Pins at 50 yards, Smalls at 25

by John White
October 2021

Much cooler weather with lots of friendly faces and couple of new faces. So got rolling at about 9:10am to a cool, no breeze, 43 degrees with sunny skies for a beautiful shooting day. Had 16 folks make it. 13 shooters and 3 range officers/ observers. We did our two shooter classifications with five shooting supported (bench) and eight unsupported (off hand). As the day went on it got to about 60 degrees, jackets came off, no breeze and just a gorgeous day to be outside shooting. Seemed a perfect fall day for us.

We did our first relay with the unsupported group shooting steel swingers at 50 yards. Five at a 6″ plate and five at a 3.5″ plate. Lots of jawing about the size, colors chosen (orange and silver), how far away they were, how tiny they are, why did you take the big ones down? etc. The normal complaints, been there, done that. The supported group shot at 25 yards, a two bull NMLRA for score. Everything went smooth as silk until the supported group turned in their targets. Of course someone shot someone else target making it tough for the scorer. Grrrrrrr. Now the supported group only had one dry ball but had a lot of snapped caps fail to fires. Go figure that. Might be a record. Stayed right on schedule, focused and first relay done in an hour.

For the second relay the targets were switched, unsupported shot the paper bulls at 25 yards and supported shot the 50 yard swingers. For some reason the five shooters shooting the swingers did not complain as much as the other group. Hmmmmm. So the targets were turned in and I was glad I was sittin’ down, never seen a target that was supposed to have 10 holes in it for scoring, have 15! Huh? Sure did. Of course there was apology given on the mixup confusion. The relay was completed timely and all shooting was done at about 11:00. Cleanup started while the scores were totaled.

So the winners in each classification were:
Unsupported ( standing off hand )
1st: Jim
2nd: Bobby
3rd: Billy

Supported ( bench rested )
1st: Charlie
2nd: Dave
3rd: Dennis

So again, I sensed a feeling of enjoyment and relaxation in the shooters. The weather, the match layout, the friendships, the bantering amongst each other, the new shooters were welcomed, old friendships reestablished, enjoying the firearms, examining, hefting, talking about em, who made em, the atmosphere of fellowship, easy competition and a common hobby of shootin’ front stuffers. Billy, Charlie, this is how we have been doing our matches. Thank you for coming and we all hope you enjoyed the day and will be coming back for more next month. All, keep your eyes on the website and look for other emails with pictures that will be included. If anyone would like to add to this little summary, please do.

To all, for our next match in November, we have moved the shoot date up a week. Rather than the Saturday after thanksgiving we are going with the Saturday before and we will be doing some type of lunch to celebrate our last match of the year. November 20th. We all feel the holidays are for family and especially thanksgiving so please enjoy the time of the holidays.

Thank you to all the shooters, range officers and observers. The program would not be where it is without you. Be safe and healthy as we can gather next month for more fun.

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P.S. Misspent rounds & the misplaced target

by Chris Greene

I nicely identified my small at 25 yard target with my best penmanship, stapled it to the backboard, and took the assembly downrange to the 25 yard marker. I eyed the position of it – second from left, next to Jim’s. Got it! Ready to punch holes and make smoke I returned to the firing line.

Unbeknownst to me, another feller hand come up on my blind spot and placed a target at far, far left – putting mine third from left. Had no idea. As far as I knew my target was second from left and that’s the one I regarded.

As the shooting went on, John called a cold range, then he and Jim went down and regarded my target. I’m like, “No, I didn’t!”

The little silver man in my head that tells me things, he said, “Guess what, dummy?!” I then turned my incredulous leer toward the ‘third’ target from the left – – absolutely untouched. I nodded my head in quiet acceptance and much shame – after having put 5 rounds through Jim’s target, what could I do except apologize like the southern gentleman my mom raised me to be. Mortified, I gave his wingman three of my .440s to make up for my sin. That’s all he’d take.

I won’t live this down any more than I’ll live down having shot my own ramrod from my Virginia rifle. Talking Rock has a ‘saloon’ a few miles away …