By the end of March, High Power shooters begin to get antsy. Among the gray, wet nasty days there are enough teasingly nice days to make people want to get out to the range and shoot. A group of guys who had carried on a “half-NMC” competition over the winter wanted to shoot (more about that later) – so with a bit of urging we set up a March Madness 3 x 600 match for March 30th.
March 30 broke dark, gray with intermittent to steady drizzle at start time. But, the weather did not stop 10 dedicated high power shooters. Rain fell steadily as we started setup about 8:30 and we had the usual first match of the season issues. Folks had to figure out which color cable went where and one server decided to go on strike and it took all of us a while to get things switched over. By about 9:00 it had slowed down to a sprinkle and we set up canopies on the firing line to keep things dry.
Yeah, it really was that dark as we set up the canopies
But – as the day went on, things improved. By 10:00 the rain had stopped and midway through the match the sun came out and it was a beautiful day to shoot!
The sun came out and we had beautiful light to shoot
But, with the sun came some wind. One canopy blew over and another blew around. We moved them out of the way and kept shooting. It was a laid back match – no time limits, unlimited sighters, along with coaching allowed and help fixing guns. Everyone shot in the same category – a mix of Service, Palma, Match and F-Class rifles. At this level of shooting, the shooter is the major factor. Some fantastic scores were posted for the day. Sixteen strings of over 195 were posted with five 199’s and 4 perfect 200 strings.
Tom Bonner took top honors for the day (service rifle) with a 598-40X aggregate. Mike King (service rifle) followed closely with a 597-32X (but, he did get a canopy dropped on his head…) and Bryan Scott took third with 594-21X.
A special note; Jack Baker took the top slot in the Grand Senior Group. Jack, at 82-years old, is still banging away!
Mark Walters (seated) and Mark Richard in their usual place at the high end of the line. Mark Richard is determined to make the FatRat shoot!
At the end of the day just about everyone decided that we needed to do it again next year. And – the FWRR Juniors benefitted by receiving $100 from match entry fees and another $70 from shooters who donated their prize winnings to the Junior Fund.
WINTER HALF-RMC RESULTS
Over the winter a group of shooters organized a “Half-RMC” Match. These matches were shot after Winter Offhand matches and at other times. 40-round matches were shot at 100-yards on reduced targets; 10-rounds offhand, sitting rapid, prone rapid and prone slow. Four matches were shot over the course of the winter and shooters had handicaps (like golf or bowling) to make the matches more competitive.
The top three shooters fired all five matches and the final standings were:
Mark Walters 1982-46X
Gary Mabis 1974-51X
Mike King 1968-53X
Thanks to Gary Mabis for organizing these matches – and thanks to the shooters who contributed $100 in match fees and $30 in prize awards to the FWRR Junior fund.