After last year’s Midsummer Madness Tournament, I made the following comment:
If I ever again suggest that we shoot four matches on three consecutive days – somebody call the head doctor and have me checked for mental stability. Well, maybe not – by next summer I may decide to try it again. Shooting Mid-Summer Madness on three consecutive days gives me a whole new appreciation of what it takes to shoot every day for a month at Camp Perry or Camp Atterbury.
Well, I decided to try again this summer and I believe we had a very successful weekend of shooting.
Friday Afternoon – June 17 — 50-Round NRA National Match Course
We started out of Friday afternoon with a 50-round match. I had two fairly full relays with 15 shooters coming to the line – two more than last year.
As a contrast to last year, the weather was absolutely a delight Friday afternoon and continued that way throughout the weekend. My Stat Office weather observer called it 82-degrees at 4:29 when the first shot went downrange, with a wind of 12 – 17 MPH from about 1 or 2 o’clock. By the time we finished at 6:30, the wind had pretty much died down and it wasn’t much of a factor during the match.
The top three shooters in this match were:
Mark Richard 490-19X
Geoff Branson 488-22X
Mark Walters 486-11X
And, as a note – the fourth place finisher in the match was one of the Junior Girls we claim as our own, Miss Emma Branson with a 477-14X. Emma is John Halter’s grand-daughter, a third generation FWRR shooter.
Saturday, June 18 – CMP/NRA 50-80 Match
The Saturday match was sanctioned by both the CMP and NRA. The NRA match could be shot as either a 50 or 80-round match, the CMP match was an 80-round match.
We started at 8:08; it was an unbelievable 59-degrees at first shot with a very light north wind – again the wind had no effect on the match. We shuffled folks into three relays which moved the match along quickly – shooting an 80-round, three relay match in just a little over 3-and- a half hours The morning did warm up a bit, but when I left the range the truck reported only 76-degrees. Jim Schieltz, a visitor from the Lima Sabers commented; “You need to cancel this match on account of weather – we can’t have a match on a day this nice – it has to be raining or boiling to hold a high power match”!
The top three shooters in this match were:
Mike King 785-27X
Mark Richard 784-24X
Mark Walters 771-28X
Sunday Morning, June 19 — Mid-Range Tournament
Sunday dawned clear and even cooler than Saturday; cooler, 55-degrees and no wind or breeze to speak of. The Sunday morning session was, technically, a Tournament within a tournament since it consisted of three, 60-round matches. 17 shooters came to shoot and we worked them into a three relay format. Once we came close to the end of the first relay and firing points came open, we moved into infiltration firing which made the match go very smoothly. We shot all three matches as “any-sight” matches and several competitors shot at least one match with iron sights
This match saw some fantastic shooting with the top five competitors separated by only 5-points:
Geoff Branson 599-36X (Yes, he actually only dropped ONE point)
Ron Dague 596-29X (Ron Creedmoored Mark Walters who finished third)
Mark Walters 596-23X
Mike King 595-29X
Emma Branson 594-26X (Junior Girl)
Sunday Afternoon; Mike Gingher M1A Memorial Match
This was the final match of the weekend and five shooters stayed to see just who was going to take the bragging rights for the Aggregate Score for the weekend tournament.
This is a match we have named for Mike Gingher, a long time FWRR member and a very prominent figure in the High Power shooting sport. He was a long time armorer for the USMC Reserve National Team and a fixture at Camp Perry National Matches as a Coach and armorer.
The Mike Gingher M1A Memorial Match results were:
Mark Walters 363-1X
Mark Richard 340-4X
Ron Dague 330-3X
The Mid-Summer Madness Tournament scores turned out as follows:
Four Match Aggregate First: Mark Walters 2216-35X
Four Match Aggregate Second: Mark Richard 2201-72X
Four Match Aggregate Third: Ron Dague 2119-47X
Match Fourth: Mike Habel 2050-41X
Match Fifth: Geoff Branson 1851-82X
Match Sixth: Mike King 1806-69X
Match Seventh: John Halter 1740-34X
High Junior Match Score Emma Branson, Mid-Range 594-26X
High Junior Aggregate Kileen Shaffer 1703-32X
Again – I must thank Mike and Glenna Grannis for their help as my Statistical Office and Finance Office. There is absolutely NO WAY I could run a match this size without their help to keep scores and money straight. XXX and OOO to Mike and Glenna!!!