Monthly Meet – August 2024 – Whistle Pigs

by John White
August 24, 2024

So there is nothing like getting run over by a horde of whistle pigs, wood chucks, ground hogs or just plain ole varmints. Late summer is here, folks are trying to stay cool and out of the heat as we send the kiddos back to school, football season starts and the varmints show up. We are all kinda looking forward to fall, leaves a changing, garden harvesting and just getting a bit cooler out. We got off the porch, dusted off the rifles and set about getting ready for the fall shootin’ season by hitting them groundhogs that are tearing up the gardens, diggin’ holes in the hillside, eating up the greens to fatten up for winter.

We started the August shoot with the shooters registration for assigning them a lane to hit the woodchucks cause it seemed every lane had at least three of em. It was a beautiful cool start to the morning. Got sunny and warm at the end so the ground hogs were out a sunning. We got set up, signed in at 8.30am started the course of fire description and safety briefing to get a shooting by 9:00am.

We had 16 shooters broken evenly between bench and off hand with eight shooters each. We had six guests, one who is now looking for a rifle and two walking wounded who due to surgeries or other did not feel comfortable shooting today. Many a regular had family gatherings, trips, family obligations, birthdays and many other gatherings. To all we missed you but understand we are your second family. We all talked about you all and hope you had a great day with family and almost as good a day as we had. It was a great day with beautiful weather!

First Relay for individual score:
10 shots at 50 yards, this was a standing chuck that blended into the background with a small scoring ring for either 9 or 10 points that was TOUGH to see even up close. But a simple body hit got you 5 points. Shooters decision, go small for max points or conservative to get some points with a body shot. Choices choices for the shooters who did a bit of grumbling on the target choice but everyone did shoot em!

Second relay for individual score:
10 shots at 25 yards, paper as well for score. Two different NMLRA groundhog targets five shots each target. Standing and running. Oh was the runner a tough one. Traditional targets for sure but small scoring areas made everyone shot small and focused.

Both relays were aggregated for placement within the appropriate shooting category off hand or bench. Prizes were pork ribs, sliced ham, brats and sausage links. We were done and gone by 12.30 folks. Cleaned up as if we were never there.

Our shoot results were:
Bench:
1st – Steve B.
2nd – David A.
3rd – Tim C.
4th – Mike L.

Off Hand:
1st – Scott Y.
2nd – Bobby W.
3rd – T.
4th – William Van F.

These are just the top four in category. Nice shooting to all today. Our goals of friendship, fellowship, camaraderie with a little shooting practice was definitely achieved from the smiles, grins, thank you’s, this is great received. We had our usual dry balls, hang fires, misfires, fail to fires, cap popping, caps not popping. We had a ramrod stuck in the rafters for a bit, ramrods stuck in the barrel from dried out cleaning patches on the jag. We may have set a record for one shooter and cap fires and no big bang. I swear he went through a tin of caps for 20 shots. But he got it all done! Congrats Dave! Success….

We also kicked off a raffle of a custom handmade quilt by one of our members. Robbie made many a rifle gun sleeve for many members this year to raise proceeds for our fallen member’s widow. She has taken the left over materials into a quilt with our logo in the center panel and several others with hand stitched embroidered turkey images. Very tastefully done. Tickets are $20, 3 for $40 and are available at every shoot for the remainder of the year.

Our trade table is becoming more of a success each shoot. Today a rifle made by a blacksmith named John D. Nelson out of Talking Rock Georgia in 1860, yes 1860, was sold almost immediately off our trade table as it was made by a desired blacksmith gunsmith in our resident home county of our club. It was a beautiful half stock rifle. John was born in 1825 in Talking Rock and the town of Nelson Georgia is named after him. Nice find folks.

So we look forward to everyone coming and shooting with us Saturday, September 28th at 8:30am. Be on the lookout for our next shoot email announcement and course of fire. Who knows what kind of targets the program director will come up with to aggrevate you shooters and astound our guests as to how do the shooters hit those targets? If you have any questions please holler as i am sure we all have em. Till next month, thank you all for coming, supporting our group and making the Talking Rock BPShooters Charter Club what is is.

Sorry, no video this month.