March 2025 – Talking Rock Black Powder Shooters

Monthly Meet – March 2025 – NMLRA Buffalo and 6 Bull

By John White & Chris Greene
March 22, 2025

Trade Table at every meet
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Within the baleful observation of a half-moon phase, we had 19 shooters, 8 offhand and 11 supported on a cool day to start off. We got the fire going in the fire ring for the 5th straight shoot, which took the chill out of the air. The day ended with beautiful blue skies, no breeze and a very pleasant temperature. Those are the kind of conditions that make you want to stay all day.

**Scott fires 1st shot from his new English Doglock Musket in .74 Caliber smoothbore.**

We had our usual safety brief and program presentation, which started at 9:00am with two new shooters and a new member (who had been cogently warned of the maligned rascals of TRBPS) that makes us well over 30 members.

We shot the 6 bull NMLRA target at 25 yards and the NMLRA buffalo 2 bull target at 50 yards. For scoring there were 10 shots each for final placement in the respective shooting category — Off-Hand or Supported(Bench, Prone, Sitting, Y-stick, et cetera).

We finished the day with one dry ball that I saw – wow, only two months into the new season and we’re paying closer attention and honing those observation and sequence skills, however, lots of minor gear issues that got worked through as the day went on. We were finished shooting by 11:00am (not that that’s a stern mandate, mind you) cleaned up the range, awarded the prize meats to the five place shooters in each category, which we have increased from last year’s four places – and in the beginning, three. We were gone by noon as we always have that as our goal but we may behave at times in contrary manner and stubbornly meander until 1:00pm. For any diehards what wanted to they could hang around and shoot some more.

**Judd primes the pan of his .50 caliber long-rifle**

So we did have a slight oops – encountered an unfortunate misstep – experienced a regrettable oversight – in the awards ceremony where the 1st and 2nd place finishers in the bench category were reversed. Sorry ’bout that, fellas but that is not the primary reason we shoot anyway at TRBPS. However the correction has been made below.

Off Hand Shooters:
1st – Jim Gravely
2nd – Erik Rolle
3rd – Tony Corhan
4th – Tim Lambert
5th – Scott Youngblood

Bench Shooters:
1st – Tim Coleman
2nd – Charlie Russell
3rd – David Armstrong
4th – Jud Aley
5th – Beaver Fisher

We apologize for the confusion on the scoring and hope not to repeat that next month. But, time will tell. We are rogue ruffians and ne’er-do-wells, as you may know, akin to the swashbuckling pirates of lore and yore.

One of the items that was a joy to witness was the guests finding the Hawk/knife backstop. The ladies threw the tomahawks for well over 45 minutes and they were getting pretty good at it from the sounds of it. We are thrilled the ladies enjoyed the opportunity. Maybe they’ll give lessons in hawk throwing at our future shoots.

**Scorched throat of Doglock’s cock – breaking her in good**

Our raffle tickets sales will continue till the next shoot, April 26th, where we will be pulling the proverbial winner’s name out of the hat to award the handmade quilt. We not only had a new member join TRBPS but several re-upped their annual dues as we are in the midst of renewing the memberships as the year goes on. Our Trade Table was a big hit with several rifles and pistols sold to our fellow members. So, if you have some items you would like to see used by others, please bring them by and mark them with a price and name so we know who to negotiate with on the potential sale.

Our next shoot is April 26th with the gate opening at about 8:00am for a start time of 9:00am. Our plans are to cook lunch out on the grill and maybe add a Hawk Throwing competition to the rotation as we keep our eyes out for good weather.