CWSA PIN Shoot 04/21/2007

When KeeWee and I headed out the door to drive to the Central Whidbey Sportsman's range for the bowling pin shoot, the weather was kinda gray and not too promising, but as the day wore on, it steadily improved.

I decided to shoot several classes; Centerfire Optic, Revolver, Big Bore Revolver, Rimfire Optic (two guns entered) and Rimfire iron sight. Needless to say, I was kept pretty busy reloading magazines and getting gear ready to go for the next class.

Some shooters came down from Custer, too, so it was a multi-club meet. We all shot four tables of pins against the clock, and our slowest time was thrown out. Our first round opponent was determined by our times. Gerald from Custer set a new CWSA record on one table with a time of 2.47 seconds! WOW, that's fast! His combined time for three tables was under 8 seconds.

Here's a video of Gerald shooting a sub-three second qualifying table:




He's not only hitting them quickly, he's hitting every one in exactly the same place. It's amazing to watch.

Once the qualifying times were added up, it turned out that Gerald with his 38 Super had posted the fastest time, and his time with his .45 was second. Unless someone would to switch with him, he would have to retire one of his guns and not get to shoot it in the match. No one wanted to meet Gerald in the first round, particularly as fast as he shoots, as it would be just about guaranteed that you would be knocked out in the first round.

I had qualified down around 5th or 6th, with a 13.39 second total time, with my 9mm. Taurus Econo Race Gun. I have always enjoyed shooting against Gerald, although the results were usually the same every time. None the less, it's always fun to go up against the "Big Dog", so I volunteered to shoot against Gerald and his 38 Super in the first round. He had driven a long ways to get to our match, and it would be a shame not to get to shoot both of his guns.

Gerald on the left, with Mr. C. on the right, LouG running the timer.

The first table I shot absolutely the fastest centerfire time of my life, 5 pins, 5 shots, and not much over 3 seconds. WHAT FUN! Did I lose the table, well, yeah, but not by very much! Had Gerald knocked just one pin over and required a second shot I would have got him! WHOOOEEEEE!

The second table was also close, as you can see in KeeWee's picture above. It was also very close. Unfortunately I was now knocked out of the Centerfire Optic class, since it's a single elimination format.

Revolver class was a similar outcome. Evil Al pretty much dominates the revolver class the way Gerald does in centerfire. No one wants to shoot against Al in the first round, so sometimes other shooters don't shoot quite as good of qualifying times as maybe they could have done (was that tactful?) so they get to shoot against slower shooters in the early rounds. Even though I shoot my revolver single action, I still ended up with the second fastest qualifying time and got to shoot against Al in the first round. I shot the best I could, but Al was just a bit too fast for me. I didn't get clobbered, but I wasn't close to winning, either!

We only had two big bore revolvers on hand, so LouG and I duked it out three out of five just for the fun of it. Lou with his S&W .44 Magnum, and I with my Ruger Super Red Hawk .480. It turned out to be the only tables I won all day......

Rimfire Optic sight pin top class only had four shooters, five entries since I entered two guns, my long barreled High Standard, and a S&W model 422. By now it had been a long day, and most of the other shooters had gone home. KeeWee beat Lou, Al beat me twice (I couldn't hit a bull in the butt with a 2x4, ugly, very ugly.....), which put KeeWee against Al in the final. Although Al won the final, KeeWee was right there, and wasn't far away from the win. It was close.

It was a long day, and on paper I didn't do very well overall, but for a very brief time I was shooting almost on a level with Gerald, and that was great fun!