Home From The Range.....

The weather and the weather forecast weren't very promising this morning when KeeWee and I headed North to the bowling Pin Match at Central Whidbey Sportsman's range. Worse yet, the closer we got, the worse the weather looked. Dark clouds, high winds, rain, all the stuff you don't want at an outdoor pistol match!

The qualifying rounds started out wet and soggy, then it started to dry out, but that didn't last very long. We got through the centerfire classes without getting too wet, only cold. Numb fingers don't help much at a pin shoot!

Evil Al was in top form today, and the rest of us looked kinda like chumps when we came up against him. Actually, we weren't ALL that slow, Al was just having a pretty good day.

I was feeling fairly good in the Optical Sight Centerfire class as the Taurus 9mm. 'Econo Race Gun' was finally starting to be competitive. I timed in fairly well, but that put me up against Al right away. I mamaged to beat him on one table, but he got the other two, knocking me out of the class.

I don't think Al lost more than two or three tables all day. I got him once in centerfire, once in Optical rimfire, and LouG got him for one table in revolver, I think. Beyond that Al was pretty much unbeatable, winning every class he entered, and he entered most of them!

In revolver qualifying I had a terrible time, as I was hitting the pins, but they weren't going off the table. Al pointed out that I was hitting them low and kicking the bottom back, which would leave them on the table. I suspect the scope has drifted a bit, so I moved the point of aim up a bit and it worked a lot better. Unfortunately I met up with young Tony (remember him?) in the first round and he turned me into a spectator without too much trouble. In revolver class Tony was the only one to put much pressure on Al, but al knocked him out too, to win the class.

Once we started qualifying for rimfire, it had really started to rain. Not only was it pouring down, the wind was blowing it sideways, so even under the covered areas it was still wet! We finally took a break and went into the clubhouse to wait for it to subside a bit.

After a short wait the rain had slowed a bit and we headed back to the pin range to finish rimfire qualifying and shoot the rimfire matches. Shooting my High Standard and my S&W422 in optical class, I qualified 2nd. and 3rd., with you know who (AL!) having the fastest time. That means I got to shoot against Al in the first round again! We tied on the first table, I might have won one, but Al won two tables to retire the High Standard. With the Smith & Wesson I came up against the #4 qualifier, LouG. I managed to advance past Lou, but there's Al AGAIN! I screwed up the first table, and got close on the second, but once again, Al knocked me out. SHEEESHHH! Al ended up shooting in the final against JimP, but Al continued doing what he'd been doing all day, to take the win. KeeWee ran into Jim in the first round and put a little pressure on him, but eventually got knocked out too.

After rimfire optical class was over, all that was left was rimfire iron sight class, and there were only two of us signed up, Jim and I. I think the horrible weather kept a lot of shooters home today. Jim and I had already run through our qualifying tables, so it was between Jim and I for the class win. Jim and I decided to make it 3 out of 5 instead of 2 out of 3 so we could get in a little more shooting. When Jim and I suggested that we wanted to change it to 17 out of 33 we almost started a small riot!

We swapped table wins back and forth until it was 2 tables each, and it was down to the final table. Everyone else was wet and cold and wanted to go home, but Jim and I were having a lot of fun! Wet and cold, numb fingers, water running down my glasses along with the fogged up lenses, it's amazing we hit anything at all! It certainly was no show of shooting prowess, but I narrowly managed to win the fifth and final table.

Al kinda summed the match up when he walked by and remarked, " ....... if nothing else, at least you two are sure entertaining!"

I decided to split my class winnings for first place with Jim as I figure he deserved it!

A buck for him and a buck for me, hard earned to say the least...............