Another Busy Weekend Done!

It's been a busy weekend! Yesterday KeeWee and I headed out to the CWSA range for a Rimfire Hanging Plate match. Hanging plates are a lot of fun, and it doesn't take a lot to get set up target-wise if you'd like to give it a try at your local club or range. Here's all the details for "rolling your own" Hanging Plate match.

With club level matches, you never know who's going to show up, or how many shooters there will be. At yesterday's match we had a relatively small turn-out, with no shooters from other clubs. In some ways a small turn-out is kinda good, as we can usually get the match finished and the target stand disassembled and back into storage before 1 pm. Such was the case today.

It turned out to be a battle between Evil Al and I, both in the iron sight and the optical sight class. I managed to get a couple more plates than he did in the optical sight class, but in the iron sight class he turned the tables on me. Both classes weren't decided until the final 25 yard distance, and even then it was close! A nagging shoulder injury was bothering KeeWee, and she struggled a bit, but finished the match.

Today it was back up to CWSA for a Bowling pin match. KeeWee elected to take the day off and give her shoulder a rest, so I headed out to the range by myself. As I've been doing lately, I entered my Taurus 66 revolver in the wheel-gun class, my long barreled High standard and my Smith & Wesson 422 in the rimfire optical sight class, and another High Standard in the iron sight class.

In the timing in for the revolver class, I managed a personal best single table time of 4.70 seconds shooting single action, with a combined time for my 3 best runs of just over 15 seconds. Evil Al knocked a few pins over and had to reload a couple of times, but shot a 3.13 and a second table in the very low 4's for a 3 table total around 19 seconds.

Since the first round opponent is determined by your qualifying times, and as Al shoots 3 second tables pretty consistently, you can see why a lot of shooters don't always try as hard as they might in qualifying! Being it's single elimination, meeting Al in the first round just about guarantees your quick exit from the match! To my amazement I managed to narrowly beat Al on the first table! The second and third table, however, was no contest. So much for the revolver class! The MasterBlaster 147gr. bullets seemed to be working well for me on the pins.

Rimfire iron sight class only had 4 shooters today, so I ended up shooting against Mountain Man Phil in the first round. Phil won the first table, but I got him on the next two, to go to the finals against JimP. Jim showed why he wins a lot of iron sight matches. I kept close, but not close enough. Congratulations to Jim on some fine shooting!

Rimfire optical class qualifying ended up with my long barreled High Standard fastest, with Al and his Smith & Wesson model 41 only a few tenths of a second behind me. My Smith & Wesson 422 timed in third, and JimP with his long barreled Ruger Mk. II 4th. This time I got to retire Al, just as he had done to me in the revolver class! A little turn-about is fair play, I'd say!

As soon as I had put the High Standard into it's case, my S&W 422 and I were summoned back to the line to face off against JimP. I retired Jim in two tables, a little payback for Jim knocking me out of the iron sight class!

The elimination chart then put me up against myself, with my High Standard up against the 422, so I had to retire one gun. The 422 went back into it's case for the day.

Farther down in the elimination chart, Evil Al's GRANDSON Derrick was kicking some serious butt, retiring one shooter after another to reach the finals. Shooting against kids is tough, since they usually have quicker reflexes and better eyesight than us old farts!

I shot my two best tables of the day, and put young Derrick in second place overall.

You gotta beat them while you can, but deep down you also know it's just a matter of time before you can't beat them anymore!

Good Shooting, Derrick!