Blanket Prize
by John White
July 2023
So for all of you who thought about coming out, thank you. For all of you who were planning on coming out, thank you. For all of you who tried but got stopped by down trees or no electricity, thank you. For all of you who got up this morning to thunderstorms and said ‘heck no, was going but not now‘, thank you!
To all those that came and shot today, thank you. Eighteen shooters and one scorekeeper braved the potential rainy weather and came to Talking Rock and shot in the event. We had a blanket prize selection that ensured everyone got a high quality prize, many hand-made and all well thought out prizes. We had a grey sky time for a half hour, we had humidity, we had the sun and we even had a slight breeze at times. But it NEVER RAINED! Little damp ground, little water on some of the loading tables but we shot our match.
We started our safety brief and course of fire at 9:00am. Eighteen brave souls shot with us today. We finished the shooting at 11:45am with several breaks to hydrate and repair a target that refused to stay in place and make it easy for everyone to hit. The humidity gave a few fits with mud in the pans, clogged flash channels and messed up percussion nipples. The need to call the range cold for target repair was hugely distracting but we learned from it and have a plan for it not to happen again. The scoring, cleanup and putting stuff away began along with the after shoot fellowship, friendship and great conversations as the scoring was wrapped up.
We gave out the awards, cleaned up the range as if we were never there and gone at 12:45pm. Perfect timing for a family weekend gathering if one was planned including a serious discussion of all the faults, failures and tall tales of the shoot at our train depot debrief.
We had our bench course of fire with 10 bench shooters and 8 off hand shooters. We also had our usual dry ball challenges, double loads, dull flints, caps a not popping. Towards the end of the course of fire the hammers a fallin’ and caps not a poppin’ from the grim accumulating humidity level occurred for few folks. We shot the NMLRA 6 bull target at 25 yards and a stubborn, 8″ steel plate with a 3″ front plate for a gong sound and extra points at 50 yards. We also through a hugely generous donation from the Griffin Long Rifles – thank you Billy – we now have for future shoots 23 ground hogs (not the northern woodchucks) and 29 crow steel targets and we test shot some of them.
Our shoot results were:
Off Hand:
1st – Brian Palmer
2nd – Billy Townsend
3rd – Erik Rolle
Bench:
1st – Tim Coleman
2nd – Charlie Russell
3rd – Doug Burgess
These are just the top three in category. Everyone got high quality prizes and went home happy and several received multiple prizes. Our goals of friendship, fellowship, camaraderie with a little shooting practice was definitely achieved from the smiles, grins, thank you’s, this is great we received.
Work yet still needs to be done to make our club even more satisfying and fun for all shooters, family and guests. We will get there as it is ever evolving.
Enjoy the humble video below.