Best rimfire match you have ever shot

grapo

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
May 19, 2020
179
49
I am looking for input on your favorite rimfire matches you have shot. Over the past 2 years I have shot several nrl22x matches. Badlands brawl in Montana, portneuf match in Idaho, and have one scheduled in Arizona and Texas coming up. I love field style matches and prefer west coast but am open going further if it means a special match. Looking for your most memorable and enjoyable matches, wether nrl/prs or outlaw.
 
first NRL22X match at blue ridge was pretty awesome.

most stages were 15+ rounds, 105s par time, and huge swings. iirc the furthest target was 450-500 yards

Hornbacks NRL22X match in Reno was also fun.
 
King of .28 in MN and Rooster Rush in SD I would say are the best I've attended. Lost boys in Iowa was good. Monster mash Halloween shot at night time was a great experience as well. I will be attending them all again next year.
 
It was 2020 at the inaugural ARA factory class National Championship Match. This was my first full season shooting benchrest. We shot eight 25 rd cards over two days in conditions from calm to very windy to gusting. I dropped one shot on two of the first five cards on Sat. Dropped only six shots out of 200 rds total over the entire tournament to win the National Championship. I think I recorded five perfect cards that weekend. The competition was tough too. One guy trailed me by only a shot or two the whole event and two others later won National Champion status in subsequent years. And on top of all that, I ran out of my good ammo after the first card and went with an untested random lot of Lapua of a different speed from what I had been shooting.

Another was my first PRS match at Peacemaker National in WV. It was my first experience with long range rimfire and I fell in love with it. I was ill prepared for this match but did spend weeks developing my dope for the rifle/ ammo combo from 50y to 300y. I was deadly on the long range stages but struggled some on the short range off hand stuff. Was great fun with a squad that included a few others from the hide. I think I ended 65th out of about 200 shooters. But the prize table was magnificent. I only had two five rd mags for the event which featured 2 min stages of 15 or 20 rds each. So, I started with a big handicap. My favorite stage was shot from on a hilltop, down into a valley. The shooter had to engage five steel plates ranging from 150y closest to 290y for the long est with up to 15 shot to get one hit on each. I had hit the first four and ran out of ammo before I could engage the 290y last plate. I was reloading a mag but only had time to put two rds in it. I closed the bolt, dialed my dope and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired just as the buzzer signaled time. There was a 2 sec delay and the spotter shouted “Impact!!!” The RO looked at the squad and said, I think we give him that one. The shot was in the air before time ran out. It was awesome.
 
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One more. My favorite matches are the ones that I win, lol. I am a competitive fellow. All the things I do or have done for fun had either a element of competition or required extreme mental focus or both. Road racing, dirt bike racing, martial arts, IPSC pistol, Motorcycle riding/racing, flying aerobatics, fly fishing, hunting, etc. Some of my most favorite things are to take a tool that is obsolete, or outdated and win when I should not be able to. Example is when I used to bring a 80+ yr old beat up Winchester 52 with the bbl cut short, and a 3lb trigger and a vintage scope to a winter BR series at our club. I started winning with that old fossil and today half the shooters are using 52's. I used to race an old outdated Honda MC in road race events and did very well with it. When I went to a modern updated superbike, I was doing great but the fun factgor got diminished somehow. One event this past Halloween was a candy shoot our local club sponsored. The tgts were one piece of candy corn at 25y, one piece of candy corn at 50y, a little half inch candy pumpkin at 75y and 100y. We each got six shots to hit each tgt one time. Shots not taken were a bonus point for each. Unlimited time. There were four out of 16 shooters who hit all four with six shots. Each of use taking our last shot to hit the 100y tgt. It was windy enough that the 100y shot was not easy.

That led to a shoot-off. We got 3 shots to hit the 100y tgt only. Same rules. Two shooters got it on the 3rd shot. I hit it on the first shot which won the stage and gave me two more bonus points for the two unused shots. I got 2nd place in the 2nd stage but the overall was based on total points for both stages and that made me the overall winner. I was stoked about the win against some really good shooter with some great rifles but then they told me that the prize for winning was $600. That was a great bonus. Being the cocky, smarta$$, SOB that I can sometimes be, I thanked the match sponsors for a fun event and asked when they were going to do it again? They said about once each Qtr. I said, "let me know when it will be. I will bring my good rifle, next time."