Last Hanging Plate Match of the Year - - (sigh)

Just got back from the CWSA range a few hours ago, and the last rimfire hanging plate match of the year is now in the history books.

Although we managed not to get rained on, it was cold and blustery, and most of the shooters with a lick of sense stayed home and kept warm.

Unfortunately, the best shooters in the club apparently have no sense at all, and they all showed up, at least most of them!

We shoot a total of 72 plates, at four different distances, 10 yards, 15 yards, 20 yards, and 25 yards. You make three runs at each distance, where you have six seconds to shoot 6 plates in each run, starting from sort of a "low ready" gun position. As we move farther back, the plates get larger, 3" at 10 yards, up to 7" at 25 yards. It shouldn't be that hard, but it's harder than it looks!

I got to be the first shooter, which I really don't like to do, although it shouldn't make any difference.

I'm sighted in for 25 feet for pin shooting, so 10 yards is almost dead on, and the farther back I go, the lower I have to aim to correct. At 25 yards I aim about an inch below the plate. Boy is that hard to deliberately pull the trigger when the red dot is NOT on the target!

The first distance I had a 6, a 6, and a 5, to get off to a good start. I think the cold weather and wind affected everyone today, and as the day wore on, shooting accuracy declined a bit.

I struggled with the iron sight class, and changed glasses a couple of times trying to find the right combination.

In the end I managed a 60, for an average of 5 out of 6 on each run. That was just high enough to beat out "Evil Al" by a couple of plates. In the iron sight class, we swapped places, with Al winning it, and with me right behind, and JimP in third.

After packing up all the plate shoot equipment and putting it back into the storage shed, Jim and I hung a few targets for the e-Postal handgun match, and blasted away. Jim shot a 10 yard rimfire target, and I shot a 50 yard rimfire and a 50 yard .38 Revolver target. With the .38 I couldn't see ANY of the spots on the target, so I just tried to put all the shots onto the paper, and hope to get lucky!

By then I was getting a case of "froze toes", and decided to pack it in and head home.

When I got home KeeWee and I had a couple of large bowls of Taco soup, followed up with two pieces of Patriotic pie!

Life is good.........