High Power; May 25 and May 27th

The week ending May 27th was a busy week for High Power shooters.  For our Thursday night practice session, we shot an NRA Approved 100-yard match.  Seven shooters stood to the line and we had a really good match.  When the scores were totaled up, I had to go to the NRA Rule Book to do something I had not needed to do in my several years of being High Power Range Officer. Mike King and Mark Walters both posted 489 scores.  When I went to the X-count to break the tie – both of them posted 22X counts.  How do you break a tie at 489-22X?  The NRA High Power Rules book says that I have to go back to the stage at the longest (or longest simulated) range.  That would have been the simulated 600-yard range … and at that range Mark Walters shot a 197-12X.  In most matches that would have been pretty good, but Mike King cut a 198-12X … gotcha Mark. Mike King took the match first place with a tie-breaking score on the simulated 600-yard range.

The high Junior was Marshall Rohrbach with a 475-15X.

Then came Saturday, the 300-yard Mid-Range match.  It was a fantastic day for a match.  We had two full relays and we had to turn away a couple of shooters who showed up at the last minute after we had the two relays set and on the line.  We had a special guest shoot with us Saturday; Joe Bakies from the Lima Sabers club.  Joe is a member of the US National Shooting Team and specializes in shooting at ranges that most of us can only imagine – routinely out to 1000-yards.  Our 300-yard range was a gallery shoot for him, but he still had to deal with his share of trash talk.  After all, this was a group of high power shooters.

Joe Bakies with his loooong barreled rifle

We had classes for Match rifles, Scoped Service rifles and Any Sight Service rifles. Shooters on each firing point were allowed to set their own match sequence- shooting this as an infiltration match. As we have found, if you just leave High Power shooters alone, they will figure out the best way to run a match.  And, as in the last several matches, we ended up with a real “shoot-out” between a couple of our shooters.  Mia King and Kileen Shaffer were shooting partners.  In the first Match, Kileen had a rough match, shooting a 175-4X to Mia’s 184-3X.  As of the end of Match 1; it was Kileen 175, Mia 184 (it was a really solid match for Mia).

Kileen was pretty bummed out with her score; “I don’t want to shoot any more..”.  She got some advice; “Every Match is a fresh start, you’ve already bought ammunition, there are two more matches – so put on your big girl britches and get back in there and shoot.” So she did.  In Match 2 Mia shot a very respectable 180-3X but Kileen listened to the advice and in Match 2 she came back with a whopping 189-5X to Mia’s 180-3X.  At the end of Match 2, Kileen had Creedmored Mia by 3X-counts.

Match 3 was the deciding match.  Mia came on strong with a 183-3X – just one point shy of her Match 1 score.  But – Kileen came on even stronger with a 188-3X.  Her 552-12X aggregate shaded Mia’s 547-9X by five points.  This was great shooting by a pair of our Junior girls.

K: “My gun won’t shoot and the bolt won’t open”
Mr. B: “When was the last time you cleaned the chamber?”
K: “I oiled the bolt this morning”.
Mr. B: “When did you clean the chamber?”
K: “I dunno – and I broke my fingernail”

Our guest shooter, Joe Bakies, put on a shooting exhibition for us.  Over the 60-shot match, Joe posted a 600-45X score.  At that level, just points and X-count don’t tell the story.  In his three matches, Joe shot groups of 1.17, 1.14 and 0.95 MOA spread. Joe of course took Tournament Aggregate and he graciously returned his awards to the Junior program.

Results are:

Match Rifle First               Joe Bakies           600-45X

Match Rifle Second          Mike Habel          588-24X

Service Rifle First              Jess Jessup          548-18X

Service Rifle Second         Gary Mabis          575-17X

Any Sight First                    John Halter         515- 5X

High Junior                         Kileen Shaffer     552-12X

Our next Matches are the Mid-Summer Madness matches on Friday June 9, Saturday June 19 and Sunday June 11.   Sign-up is open – so don’t wait too long!

The Range Officer even gets picked on by the Bystanders

Hoosier Outlaws Return to FWRR

Saturday, May 27th was a beautiful day for a match!  We had seven shooters come out, that was about the turnout I expected considering it was the Memorial Day weekend and that there were other, bigger matches in the area.

The seven shooters that did show up did have a great time and shot six fast stages.  There were no ladies this time (except for support staff).  They must have been home preparing the dinner for all of the men that were out shooting (just a joke).

The one great thing that happened Saturday was the first ever clean match for Anvil Adam when shooting in Pale Rider Gunfighter.  For people that do not know what that is, you have to shoot the match Gunfighter style (one pistol in each hand at the same time).  The loads have to be black powder, and full power black powder.   The shotgun has to be at least 12 gauge (some use a 10 gauge) with 50 grains of powder (usually FFG).  The rifle and pistol loads have to be at least 40 caliber or larger and have to be loaded with at least 30 grains of the Holy Black.

These heavy loads handicap you in a couple of different areas.  First off, you have the recoil, which is not light by any means.   Even bigger than that, you have to see through the smoke to see your targets.  

That much black powder smoke would make it difficult for even Superman and his X-ray vision to see the targets, so a big Congratulations to Anvil Adam.   (A note from an observer – from the high power range it looked like someone was starting a trash fire or cooking burgers over in the pistol pits with all the powder smoke!)

FWRR’s own Wild Walt finished as the top Outlaw of the day, finishing first in four of the six stages.  His total time for the day, 142.04 seconds, was 23-some odd seconds faster that the next shooter and that makes him the Fastest Gun in the East – at least for this match.  But – there is always someone gunning for you at the nest session.