..... a busy weekend!

It's Monday morning and it's been a really busy weekend. It seemed like KeeWee and I were on the go all the time. Saturday was a CWSA Bowling Pin shoot. As I have been doing lately I shot every class, using either a Charles Daly 1911 with iron sights, the 9mm.Taurus PT92 'Econo Race Gun', the .357 Taurus Model 66 revolver, the .480 Ruger Super Red Hawk, the High Standard/Volquartzen .22 race gun, or the Smith & Wesson model 422 in .22 caliber. That's a lot of changing back and forth and trying to remember which gun you are shooting at the moment, and where the magazine release is!

Was it Jeff Cooper who said that you should beware the shooter who shoots only one gun? Anyhow, if you shoot only one gun, you can really fine tune your skills for just that one particular gun. If you start shooting many different guns, you will, in my opinion, become a better overall shooter, although your performance with any one particular gun may not be quite as good. A really good shooter can pick up just about anything and shoot it well. Not only that, but the more guns you shoot, and the more classes you enter, the more shooting you get to do in a day, and when you really enjoy shooting, what more could you ask for?

The bowling pin matches are single elimination format, so if you lose against only one other shooter, you are done for the day in that class. Prior to the match we shoot four tables of five pins per table against the clock to determine your first round opponent, fastest qualifier against number two, number three against number four, and so on down the list. Unfortunately with this system, if you have one really outstanding shooter, whoever qualifies second is almost always going to have a very quick exit from the class! In every centerfire class I lost in the first round!

Big bore revolver only had two shooters this time, Evil Al and myself. I talked Al into shooting 3 out of 5 instead of the normal 2 out of 3 so we could do a little bit more shooting, and he agreed. I narrowly won the first table, and also the second. Had it been the regular 2 out of 3, I would have won, but no, it was 3 out of 5, and Al came roaring back and won the next three in a row! Every table was really close, as I was right with him all the way, but he got me every time, but by the smallest of margins. Great fun, and there's something about shooting the big bore revolvers that's particularly enjoyable!

Rimfire pin tops was the last event for the day. I entered both the Long Barreled High Standard and the Smith & Wesson 422, and KeeWee entered with the High Standard Sharpshooter 103. I had a couple of bad runs with the High Standard in qualifying, and was slightly faster with the 422, so once again, I was up against Al in the first round, this time with the 422. Also once again, Al won the round, not by much, retiring the 422 for the day. A few rounds later, however, I was up against Al again, this time with the Long Barreled High Standard pin gun, and it was again really close, but this time I managed to retire Al, rather than the other way around! I ended up with the class win, and KeeWee ended up somewhere around fifth or sixth, I don't remember for sure.

After the pin shoot we headed up to Oak Harbor to the Dairy Queen for something to eat. Have you tried the banana cream pie blizzards? Delicious!

Sunday morning we were back to the CWSA range for a rimfire falling plate match. Like a pin shoot, it's also a head to head match, but unlike pin shoots, it's a round robin format rather than a single elimination. That means you get to shoot three times against every other shooter in the match! You better bring lots of ammo for one of these, as you get in a lot of shooting! Final placing is determined by how many rounds you win. We had thirteen shooters, so everyone got to shoot 36 rounds against other opponents. No times are recorded since it's head to head, but there was a whole lot of amazingly fast shooting going on.


Once the dust had settled, KeeWee and Chris were tied for fifth, Johan was fourth, Tony was third, and Al and I were tied for first with 30.5 points. First place ties are settled by a 2 out of 3 shoot-off. I wasn't very optimistic as Al got me 2 out of 3 in the match itself, and he was definitely shooting faster than I was, but he was missing more plates, too, so there was at least hope that if I shot as fast as I could go without mistakes and if he missed a plate I might get him. It turns out that's exactly how it played out. What a fun way to end a match, in a shootout to break a tie!

After the match we helped put everything away, then drove to Burlington to Costco's for hot polish sausages. I love good hot dogs, and those are even better! From Costco we drove a couple of blocks to the new Sportsman's Warehouse to pick up some ammo. I also picked up three more Glock magazines for the 9mm. Glock.

From Burlington we drove back to Whidbey Island, crossing the Deception Pass bridge to get onto Whidbey. We stopped at Deception Pass bridge and also at the state park so KeeWee could take a few pictures and we could go for a short walk on the beach.

After another 4o minute drive we pulled into the driveway at Completely Castle.

It had been a fun day!