CWSA Bowling Pin Shoot 07/29/06

It's been a busy two days, with a bowling pin match on Saturday, and a Steel Challenge match today. Next week it will be two matches again, a hanging plate match on Saturday, and another bowling pin match on Sunday.

KeeWee and I started out early on Saturday morning to head up to the CWSA range for the pin shoot. KeeWee planned on shooting the High Standard she's been shooting lately in the rimfire optical class, and I planned on shooting the Taurus model 66 revolver in the Revolver class, then shooting both my long barreled High Standard and the Smith & Wesson 422 in the Rimfire Optical class, and a High Standard ML-106 in the Iron Sight class. The Taurus Econo Race Gun project isn't quite ready for the Centerfire Optical class yet, but it's getting close.

A bunch of shooters had made the trek down from Custer to shoot today, so there was a good number of shooters in the Centerfire Optical class. Remember Gerald, the pin top wizard I've mentioned in the past? He now shoots centerfire optical too. In qualifying he set a new CWSA record, shooting five pins in 2.39 seconds! You had to see it in person to realize just how fast that is! WOW! With that sort of speed Gerald walked through the competition without a lot of trouble, and won the class.

Qualifying for the revolver class was something of a surprise, with me timing in only tenths of a second behind LouG. "Evil Al" was having some sort of problem (I didn't see what it was), and was not in his usual fastest time position. We only had five revolver shooters, so it was going to be a quick elimination. I shot against LouG in the first round, and narrowly made it to the second round, where young TonyC knocked me out of the running.

I didn't get a chance to follow the rest of the match-ups, as I had to get ready for the rimfire shooting, the overall winner was Al with TonyC second.

There were only two shooters signed up for the rimfire iron sight class, JimP and myself, so we just shot a few tables against each other for the fun of it.

Rimfire optical qualifying put me and my long barreled High Standard in the first round up against Kim from Custer who was shooting her Smith & Wesson model 41. I managed two fast tables, and moved into the next round with the High Standard. My other first round matchup was against Pete from Custer, the third fastest qualifier, also shooting a Smith & Wesson model 41.

I got him on one table, we tied on one table, but he got me on the other two, and my 422 was through for the day. That matched me up against Pete again in the next round, but this time I got to shoot the High Standard, and two tables later Pete was retired for the day.

JimP was also having a good day, having knocked Gerald out in the first round, then beat Rainy to advance. KeeWee had lost her first round matchup to LouG. Evil Al had been having ammo problems in qualifying, but he changed to different ammo, and that seemed to have solved the problem.

It was now down to the final four, Al, LouG, JimP, and myself. meeting LouG in the quarter finals, and ending Lou's day. Al turned Lou into a spectator, and I managed to retire Jim for the day. Now it was for all the marbles, Evil Al and I were the last two standing, so to speak.

"Shooters to the line."

"Load and make ready."

"Ready on the Left?"

"Ready on the right?"

"Standby!"

At the sound of the beep I raised the High Standard, put the red dot on the first pin top, and squeezed.

SILENCE!

The only sound was of Al shooting away and sending the pin tops flying!

I lowered the gun to see that I had forgotten to drop the slide! Quickly I released the slide and got off a couple of quick shots, sending a couple of pins from the table, but Al had already cleared his table as my second pin went down!

HOO BOY............

Against the fastest overall shooter in the club, I just gave him a one table head start! Talking about digging yourself a hole and jumping in headfirst!

As we walked to the second set of tables, I had time for a couple of deep breaths, then try to get re-focused on the next table. I thought to myself, "Don't give it away, make him earn it!"

The buzzer went off, and I shot the five pin tops off the table, only a few tenths of a second faster than Al. Not by much, but enough!

Now it was one table each. It's times like these that make the sport so much fun. Al was shooting his best, I was shooting my best, and it was all down to the final five pins. Talk about adrenalin!

The final and deciding table turned out to be a mirror of the second table, with my last pin hitting the ground only a fraction of a second before Al's touched the ground. I had pulled it out!

Al and I have had some classic battles at pin shoots, and this was one of the very best ever!

What a day!