Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club

Winter Offhand Match; Saturday 14 March, 2020 

We closed out the Winter Offhand Season with a bang, really a bunch of bangs,  on Saturday March 14th.  The day dawned grey and overcast, a bit cool at about 40-degrees but the wind that had been so brutal on Thursday and Friday had stopped and overall it was not an unpleasant day for shooting. 

The group gathered early and we sent the first shot downrange at 8:48, a few minutes before the 9:00 published start time.  The range was full, with 12 shooters filling up all 12 positions. 

 We were done by 9:45, a quick pleasant match. 

Mike King took top place for the day with a 380-8X, but Randy Jahn shot a season high 380-6X to take second place as Mike Creedmored him.  

Bob Davis rounded out the top three with a 370-5X. Now, for the season results.  Remember, we take the three best scores across the season. 

First Place                   Mike King                    1139-21X         $39.00

Second Place              Mark Walters              1115-19X          $26.00

Third Place                  Randy Jahn                1100-10X         $13.00

X-Man Award              Mike King                          21X            $13.00

 An old Naval Academy tradition is an award for the guy who hung in there and just kept plugging away, the award for The Anchor Man.  

Anchor Man               Mike Bailey                 816-1X             $5.00 

I will write the checks for the awards and I will have them with me so I can present them when we cross paths. Thanks for everyone coming out and I hope you had a good season.

The Final Four – E-target Update

March is the time for the Final Four in basketball, but if you’re building e-target frames – it’s the time to finish off the final four.

I’ve pretty well finished up the last four frames. 

They are a bit different (better I hope) than the first four.  The frames are not really that heavy, but they are a bit much for a little short guy like me to get his arms around.  These last four frames have a hand-hole in the top center of the target to make handling the frame easier.  If you look at the pictures, you will also note that there is a target number in the upper left hand corner of the target.  If you are shooting through a ‘scope, it’s hard to see the number boards way out in front of the pits.  This number, hopefully, will make crossfires a bit less likely.  One last improvement, the Coroplast backers are stapled to the wooden frames with 9/16” staples.  I was concerned that the staples might not hold all that well in the soft pine frames, so on these last four targets I put a bead of Liquid Nails glue under the Coroplast backer to hold it to the frame.  It may be a problem to get it off in two or three years when we need to replace the backers, but that may well be an issue for the next guy to solve!

Our e-target setup will have five primary active targets (I plan to shoot five shooters per relay) and one active target to be available as a shooting hospital in case of a malfunction of any of the primary targets.  In addition to the six targets that have electronics for scoring, I have built two spare target frames with backers and faces.  These two frames will be spares in case one of the six active frames gets broken.  Until they are needed as replacements, these will be inactive hospital targets.  (Every shooter always needs the opportunity to crossfire!)  The five primary active targets will be targets 3 through 7.  Target 8 will be the standby, and target carriers 2 and 9 will have non-functional hospital targets in them.

We have a combined High Power Work Day and Practice Match on March 21st.  We need to move cardboard targets out of the target shed to make room for the new frames and we need to put the final touches on just how we will set up the frames in our carriers.  Once we get that done, I want to shoot a Practice Match to make sure that the electronics and the Range Officer are ready for that first match in April.  If you come to work, the Practice Match is free; if you come to shoot, the fee will be $10.00.