new lot of SK rifle match ammo. I started to think that the combination was bad, and that I might have to go back to last years barrel and ammo for the WildCat match, but in the Scope match of the Road Runner, I scored a 1593/1600 and decided to stick with that barrel/ ammo combination for one more try at the DiamondBack matches. It would be a last test before the Wildcats.
We started the Diamond Backs Iron sight day with the Dewar match, then the 100 yd match and my results were poor--bad shooting, hard to get good sight alignment -- old eyes. Before the Meter match, I changed the .5 diopter out of the Stallings front sight and put in a .3 diopter. I could see a much clearer sight picture, and after adjusting the apertures, I came up with pretty good scores in the last two matches. I had been able to see the target better with the .3 diopter and my vertical dispersion was minimal. The Sunday match of this tournament was an Any Sight match, but I thought I should shoot Irons again to confirm that using the smaller diopter was the key to good scores with irons.
The conditions were perfect with just a little wind from 5 o'clock to keep the flags from hanging limp. While the others were shooting scopes, I was able to hang in there dropping only 5pts in the Dewar match, and then 4 in the 100 yd match. A pair of 198s in the Meter match, and a clean 400 in the 50 yd match put me down only 13 pts for the day, posting a 1587 on the board for my 2nd highest Iron sight score ever. Peter Church fired a 1599 for the match win, Nancy Tompkins and Virginia McLemore 1 only a pt behind.
The Barrel was working, and the ammo was working (as good as $6 ammo can be expected to work). I'll start the WildCars tomorrow with confidence in the equipment, and knowing If I don't screw up, I just might win one of those WildCat sweatshirts, and have a good chance at the other great prizes that Lones Wigger comes up with for the prize tables. Let the games begin. With a full line of 100 shooters, it will be a great match.
Note: Pictures, and Results of the WildCat matches to be posted on the blog each day (if I'm not too worn out)
Note: The next MN Sm Bore Winter league match is March 18th -- Program: Click Here
300 meter news
From Brian Shiffman:
Results of MRC March 11th 300 meter match
"It was great weather
for the match, in general, but the light to medium variable winds
created havoc for many shooters. It was difficult to figure out the
wind direction and speed most of the day. Both relays experienced
challenging conditions. The wind was only strong enough to move a shot
one ring for the unwary but that was enough.
The top two F-Class
shooters were Jon Hample who beat out Wade Brown by only one point.
These guys had it figured out. Third place, 8 points behind second, was
Gary LaValley. The next 10 places were separated by 1 to 3 points.
A reminder for those
that are interested. When viewing the results page, if you click on a
name a new window will be brought up showing that shooters average score
for the position chosen. If a person shoots more than one position
during the year, you will have to click on the different positions of
that shooter by locating one of those position shot at some specific
month. It makes it easy to see how your shooting is coming along and to
compare your average with those of others.
The full results of the March match are located at this web page; http://www.edfpages.com/mgfc/results.php?match=3
The next monthly match will be Sunday, April 8, 2012. I will call for pre-registration before April 1st so watch your email at that time.
Brian shiff004@umn.edu
Note: The 300 m Prone State Championship will be March 31 at MRC -- Match program Click Here
Note: The 300 m Prone State Championship will be March 31 at MRC -- Match program Click Here
High Power
The last match of the Winter Highpower League will be on Mar 17th -- Match program Click here
Spring work is on-going at each rifle club, with the first Highpower matches scheduled on April 21 with the CMP games being held at Gopher, and a Wind Clinic and a Mid Range match to be held at Elk River Sportsman's Club that weekend -- Match program Click Here
Service Rifle team -- No News
That's all Folks!
Hawkeye
No comments:
Post a Comment