September 2026 – Special Event – Flag of Honor & Charity Contributions
by John White
September 19, 2026
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Our shoot was a day of honor, reflection, and experimentation. It was an additional shoot not on our normal calendar of events – brought about by various scheduling conflicts that we usually work to avoid, though we were ultimately successful in managing them.
We honored the victims of 9/11 by shooting under a commemorative American flag featuring the standard 50 stars on a blue field, alongside red, white, and grey stripes inscribed with the names of all the 9/11 victims. As a
supplemental shoot, this event also served as a test of attendance; we are regularly welcoming new shooters, which increases our turnouts and makes us mindful of potentially outgrowing our range. We experimented by adding a third relay that was pistol-only, regardless of the type of pistol—just off-hand, single-handed shooting.
We started the shoot at 9:00 AM with 20 shooters, including a new shooter and several first-time guests. Our first two relays followed our normal rifle course of fire at 25 and 50 yards. We shot a banty rooster target at 50 yards,
followed by a five-bull pale blue, yellow, and white bullseye target at 25 yards. These scores were combined to determine our rifle rankings across two categories: off-hand and bench. Since this was our first time running this format, we had no idea what to expect for attendance, but our shooters for the day were:
Off-Hand:
1st: Brad Thomas
2nd (Tie): Tracy Derrick & James Whitner
3rd: Billy Townsend
4th: Chris Greene
5th: Bob Wilson
Bench:
1st: Steve Boettcher
2nd: David Armstrong
3rd: Bill Daugherty
4th: Beaver Fisher
5th: Jim Beherend
Ten of our shooters brought pistols, ranging from custom single-shot target muzzleloaders to a variety of cap-and-ball models. We ran the pistol match while the rifle targets were being scored. The course of fire was a simple five
shots at a black bullseye at approximately 20 yards. Our pistol rankings for the day were:
Pistol:
1st: Jim Beherend
2nd: Brad Thomas
3rd: Tracy Derrick
4th: Billy Townsend
5th: Bob Wilson
Prizes awarded included chicken, sausage, and pumpkin pies. Everyone appeared to have a great time, no dry balls were admitted to, and everyone was VERY patient with the Program Manager as he worked through the logistics of a third relay—managing attendance, awards, timing, explanations, descriptions, you name it. He sincerely appreciates
everyone’s patience! As always, he was secretly thrilled by the grumblings, mumblings, and “How could he choose that kind of target?” comments, as challenging shooters with new and unusual targets makes him very happy.
We managed to finish all three relays, score every target, award prizes, shop at the trade tables, throw hawks endlessly on our hawk range, and wrap up by 12:10 PM. Impressive work, everyone, especially as it was starting to
get warm and sunny! Proceeds from this shoot and next week’s shoot will be donated to the Gilmer County Food Pantry in honor of JoAnn Schmidt, wife of our founding member Dennis, as they are regular supporters and volunteers there.
LOOKING AHEAD:
Our next shoot falls on our traditional 4th weekend of the month: next Saturday, the 26th. So come one, come all for another day of fun in the sun shooting antique muzzleloaders—pushing a heavy round object out of a iron pipe at a piece of paper with various pictures on it! We open the gates by 8:00 AM and start shooting at 9:00 AM. We will continue with our regular course of fire (rifles at 25 and 50 yards) along with the new pistol relay, which will remain for the rest of our 2026 shoots as we continue to greet new shooters with fresh targets and adventures.
‘Til next Saturday, stay healthy and safe!
As always keep your eyes on this, our website, for updates on our shoots with write-ups, pics, videos, links to two websites with different videos on the trbps.com events tab. Check out our Rumble page for full, unedited videos.
Enjoy the remaining pictures below and the video at the end.
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 September special event 2026 below
TRBPS September special event 2026 on Rumble
The Rumble video is undedited, 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 edited version: