Western WildCat Matches -- Day Two

It was another grand and glorious day to shoot.  Almost perfect conditions again.  There was no more than 3mph wind from 4  o'clock for the first two matches -- the Dewar and the 100 yd match.  It was a pure holding and trigger break contest today.  400 scores were a dime a dozen.  Unfortunately, my hold was back and forth in the 10 ring and I was losing pts trying to break a clean shot.  Not my day.  I settled down a little by the  Meter match and after dropping 5 on the first card, I was finally able to shoot clean 200s on the last 3 targets of the day.  In the last match -- the easier 50yd match, I got 400-32x clean, and mistakenly thought that should be up there high on the score board.  Oh, no, not in this competition.  I was only 2nd EX and would have only been 14th in the HM class --- and was actually only 24th over-all in that match.   
  Still only two 1600s were shot today, and those by Jamie Gray, and Erick Uptagrafft. There were some gusty reversals out of the west in  the last two matches.   Erick and Jamie both shot an astounding 140 Xs with Jamie getting the win on tie breakers.  Wow-- you shoot a 1600-140x and don't get a win.    Life is not fair.
  I had the pleasure of shooting next to, Jim Gaines, and John Giles all day. Both these gentlemen are over from Calif. for the matches, and regularly  shoot at the LA R&R The way they tell it that range is right in the city-- in a city park and is a pretty nice place. Two positions away on each side were my old friend from Wisc.- Frank Fisher,  and to the right was Canadian friend Ken Nelson. Who, by the way is the only other person I know that likes the sport of Curling.
  After Two days, Ken leads the EX class,  but even firing a 1597 today,  he could not beat fellow expert,  Allen Elliot, who was determined to take the class win today after a difficult day with a rifle yesterday.  Allen is a past Nat. Palma Champ, and Ken won a first place medal in the Berger Long Range matches just last month. This is a tough Expert class.  When are these guys going to move up to at least the Master class. 
 Ok, now it's time to reorganize for Day 3 of the WildCats.  I cant wait. --- Hawkeye