CWSA First Ever Rimfire Falling Plate Match

The weather wasn't quite as crummy as last week, as 23 hardy rimfire shooters converged at the Central Whidbey Sportsman's Assocuation range in Coupeville, Washington for the very first Rimfire Falling Plate match ever held at the CWSA range.

Five 6" disks, and one 4" disk. The smaller plate, called the Stop Plate, is actually painted yellow, but in the picture they all look white.

The brand new plate racks were clamped to the rear of the tables that we normally use for bowling pin shooting. The object is to knock over all of your plates before your opponent does. You can shoot the plates in any order you like, as long as you shoot the "Stop Plate" last. Once the plates are knocked over, a pull of a rope stands them back up for the next time.

The round robin match format meant that everyone would get in a lot of shooting. If there are 16 or less shooters, everyone shoots against everyone else three times. Since we had more than 16 shooters, we broke it into two groups and everyone in each group shot against everyone else in their group three times. Each shooter gets one point for winning a run, or one half of a point for a tie. After the group shooting was over, the points are added up to determine the group winners.

Mark shot some very good tables. He's improving every time I see him shoot.

The group totals showed the amazing "Evil Al" had mowed down the competition, winning every single table he shot in his group. Although we didn't have any timers going, I would estimate that he was shooting all six plates in between 2.5 and 3 seconds just about every time. WOW!!

It's not easy to get a picture of Al, he just moves too fast for my camera! Here he is ready to win another table.

I had a whole lot of really close tables, that today went my way, and I ended up by dropping only one table to Johann, and winning all the rest. Fortunately I was not in Al's group!

KeeWee shot some amazingly fast tables, easily beating a number of shooters and putting pressure on some faster shooters that were a bit surprised at how fast she was shooting!

Now it was time for the grand finale, 3 out of five, to decide the overall match winner.

"A hush fell over the crowd......."

(Actually, just about everyone had packed up and gone home, as it was wet, rainy, windy, and getting miserable.)

The first table was actually closer than I expected, but Al got me by about half a plate. At least he hadn't completely blown me away! The second table I actually managed to edge him by just a fraction.

The third table Al got bit by an ammunition gremlin and had a round fail to fire. By the time he cleared the round and resumed firing, I had taken the table. Even with Al losing time by having to clearthe round, I still just barely beat him! Dang, Al's fast!!

The fourth round. I was ahead two tables to one. If I could get lucky just once more, the match was mine. I tried to shoot just a little bit too fast, missed a plate, and Al put round four in his pocket.

Now it was winner take all, one table to decide the match. All I have to do is shoot probably faster than I've ever shot in my entire life, but hit every plate too. Yeah, right.....

I did the best I could, and didn't make any mistakes, but Al is Al, and he was not to be denied. I was close, I made him work for it, but he proved once again why he wins most of the matches at CWSA.

Now some folks get upset when they lose, but I wasn't upset at all. I knew I had shot my best, and just got beat by a better shooter. I was happy I was able to make it to the final, and more importantly, I managed to make Al sweat a little, and that's almost as much fun as winning!!

It was a grand day, excluding the weather, of course, with lots and lots of shooting. I went through well over 200 rounds of ammunition. There were lots of really close matches, and everyone had a great time.

KeeWee and I can hardly wait for the next one!

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KeeWee has a post up with a couple of more pictures HERE.

Mad Gun has a post up on the match HERE.