February 2026 – Monthly Meet – Buffalos!
By Chris Greene
February 28, 2026
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The day started out foggy with slight visibility issues down in the holler — the kind of misty soup that makes you half-expect a mountain man to materialize out of nowhere and declare you a trespasser. But as early morning rolled into mid-morning, the fog burned off, the damp chill gave way to a comfortable 68 degrees, sunshine took over, and the wind apparently decided to stay home. A fine way to begin the 2026 shooting season.
There was a minor change to the SOP for our Talking Rock shoots. All shooters will now grab a numbered plaque to ID their targets. Plaques #1–15 are white and for bench shooters; plaques #16–30 are yellow and for off-hand shooters. The plaque number will be written on the target along with your name and the distance. That’s about it — simple, efficient, and helpful for our scorekeepers, who appreciate anything that speeds up the arithmetic after we’ve perforated the paper.
Joining us was a member of The Deerskin Diary and his two boys, who put some serious enthusiasm into throwing tomahawks and burning off youthful energy. If you’d like to see what they’re about, you can find them on YouTube under that name.
The Trade Table was, as usual, a treasure trove. Dragon black powder, home-cast round balls, rifles, pistols, shotguns, magazines, vintage ammo boxes — the whole spectrum from practical to “I didn’t know I needed that until just now.” The Trade Table is open to anyone wanting to sell. And it doesn’t have to be shooting-related. Pots and pans? Bring them. T-shirts? Roller skates? If you can carry it in, you can try to sell it. Just be sure to tag your wares with your name and price. Bartering is not only allowed — it’s practically encouraged. This is Talking Rock, after all.
We had 18 shooters total: eight off-hand and ten on the bench. We started with the 5-bull buffalo targets at 25 yards and the larger two-bull targets at 50 yards. As always, 10 rounds per target for a total of 20 rounds per participant — enough to test your load, your nerves, and your patience with fouling.
For the first meet of the year, locking, loading, priming, and firing went remarkably smoothly. No dry balls to speak of — which is either a testament to experience or a sign we were all unusually well-caffeinated. There wasn’t quite as much colorful language as in years past, though we did have the usual mechanical demons: a few flashes in the pan, a couple of snapped caps with no bang, and one percussion shooter making a brief pilgrimage to the ball puller (turned out to be nothing more than a stubborn patch on a jag — black powder fouling is stubborn). A couple of new rifles were shown off on the grounds as well, and they drew the appropriate amount of admiration and mild envy.
Everyone seemed to be fully back in the spirit of the black powder arts.
Scoring Placements:
Off-Hand:
1st – Erik Rolle
2nd – Tie – Bob Wilson & Billy Townsend
3rd – Tony Corhan
4th – Chris Greene
5th – Brian Palmer
Bench:
1st – Charlie Russel
2nd – James Witmer
3rd – Tim Lambert
4th – Beaver Fisher
5th – Tim Dougherty
Awards will be presented in March when our intrepid leader, John White, returns to preside over such dignified ceremonies.
Special thanks go to Ken Hunt and Doug Burgess for handling scoring duties, and to Bobby Witherington for serving as Range Safety Officer — the calm presence ensuring our enthusiasm remained appropriately directed downrange.
All in all, 2026 is off to a strong start — solid participation, good shooting, a bit of showing off, a fair amount of bragging, and noticeably less debauchery than in certain historical seasons (which shall remain undocumented for legal reasons).
If this first meet is any indication of what’s ahead, we’re in for a fine year. And we’re choosing to believe exactly that.
Until next time, may your caps fire, your patches seat clean, and your bourbon go down rich and smooth.
If you’ve got questions, comments, or brilliant ideas (or just want to hand out compliments), don’t be shy—reach out anytime to talkingrockbpshooters@gmail.com, or you can always leave comments down below.
Enjoy the video of the February 2026 monthly meet below:
TRBPS February 2026 video on Rumble
The Rumble video is unedited, whereas the Youtube video has to be edited for its strict guidelines. So, the Rumble video will have a little more content.
Below is the Youtube version: