Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club

Generally we hesitate to air our dirty laundry on the website, but after consultation with Officers and Directors, we felt that we needed to say something about a recent happening at the range.

There have been issues with people driving across the 100-yard firing points to get to the 200-yard target frames. In one incident someone drove across the front of the raised 100-yard firing points. It has been at least two summers and the ruts are still very evident – they about jar your teeth out when you mow the firing line.

Earlier this year we had someone decide to drive out to the 50-yard target frames – 50-yards! This was the result.

These ruts are directly in front of the gravel drive on the northside of the clubhouse!

So, after this incident, we purchased several “No Vehicles Past This Point” signs and after consideration we put them on the west side of the creek to keep folks from driving across muddy/wet ground to get to the 200-yard target frames.

It was only about a week or two before we had this result:

Oh. I’m sure that sign really doesn’t apply to me.  I wonder why they put it there?  I’m just going to drive over to the 200-yard target frames anyway – what can go wrong?

That’s a really deep set of ruts. It will take a lot of work to level them out and to haul dirt from the 200-yard dirt pile to fill them in. But, the worst part of this is that whoever did this has not manned up and admitted it to the Officers or Directors. A simple; “Hey guys, I screwed up – I’m sorry” would have been appropriate. We could have dealt with it and gone on from there. But, they just did the damage – it is past damage; it is vandalism. Maybe not deliberate, but vandalism none the less. And, the perpetrator left it for someone else to repair.

Come on guys – THINK!

Last weekend, Friday through Sunday, June 19 through 21 – was the Mid-Summer Madness series of matches.

We started on Friday afternoon with a 50-round National Match Course match.  It was as perfect an afternoon to shoot a match as one could ask for and twelve shooters gave us a full line with twelve electronic targets operating for the weekend.

Not surprisingly, Mike King fired the high score with a 494-20X. followed by Mark Walters’ 483-7X.  Our visitor from Frankfort Kentucky, Bill Balda finished out the top three spots falling one point shy of Mark.

On Saturday, June 20, 2066, the Fort Wayne Rifle and Revolver Club hosted the sixth annual Indiana Junior High Power Championship match.  This match was held along with a CMP 80-round Match and included “old folks” as well as Juniors.  A total of 31 shooters competed – including 12 Juniors.  It was a beautiful day for a match with sunny skies, moderate temperature – but the gusty fishtailing winds made shooting Offhand a challenge for the competitors.

The 2026 Indiana Juniors.

(For a left handed shooter, Port Arms is Starboard Arms.)

But, it was a good day for Emma Branson.  The previous weekend at Camp Atterbury, Emma finished her final leg for Distinguished Rifleman (pending CMP review) and she came into the championship match on a roll.  Emma opened up with a 190-4X Offhand stage in spite of the wind and continued to dominate from there – posting a 770-21X aggregate to take the State Championship and the CMP gold medal for the match.

Dave Schnelle presents Emma Branson the Championship plaque

As a note, Emma is a third generation High Power shooter.  Her grandfather, John Halter (P100) and father Geoff Branson (DR) are accomplished High Power shooters; she’s just carrying on an old family tradition.

Three Generations of High Power Shooters

GrandPa John Halter, Emma Branson and Dad Geoff Branson

Logan Becker took the CMP silver medal with a 756-16X, also taking recognition as First Master for the match. Aria Hobbs’ 751-11X was good for the bronze medal and First Sharpshooter award.  Kileen Shaffer was First Expert and Ashton Hovey was First Marksman.

Kileen Shaffer, First Expert;  Emma Branson, State Champion – Gold Medal; Aria Hobbs, Bronze Medal – First Sharpshooter; Logan Becker, Silver Medal – First Master

A Flock of Juniors on a Beautiful Day

The Juniors took the spotlight. But for the whole match, “not Junior” Mike King again took the first place with 773-18X, followed by Mark Walters’ 771-17X.  Emma Branson was third overall with the high Junior score of 770-21X.  Fourth was Junior Silver medalist Andrew Beaver with 763-28X who Creedmoored Jim Jackson in fifth place with a 763-20X.

The Grouchy Old Match Director/Range Officer Conducting The Safety Briefing

We had planned to shoot a Garand match after the Junior match, but many of the display devices, targets and most of the shooters had dead batteries after the morning match and we decided that enough was enough.

We will reschedule the Garand Match later in the summer.

Then, on Sunday morning we closed out the weekend with a 50-round Father’s Day Match.  We had nine shooters, finishing up in a record time.  On Father’s Day, the top finishers were a repeat of the previous matches;  Mike King – first – 497-17X; Mark Walters – second – 485-15X and again Bill Balda from Frankfort, KY third with 484-14X.

Now – on to National Matches at Camp Perry!

Shooters:

The Mid-Summer Madness Weekend is just about upon us.  We have four matches scheduled over the three day weekend and there are still lots of firing assignments available for all of them. 

As a reminder:

Friday, June 19                  Register 3:30, shoot 4:30               50 Round National Match Course

Saturday, June 20            Register 7:30, shoot 9:00               80 Round Match with Junior State  Championship

                                        Register 11:30, shoot about 1:00               Garand Match

Sunday, June 21               Register 7:30, shoot 9:00               50 Round National Match Course

Questions?   Send me an email at FWRRHPDirector@aol.com.

On May 30 we held the first of the matches that will decide the 2026 High Power FWRR Champions.  As you look at the scores below, you might ask; “Just how do you decide who is the leader if two shooters post the same score?”  That’s a good question and one we don’t have to consider very often.

When you dig back into the rule book, you find that the tie breaker is the value of the latest shots fired in the last stage of fire.  In our case, we have two shooters tied at 593-21X, but as I looked back at the shot-by-shot score sheets; in Match 3 Mark Walters’ last shot for record was a 9 and Gary Mabis shot a 10.

 If they had both shot the same value – go back another shot – and so on until there is a difference in shot value.  So, Gary is the winner after we do the tie breaker calculations.  (And that is why keeping an accurate shot-by-shot score sheet is so important).

SENIOR DIVISION

Gary Mabis                        593-21X (Last record shot was a 10)                                         –

Mark Walters                     593-21X (Last record shot was a 9)

Jim Jackson                       590-30X

Marshall Rohrbach          590-29X

Mike King                          583-26X

JUNIOR DIVISION

Aria Hobbs                       581-18X

Madyson Kleeba              454- 2X

The next match in the Championship Series will be the June 20 80-round match shot along with the State Junior Championship.  We’ll see how the standings fall out after that match!