CWSA Pin Shoot - 060306

Dennis and Larry in an early matchup. Dennis is ahead by about one pin.

LouG and Mr. Completely in the Revolver class.

Tony and KeeWee in a very close first round match.

KeeWee's a little bit behind tony on the second table.

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What a beautiful day for a pistol match! Partly cloudy, no wind, mild temperature, just perfect! Since Evil Al and Rainey are off to Idaho this weekend for a steel match, LouG stepped in to run the pin shoot. Since Lou was a bit short handed, Dean, Bill, KeeWee and I volunteered to show up and help get everything set up for the match.

Normally I don't show up until the center fire and revolver shooters are getting close to being finished, but today I was going to be there for the whole thing, so I decided to shoot my Taurus Model 66 .357 with a red dot sight on it in the Revolver class. .357 would be way too much power, so I opted for some .38 Special Plus-P hollowpoints. Still more power than needed, but that's what was a good deal at Walmart!

We only had five revolver shooters, but except for me, all were experienced revolver pin shooters. This was my first try and wheel gun pin shooting! Everyone else was shooting double action, but I can't seem to hit very much yet shooting fast double action, so I decided to take a page from the book of the SASS Cowboy Action shooters and shoot single action. With those Plus-P's I figured I'd have plenty of time to cock the hammer while bringing the gun back down to get to the next pin. Although I had some speed loaders, they weren't the push button kind, so reloads were going to be slow, so I needed to concentrate on getting five pins without needing to reload, rather than shooting fast.

After we all shot our four qualifying tables against the clock, I was surprised to see myself with the second fastest time! Oh GOOD! That means I get matched up to shoot against the fastest shooter in the first round of the match, LouG!

I did my best to not miss any pins, and I wasn't too far behind Lou on the first table, although I lost the table. The second table was a dead tie, with both pins hitting the ground at the same time! I could have done back flips across the pin range! I figured I was going to be an easy "Two and out" against Lou. Some thought I had narrowly won the table, but it was declared a tie. The third table I actually won outright! My jaw must have hit the ground in astonishment!

Unfortunately the scorer had thought that I had won the second table too, and advanced me to the next round. In the next round I came up against BillB and he took the first table. Then it was noticed that Lou should have got one more table against me in the preceding round before being retired. It was decided that since bill had already won one table in the second round it wasn't fair to him to take that win back away, so we let it stand. Bill and I both offered to go back and do it over, but the referee was right, Bill had won a table and shouldn't lose that win. All was handled like the true good sportsmen they are.

The next table against Bill was a tie, I think, but he won the deciding table, and then Bill went on to Beat Tony in the final.

I couldn't have been more pleased, having now shot my first CWSA pin match with a revolver, and although I didn't win, I didn't embarrass myself, and had a whole lot of fun at it too. And of course, I turned in the best performance of the day for a Brazilian revolver shot left handed in Coupeville, Washington!

Now only two classes remained, Rimfire Optical Sight, and Rimfire Iron Sight, shooting at pin tops. Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that in qualifying some of the iron sight shooters were exactly sandbagging, but no one wants to meet JimP in the first round and get knocked out of the match. I always try to shoot at match speed, even in qualifying, to get warmed up. That also means that I regularly meet Jim and Evil Al in the first round! So it was today, as I ended up right behind Jim in time, and got to shoot against him in the first round. He didn't beat me by a whole lot, but by enough to knock me out of the Iron Sight class in the first round. Mountain Man Phil knocked Jim out in the finals, though, to take the win.

In Optical Sight I timed in my long barreled High Standard in fourth, due to some faulty ammo that wassn't feeding properly, but had second best time with my S&W Model 422. KeeWee was somewhere in the middle of the pack with her new race gun, a tricked up High Standard Sport King 103/Sharpshooter.

Jim retired me and my S&W in the first round matchup. I changed ammo for the Long Barrel High Standard and faced John in the first round. John is still getting used to his new Buckmark, and I was able to get past him to the next round, but waiting for me in the second round was guess who, JimP!

Jim had beat me in iron sight, and knocked my S&W out in the first round in Optical Sight, but this time I had my fast gun ready for him, and this time I was able to turn the tables and knock Jim out instead of the other way around. That put me into the final round.

In the second flight, there were some really good matches going on. KeeWee had been working her way through the pack, beating both Tony and LouG along the way, to also reach the final. It was going to be a High Standard final, both prepared and tuned by yours truly! How cool is that!

The first table was extremely close, and even the slightest bobble could have reversed the result, but I managed to shoot my fastest time of the day to narrowly win the table. The second table wasn't quite as close, as I bettered my time again, and managed to take the win.

KeeWee and I, both shooting High Standards, one and two! I couldn't have been prouder, even if she did almost win it!

That would have been OK, too!