Team "bloggerBlasters" Rules!

Jon sends a pin flying in qualifying, as Al Lindell does the time-keeping.

Just got back from the pin shoot at Central Whidbey Sportsman's Assn., in Coupeville, Washington, on beautiful Whidbey Island. I had hoped to take a lot more pictures, but some mechanical weirdness kept me busy trying to get things working in the short time between qualifying and the start of the pin shoot itself.

I figured if I kept calm and kept my head in the game, I'd do OK. I'd test fired everything this morning before the shoot, and everything checked out perfectly. Went up to the line to qualify, checked the red dot sight to be sure it was on, and waited for the "Commence Fire" buzzer. Buzzer sounded, and I fired the first shot, then the dang red dot in the sight went out! Imagine using a scope without any cross-hairs! Smacked the scope with my hand, and the dot came back on. Fired shot two, and the dot went out again. Went all the way through qualifying "Shoot" - "SMACK' - "Shoot - Shoot" - "Smack". YEEESH!

Needless to say, my qualifying times were none too fast. I hustled back to the gun tables and set a world record for a red dot battery change. Since the dot was nice and bright when it felt like being on, I knew that the battery wasn't low, but I figured I had a spare, so change it anyway. I scraped the contact areas for the battery with my Swiss army knife, and put it back together. It turned on, so I smacked it a few times to see if it would stay on. (and for general principles too, I might add!). Would it stay on when shooting? No way to test it except in the competition.

No time to fiddle with it any more either, as I still had a second gun (the Smith & Wesson 422, the same one featured in the Rim Fire Race guns series), and a third gun, my Hi Standard iron sight class gun to get qualified.

With a start like this, I figured it was just going to get worse, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop! The handgun gods were smiling however, and I got both remaining guns qualified without mishap or major embarrassment. Not super fast, but at least respectable.

Then things started to improve. Due to the terrible qualifying time with the Hi Standard, I ended up in the second flight of shooters. I managed to shoot my way to the finals from the second flight. Everything worked perfectly!

I was in the first flight of shooters with the 422, and managed to get a couple of lucky breaks, also getting myself into the final round. How 'bout that! The two shooters in the final were both ME! Have no doubt, being lucky is WAY better than being good!!

The iron sight class, with fewer shooters, quickly resolved itself down to AnalogKid, "bloggermeister" from Random Nuclear Strikes, and myself in the final. The kid must have remembered me narrowly getting by him at the last pin shoot. He shot some excellent tables, and went on to win the iron sight class, with me ending up second. Not too bad for his second pin shoot!

Jon and KeeWee both qualified well, and shot well, but got knocked out in the first round, and ended up placing somewhere in the middle.

After the pin shoot was over, several of us, including AnalogKid, Jon, KeeWee, JimP and myself set up some more pins and blasted away for a while longer. If Jon and the Kid didn�t have such a long drive ahead of them, we would have been there until dark!!..