August 8 50/80 Match

I wrote in the Newsletter that we had managed to have a good High Power season, but when you think things can’t get much better – they surprise you by getting even better! 

Saturday 8 August was a High Power shooter’s dream day.  The Director had confused everyone – including himself – by putting the wrong start time in all of the notices, but we managed to bring the first relay to the line by 8:20 and the day just improved from there.  It was very pleasant; low humidity, not too hot (warm – yes, but by no means broiling) and no wind.  If ever a shooter needed a day to get no-wind zeroes, Saturday was indeed that day.  The morning session finished up about 11:00 and we got the PM session started about 11:30, finishing around 2:30.

One of the unexpected benefits of our electronic targets has been the number of shooters who have chosen to shoot a re-entry match in the afternoon.  As one re-entry shooter commented; “If I don’t have to pull targets, I can just shoot all day”.

We had three guests show up from around Maumee, Ohio.  They had heard good things about us from a Lima Sabers shooter and they just took a road trip to check us out.  They were pleased with the appearance of the range and they gave us good marks on the targets.  There are a lot of places to go shoot on most Saturdays, and FWRR is getting noticed as one of the better places to be.  Thanks to all of you guys for making it that kind of place.

The quality of shooting matched the quality of the day.  Almost half of the shooters for the day posted Master scores, 752 or higher.

Results for the day were:

First:                Mark Richards                        775-29X

Second:           Carl Johnson               774-21X

Third:              Geoff Branson                        771-18X

On interesting note for the day, none of the top three shooters were the top shooter in any of the individual stages. Stage winners for the day were:

Offhand          Jeff Beierke                                         189-  4X

Sitting Rapid   Tim Plowman (Maumee, OH)       200-11X

Prone Rapid    Mike King                                          198-  6X

Prone Slow     Mike King                                            198-11X

The upset of the day was in Sitting Rapid.  Geoff Branson left the line in the morning with a Double Clean 200-9X, certainly an impressive accomplishment.  BUT, in the afternoon session, Tim Plowman – a visiting Distinguished Shooter from Maumee, Ohio Creedmored Geoff with another Double Clean – 200-11X.  Just what does a guy need to do to come out on top on a day like that?

Our Silver Mountain Targets worked well.  There was only one short outage and our Pit Sitters were right on top of it.  They did a quick power-on reset of the target and we went along with only about a 90-second interruption.  Dave Schnelle, the US Silver Mountain Representative had spent Thursday afternoon at our practice monitoring the targets for the “target went red” issue.  We are a very convenient test site for him since we are his closest mid-size user of this particular configuration.  We sat for a long time, and finally one target went red for us and Dave sent about 15-minutes of data back to the software developer up in Canada.  Hopefully we are a contributor to solving this problem that has pestered folks this summer.

Unless something unexpected happens, the next match will be the Hoosier Home Range Hundred Match on September 5th.  Yeah, it’s Saturday of Labor Day weekend, but this will be a quick match that will get you off the range by about 12:00-noon and give you all the time you need to eat hot dogs with the family.  Details will be coming up soon.

For the rest of September, we will have the CMP Games Match on September 12th.  I am planning this match as a chance for folks to shoot multiple re-entry matches; bring two or three guns and shoot all of them.  I have had questions about a Sniper Match.  If I can generate enough interest (about 10 shooters) I will put together a match that will be fun and challenging.

On the last Saturday of September, we hold the Leonard Johnson Memorial Team Match.  We shoot .22 rimfires at 200 yards on the SR-42 target and then move back to 300-yards and shoot center fire on the same target.  Watch for more details on this match as well.

 One last bit of information.

The FWRR Meeting on Tuesday August 18th will be held at the FWRR Range at 7:00 P.M.

It WILL NOT be at the Trion Tavern at 7:30

Be well and be safe.