Shooters News for the Minn Area - June 13, 2012

The Week Ahead for Minn area shooters
  Highpower

Marking targets at NWGC

   This coming weekend, Northwestern Gun Club will host the 2nd in their summer series of rifle matches at their top notch shooting range on the shores of Hunter lake. Three days of OTC (over the course) matches are on tap in the Hunter Lake 2400.  This popular tournament has been drawing competitive shooters from all over the Midwest for many years and is one of the highlights of the summer shooting season in Minn.  NWGC matches always feature a "little" socializing after the match, its a great time to catch up with folks you may not have see for a while.  Indoor and outdoor camping facilities are available for those who wish to stay right at the range for the weekend. 
       Click here for Weather forecast for NWGC this weekend.
       Click here for Match Program and entry

Prone shooting
Eight 20 shot prone matches are on the schedule at Mpls. Rifle Club for Sunday, June 17th.  Prone shooters not heading off to the MidWest Palma matches at Lodi,Wisc., should head over the the MRC Small Bore range for a full day of tough Prone competition with the Sm Bore match rifle.  You don't even have to load the ammo or pull targets! These outdoor prone SB matches are the absolute best practice for Mid Range and long range highpower matches. See you there?
         Click Here for MRC SB 1600 match program, map and entry info.

Long Range
Good Luck to all those area Long Range shooters that are heading off to next week's Mid West Palma Matches at Lodi, Wisconsin.  Bring back a couple pictures for those of us who won't make it.
                                                     Click for slide show of this match
Last Weekend    


The Minn. Regional Long Range Championship took place at the Gopher Rifle & Revolver Club's 1000 yd shooting facility June 9-10. . This match, being scheduled each year just before the Midwest Palma matches, is not only the Regional Champ for upper Midwest shooters but also a good tune-up for those upcoming Palma Championships.  35 competitors faced warm and windy conditions while trying to post 10s and X on those targets 5/8s of a mile away.  60 % of the competitors were traditional Sling shooters, while 40% were contesting those minuscule targets on the F-Class side of the firing line.  12 High Masters made up the bulk of the Sling shooters that meant no one was going to have an easy time of winning any of the 5 twenty shot matches. Of the 15 F-class shooters, 8 were unclassified competitors, new to long range competition.  Of these "Unc's", several showed that while they were new to Long Range, they were not "newbie" shooters and would place in more than one match.
 Saturday was Iron sight day for the sling shooters, with three 20 shot matches to be contested.  In the first match of the day, the competitors had just a taste of wind conditions that would test them the rest of the weekend.  The "average" wind was not high, just 8 to 10 from the SSW, but it was not the average wind that plagued the shooters.  It was the gusts that would eventually rise to 24 mph. while fishtailing from SE to SW. This would cause 8s to appear on almost every target, frustrating the shooters who could not find a "shooting window" where the flags would be lined up and the shot might go somewhere close to where it was called.

  Video of Sling Class shooters -  Click Here 
             Special note: Look at the wind (go full screen) across the range at the very end of this video. It took a confident shooter to make an accurate shot at 1000 yds in this wind. Most matches in this wind were won with high 190 scores. Who out there thinks they could fire a 200 in such conditions?


  It was Stacey Tamulinas, who's patience at reading the wind, and X-ring hold, who won the first match and posted a remarkable 197-7x.  Morgan Dietrich, Distinguished Sm Bore shooter, also fired a 197 but lost on X count.  Brian Mrnak rounded out the top three, just one pt back.  In Match two, as conditions worsened, It was Morgan D. who came out on top with a 194. Again the match was decided by X count, as Jay Johnson, also put up a 194 on the board, but was 1 X  short of Morgan.  Steve Erickson fires a 193 for third place.  In the Master Class (and below) Erik Rhode wins the first two matches with very competitive scores of 192,193, and goes into the last match of the day, just 6 pts down from the leader at this point.  It should also be noted that Jr. shooter, Eric Hazelton, fired a 187 in this 2nd match and stayed competitive with the adults all day. 

Results - click To enlarge

  Bill Lair, who had been shut out of the winnings in the first two matches, showed everyone that "it isn't over till it's over', and dominated the last match of the day, putting up an amazing 197-11x, for the really tough conditions.  Matt Griffin, USAF shooter, fired his best score for the day (195-6x), and takes 3rd. 
 The final scores for 'Iron Sight' day, shows Morgan Dietrich in 1st place with Bill Lair, 2nd, 4 pts back, and Brian Mrnak 3rd down only, 6pts.

   In the F-class, it was Bob Mead who won the first two matches, dropping a total of only 8 pts in the 40 shots for record.  His skill as a wind reader and wind coach with the US Palma team is evident here.  In the third match, Bob fell victim to the dreaded cross fire disease, and put himself out of the running. Ben Winget's scores in the top three of each of the day's matches, leaves him 10 pts ahead of the pack and the leader of the F-class.   It was Tyson Brabec, though, who was the talk of the day among the F-ers (and everyone else). Tyson is a 12 year old Jr. shooter, who is as competitive as anyone, on the line.  Tyson's 3 scores for the day (193, 188, 187) did not win any of the matches outright, but they were consistently high and Tyson takes 3rd overall in F-class for the day.

    Video of F-class shooter Bruce B. -- Click Here
 
  If anyone thought that the tough wind conditions were rough on Saturday, they knew they were in for even tougher condition's, when they arrived on Sunday morning and saw the flags standing out straight, and all pointing different directions at the same time.  The wind was now about 14mph average, with peak gusts during the match blowing though at 29 mph, (recorded by the anemometer on my roof, a few miles south).
   The key to winning today would be have patience with the wind, and find that 'shooting window'.  Firing on the wrong side of a wind shift today would easily be a miss on that 6 ft target, 1000 yds away.
   Sunday was 'Any Sight' day, and about half of the sling shooters would use scopes, and half thought that their Iron Sights would work just fine for the two 20 matches to be contested today.  Morgan jumped out to an early lead for the day, dropping only 3 pts in the first match (197-9). As usual, Morgan was the last shooter done firing. This patience, learned from many years of Sm Bore prone shooting, was the key to the wind gusts. Brian Mrnak takes 2nd and 3rd goes to Bill Lair.  The Last match was won by Brian M., tying his best score of the weekend of 196.  Bill Lair again fired a solid score of 193 for 2nd, and Capt. Bob Peasley finally got a handle on the wind and shot his best of the weekend for 3rd place. 
  In the end, It came down to the last shot to decide the winner of the weekend's championship.  Brian Mrnak wins the Minn. Regional Long Range Championship--Gold Medal. Just one point back after a hard weekends competition, and 2nd place is Morgan Dietrich--Silver medal, and just two pts back is Bill Lair--Bronze Medal.
Erik Rhode wins the Master Class just 18 pts back with an excellent score of 938-17x
 Sunday,  F-class
  Bob Mead would look back to Saturday's one bad shot and know that was where he lost the Championship.  Shooting a 192 in the first match for 3rd, and 193 in the 2nd match for the Match win, Bob would end up only 5 points back, over all, from the Championship, and earned the F-class Silver medal.  Pat Scully clawed  back on day two, posting Class firsts in both matches, and earning himself the Bronze Medal.  

Bill L., Brian M., Phil K., Erik R., Morgan D., Ben W., Matt. G

   Ben Winget's 196 in the first match, was the high Fclass score for the day, and Ben's aggregate scores for the weekend give him the Regional F-class Championship.
 Congratulations to our two champions.
    Sling Class Champion -- Brian Mrnak
    F-class champion    --  Ben Winget   





Notes:
The caliber of the competition--
From Kurt Borlaug:
Last weekend's LR Regional was a learning experience for a lot of reasons. Firstly, the conditions were challenging and secondly, big matches and new reloading practices don't mix.  Lastly and most importantly I learned that generosity abounds in our sport. After my first sighter on Sunday my trigger would not reset.....due to above mentioned reloading experiment in softseating bullets resulting in 44.5 grains of Benchmark migrating into my action and trigger. After a failed attempt to clear the issue, with tools borrowed from Phil Klanderud, Jim Soderstrom graciously offered the use of his rifle to me. I missed the first relay I was to fire on and mark Rohmann allowed me to fire both matches in the time allowed during the second. I spoke with my target puller, Dick Van Valkenburg about my plan and if he'd be okay pulling some extra shots for me. He was on board and a plan was in motion. All sighters and 40 record shots were delivered, mostly on my target, some in the middle and all witnessed with good humor by Brian Mrnak as scorekeeper.
  Thanks to all who allowed me to complete the match. Kurt Borlaug


Two Weeks out  
June 23-24 --  OTC, 1800 pt. ea. day at MRC -- Match Program Click Here
June 30, July 1st  --  Sm Bore 4P Regional --  Match program Click Here

That's All Folks
Hawkeye