March 27, 2021 Event – Woods Walk

by John White

Yesterday we had the TRBPShooters first ever woodswalk.  We had 7 shooters and 3 observers to make sure we did not exagerate our hits for score.  We scored our walk with a simple hit or miss and you had to shoot from a bag and in any trouble, fix it with stuff you got on ya.  All of course safely.

To make our lives a bit simple we used the existing ranges and avoided the hills and gulleys that could have been a mite difficult to walk from the recent rains up there.  Side note, man did the Town of Talking Rock our name sake get it bad.  The creek definitely overflowed its bank this week, flooded the pottery barn, debris ALL over and i am not talking twigs but trees, the small park and its picnic tables were in the parking lot.  Lots of hours needed to clean up.  Was the range complex effected you ask?  Nope, not one bit that i could find.

We started off on the small short range we use for pistols right on time at 10am and warmed up shooting the dueling tree at about 25 yards off hand of course with 5 shots.  We had 4 flinters shooting and 3 percussion rifles on a sticky humid day but not hot!  Only got to about 65 all day but humidity was rough.  So the second range we went to was our BP range.  Again we shot the dueling tree at 50 yards all off hand for 5 shots. 

Of course there is a bit of ribbing and jawing going on as we shoot our rifles in a really good way.  At this point we had 10 shots in and only one capper having some flame channel problems to get fire to the charge from the humidity getting into the powder.  So off we went to the short drive by range down the hill.  Way to short of distance to shoot with way to big of targets on the dueling tree there.  So how did i manage to miss 2 out of 5 shots?  On this range i had the first flinter problem.  Flint needed to be reinstalled as no sparks.

We were going to then head to the tac range for our final relay of 75 yard shots but it was occupied by the only other visitors we saw.  3 folks doing some fundementals so we trudged back up hill, no wagons for us to our BP host range.  We shot the big bottle hangers but when i declared them as the target i got a little of those big ole things?  Them ain’t no challenge.  I am thinking geez guys, give me a chance to hit something will ya please!  So after each of us shot the big hangers once i declared a change in the course of fire mid match.  I was accused of being a DEMOCRAT for changing the rules mid match! Man that hurt.  So the rule became 4 shots big target so i could say i hit something and the last shot of the day was on the little 4″ reset target for 5 points if you hit and declared which one you were shooting at.  For some reason hitting what you are aiming at is important to some folks.  Me hit it you ask?  Nah.  But three did.  So we started having a bit more troubles here, one front sight came loose, another needed flint replaced but our poor Chris Greene could not get fire the last two shots.  Flint trouble first and then the humidity just made his BP not ignite so he called it.  The shame of that was it was Chris’s match to lose at that point, he had not missed all day.  18 for 18.  We had a shoot off for 2nd place and used the small target again.  Bob Wilson hit it back to back for second place.  Brad won for the second match in a row after going 0 for 2 he hit 18 straight.  I guess the first 2 were warmup shots for him.

So we were done settling up at 12:15 with a great day of fellowship and shooting some absolutely stunning rifles.  Thanks to all for coming out.  We can always get our course of fire to be more of a challenge and i have made some notes for future woodswalks for improvement.  But one of our goals is always leave the place in good shape.  No one will ever know we even shot yesterday as we left no trace.  Folks they do not even know we were there. 

20 shots taken and a special thanks to Barney for doing our score keeping.  It helped let us focus on our shooting.  I am running out of excuses for my misses dang it.

To the other folks that came out, please add any comments you would like to add.  Take care all be safe and healthy.  I hope to play some poker at next months match.

John
TRBPShooters Program Manager