Last match of the year, In some ways I'm glad it's done for the year but in other ways I will miss watching everyone shoot. I want to thank everyone that came to shoot this year, I hope you found it challenging and fun and hope to do it all again next year. I've seen a lot of improvements in shooters skills and also equipment this season. A ammo availability was tough for some this year so I let shooters use whatever they could find which somehow ended up being higher end stuff for some. I've watched 10's of 1000's of rounds sent downrange and the higher priced stuff for the most part is more consistent but if the shooter doesn't do their part and become friends with Mother Nature to see what she's telling you then the best ammo in the World isn't going to give you an edge when shooting these distances.
It was fun watching what happens when the buzzer goes off and for some any game plan you might have had goes up in smoke. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember and felt like I was participating in a slow motion train wreck. This match shooters started at 25 yards and had to engage each target left to right and clean each rack before proceeding. No spotting was done, shooters had to see their own hits/misses and they could take a sighter shot on a bigger plate at each distance to get back on track. Those shots came out of their 100 rounds in the bowl so it was like getting a miss each time you used one but it could also save you a lot of misses if you were off. The spotter will only call a MISS if you miss but can't tell you where it missed or hit. Remember this as it's important along with the clicking up and not looking at the turrets for me. So, 20 minutes to shoot 75 targets with 100 rounds in a bowl, sounds easy doesn't it? Come try it next year.
Occasionally I had to remind a shooter missing 3 or 4 times on a target to use a sighter to see what was wrong and then they usually finished up cleaning that stage. Very useful if used when needed. After running the first 3 shooters thru Friday one of them asked if I wanted to shoot and they'd spot for me so I could get it out of the way. Sure, I wasn't ready figuring there would be a crowd but I grabbed the old Vostok CM-2 Single Shot which I haven't shot in at least 3 years or so, grabbed a cheat sheet with the distances on it to write dope down on and started carefully copying data from my book adding plus clicks between each distance to save looking up at the scope to save time. Just click up while jamming another round in the chamber and keep moving. 25, 37 and 50 all shoot same setting with slight hold difference and I blew thru them wondering how I was getting them tossed in the bolt opening without fumbling so fast thinking it must be a blur watching it being done
. At 62 yards barely caught the bottom of the domino, held up a bit got the rest but had me wondering what caused that. Next rack at 75 yards, came up necessary clicks and MISS, MISS, MISS, ??????? shot a sighter and way low. Cranked up a few and got them. 87 yards, count up necessary clicks, MISS, MISS ????????? sighter and way low again. This went on at every distance out to 137 yards and all at once I remembered this old SWFA 16X had MIL dots but MOA turrets. Click value just isn't close to being the same. Talk about a Stupid Rookie mistake. A quick glance at the turret would have solved the problem but I knew the click difference was right compared to correct setting. After that just added 8 clicks per distance and finished up with 18 seconds left. I guess being in a hurry and the distraction of making sure everything was running right with the match my thought process went haywire. Was fun rushing thru the last distances trying to get done before time ran out. I re-entered later with the correct setting and it went much better. Quite a few shooters had little snafus with quite a few fumbling with the rounds in the bowl and when grabbing for them the lube on the bullet got spread on the brass casing and felt like you were trying to grab a slimy nightcrawler and stuff it in the magazine. Some were dropped on the ground and a lot of shooters went home with soiled pants legs from wiping off their hands. Made for a fun match though.
Scores were calculated using a calculation similiar to Comstock, targets hit plus any unused rounds added minus any targets left which gave you your total point value. The time used in minutes was converted to seconds and added to any seconds left to give a total seconds used. The Total Points were divided by the total time (seconds) to give a number which to make it easy we moved the decimal over 3 spots. We tried all combinations of speed, targets hit or left and it always came out the best shooter won. For any doubters Chris shot with at least 5 witnesses watching him shoot each gun. I have a video of the Izhmash shooting thru and I'll try to get it posted up on Youtube later. Not bragging but it was quite a performance with both guns. It does go to show that a semi-auto or even a magazine fed gun isn't always an advantage, the old slow is smooth and smooth is fast thing is a perfect way to describe watching that old Anschutz Single Shot with an old SWFA 16X scope and $4.50 Eley Target ammo run thru the racks.
Quite a few shooters shot very well, in some ways too well. I told them when they finished they had too many dead center hits and too many targets left unshot when they ran out of time. You can still be precise shooting the longer distances shooting faster than normal but gotta know when to buzz thru and when to slow down for a smaller target. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, normally it takes about an hour to run thru my racks at a normal match but once a year I finish up with this just to have some fun at the end of the season. Hope to see everyone back next year probably in the second weekend of April.
A star (*) next to their placement means they shot a Single Shot gun. No Handguns tried it this year.
First Row: Score, Name, Gun Used, Scope, Ammo
Second Row: Time used, Targets Hit, +Rounds Left, -Targets Left, =Total Points, Time Left from 20 minutes
1. 182.16 Chris Kirkpatrick Izhmash Biathalon NF SK Biathlon
8:47 75 +21 -0 =96 11:13
2* 144.75 Chris Kirkpatrick Anschutz Single Shot SWFA Eley Target
10:15 75 +14 -0 =89 9:45
3. 116.39 Kurt Yoder Sako Quad SWFA SK Biathlon
13:19 75 +18 -0 =93 6:41
4. 110.72 Charles Wright Rim-X (Ice Rifle) Vortex SK Std.
14:18 75 +20 -0 =95 5:42
5* 101.67 Dennis Kirkpatrick (2) Vostok CM-2 Single Shot SWFA SK Biathlon
14.55 75 +16 -0 =91 5:05
6. 101.03 Dan Bartok Anschutz MPR NF RWS R50
16:10 75 +23 -0 =98 3:50
7. 97.68 Bill Nesbitt Anschutz MPR Vortex RWS
16:33 75 +22 -0 =97 3:27
8. 89.80 Jerry Shaw Kidd 10/22 SWFA SK Biathlon
16:20 75 +13 -0 =88 3:40
9. 83.31 Jerry Galbraith CZ 457 NF SK Biathlon
17:15 75 +11 -0 =86 2:45
10. 81.48 John Schumacher Anschutz MPR NF SK Biathlon
19:26 75 +20 -0 =95 :34
11. 78.13 Cuda Gatten Izhmash Biathlon SWFA SK Biathlon
18:08 75 +10 -0 =85 1:52
12. 77.43 Eric Lochary Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
19:24 75 +15 -0 =90 :36
13. 75.79 Jason Grubb CZ 457 Valdeda SK Biathlon
18:15 75 +8 -0 =83 1:45
14. 75.18 Kenny Arnold CZ 457 ??? Eley CMP
18:24 75 +8 -0 =83 1:36
15* 71.07 Dennis Kirkpatrick (1) Vostok CM-2 Single Shot SWFA SK Biathlon
19:42 75 +9 -0 =84 :18
16. 70.83 Tom Rayner Rem 513-T NF SK Std+
20:00 74 +12 -1 =85 0:00
17. 69:97 Dave Calipare Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
18:49 75 +4 -0 =79 1:11
18. 66.67 Matt Gallagher(1) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
20:00 73 +9 -2 =80 0:00
19. 65.83 Bob Merillat Kidd 10/22 NF SK Red
20:00 65 +24 -10 =79 0:00
20. 65.00 Bob Brown 541-T Athalon Lapua Biathlon
20:00 59 +35 -16 =78 0:00
21. 63.01 Matt Gallagher(3) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
18:15 72 +0 -3 =69 1:45
22. 60.75 Matt Gallagher(2) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
17:50 70 +0 -5 =65 2:10
23. 60:00 Jim Lochary Vudoo Vortex SK Biathlon
20:00 64 +19 -11 =72 0:00
24* 56.67 Chuck Wagner H&R Single Shot SWFA RWS Rifle
20:00 50 +43 -25 =68 0:00
25. 56.67 Karen Marsh CZ Ultra Lux SWFA SK Biathlon
20:00 65 +13 -10 =68 0:00
26. 52.50 Jim Lochary Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
20:00 59 +20 -16 =63 0:00
27. 26.67 Matt Shatto Savage SWFA Tac-22
20:00 43 +21 -32 =32 0:00
It was fun watching what happens when the buzzer goes off and for some any game plan you might have had goes up in smoke. I've been doing this for as long as I can remember and felt like I was participating in a slow motion train wreck. This match shooters started at 25 yards and had to engage each target left to right and clean each rack before proceeding. No spotting was done, shooters had to see their own hits/misses and they could take a sighter shot on a bigger plate at each distance to get back on track. Those shots came out of their 100 rounds in the bowl so it was like getting a miss each time you used one but it could also save you a lot of misses if you were off. The spotter will only call a MISS if you miss but can't tell you where it missed or hit. Remember this as it's important along with the clicking up and not looking at the turrets for me. So, 20 minutes to shoot 75 targets with 100 rounds in a bowl, sounds easy doesn't it? Come try it next year.
Occasionally I had to remind a shooter missing 3 or 4 times on a target to use a sighter to see what was wrong and then they usually finished up cleaning that stage. Very useful if used when needed. After running the first 3 shooters thru Friday one of them asked if I wanted to shoot and they'd spot for me so I could get it out of the way. Sure, I wasn't ready figuring there would be a crowd but I grabbed the old Vostok CM-2 Single Shot which I haven't shot in at least 3 years or so, grabbed a cheat sheet with the distances on it to write dope down on and started carefully copying data from my book adding plus clicks between each distance to save looking up at the scope to save time. Just click up while jamming another round in the chamber and keep moving. 25, 37 and 50 all shoot same setting with slight hold difference and I blew thru them wondering how I was getting them tossed in the bolt opening without fumbling so fast thinking it must be a blur watching it being done
. At 62 yards barely caught the bottom of the domino, held up a bit got the rest but had me wondering what caused that. Next rack at 75 yards, came up necessary clicks and MISS, MISS, MISS, ??????? shot a sighter and way low. Cranked up a few and got them. 87 yards, count up necessary clicks, MISS, MISS ????????? sighter and way low again. This went on at every distance out to 137 yards and all at once I remembered this old SWFA 16X had MIL dots but MOA turrets. Click value just isn't close to being the same. Talk about a Stupid Rookie mistake. A quick glance at the turret would have solved the problem but I knew the click difference was right compared to correct setting. After that just added 8 clicks per distance and finished up with 18 seconds left. I guess being in a hurry and the distraction of making sure everything was running right with the match my thought process went haywire. Was fun rushing thru the last distances trying to get done before time ran out. I re-entered later with the correct setting and it went much better. Quite a few shooters had little snafus with quite a few fumbling with the rounds in the bowl and when grabbing for them the lube on the bullet got spread on the brass casing and felt like you were trying to grab a slimy nightcrawler and stuff it in the magazine. Some were dropped on the ground and a lot of shooters went home with soiled pants legs from wiping off their hands. Made for a fun match though.Scores were calculated using a calculation similiar to Comstock, targets hit plus any unused rounds added minus any targets left which gave you your total point value. The time used in minutes was converted to seconds and added to any seconds left to give a total seconds used. The Total Points were divided by the total time (seconds) to give a number which to make it easy we moved the decimal over 3 spots. We tried all combinations of speed, targets hit or left and it always came out the best shooter won. For any doubters Chris shot with at least 5 witnesses watching him shoot each gun. I have a video of the Izhmash shooting thru and I'll try to get it posted up on Youtube later. Not bragging but it was quite a performance with both guns. It does go to show that a semi-auto or even a magazine fed gun isn't always an advantage, the old slow is smooth and smooth is fast thing is a perfect way to describe watching that old Anschutz Single Shot with an old SWFA 16X scope and $4.50 Eley Target ammo run thru the racks.
Quite a few shooters shot very well, in some ways too well. I told them when they finished they had too many dead center hits and too many targets left unshot when they ran out of time. You can still be precise shooting the longer distances shooting faster than normal but gotta know when to buzz thru and when to slow down for a smaller target. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, normally it takes about an hour to run thru my racks at a normal match but once a year I finish up with this just to have some fun at the end of the season. Hope to see everyone back next year probably in the second weekend of April.
A star (*) next to their placement means they shot a Single Shot gun. No Handguns tried it this year.
First Row: Score, Name, Gun Used, Scope, Ammo
Second Row: Time used, Targets Hit, +Rounds Left, -Targets Left, =Total Points, Time Left from 20 minutes
1. 182.16 Chris Kirkpatrick Izhmash Biathalon NF SK Biathlon
8:47 75 +21 -0 =96 11:13
2* 144.75 Chris Kirkpatrick Anschutz Single Shot SWFA Eley Target
10:15 75 +14 -0 =89 9:45
3. 116.39 Kurt Yoder Sako Quad SWFA SK Biathlon
13:19 75 +18 -0 =93 6:41
4. 110.72 Charles Wright Rim-X (Ice Rifle) Vortex SK Std.
14:18 75 +20 -0 =95 5:42
5* 101.67 Dennis Kirkpatrick (2) Vostok CM-2 Single Shot SWFA SK Biathlon
14.55 75 +16 -0 =91 5:05
6. 101.03 Dan Bartok Anschutz MPR NF RWS R50
16:10 75 +23 -0 =98 3:50
7. 97.68 Bill Nesbitt Anschutz MPR Vortex RWS
16:33 75 +22 -0 =97 3:27
8. 89.80 Jerry Shaw Kidd 10/22 SWFA SK Biathlon
16:20 75 +13 -0 =88 3:40
9. 83.31 Jerry Galbraith CZ 457 NF SK Biathlon
17:15 75 +11 -0 =86 2:45
10. 81.48 John Schumacher Anschutz MPR NF SK Biathlon
19:26 75 +20 -0 =95 :34
11. 78.13 Cuda Gatten Izhmash Biathlon SWFA SK Biathlon
18:08 75 +10 -0 =85 1:52
12. 77.43 Eric Lochary Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
19:24 75 +15 -0 =90 :36
13. 75.79 Jason Grubb CZ 457 Valdeda SK Biathlon
18:15 75 +8 -0 =83 1:45
14. 75.18 Kenny Arnold CZ 457 ??? Eley CMP
18:24 75 +8 -0 =83 1:36
15* 71.07 Dennis Kirkpatrick (1) Vostok CM-2 Single Shot SWFA SK Biathlon
19:42 75 +9 -0 =84 :18
16. 70.83 Tom Rayner Rem 513-T NF SK Std+
20:00 74 +12 -1 =85 0:00
17. 69:97 Dave Calipare Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
18:49 75 +4 -0 =79 1:11
18. 66.67 Matt Gallagher(1) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
20:00 73 +9 -2 =80 0:00
19. 65.83 Bob Merillat Kidd 10/22 NF SK Red
20:00 65 +24 -10 =79 0:00
20. 65.00 Bob Brown 541-T Athalon Lapua Biathlon
20:00 59 +35 -16 =78 0:00
21. 63.01 Matt Gallagher(3) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
18:15 72 +0 -3 =69 1:45
22. 60.75 Matt Gallagher(2) CZ 457 Vortex CCI SV
17:50 70 +0 -5 =65 2:10
23. 60:00 Jim Lochary Vudoo Vortex SK Biathlon
20:00 64 +19 -11 =72 0:00
24* 56.67 Chuck Wagner H&R Single Shot SWFA RWS Rifle
20:00 50 +43 -25 =68 0:00
25. 56.67 Karen Marsh CZ Ultra Lux SWFA SK Biathlon
20:00 65 +13 -10 =68 0:00
26. 52.50 Jim Lochary Vudoo NF SK Biathlon
20:00 59 +20 -16 =63 0:00
27. 26.67 Matt Shatto Savage SWFA Tac-22
20:00 43 +21 -32 =32 0:00
