CWSA Rimfire Falling Plate Match 03/09/2008

(Note: This post is a bit late, as I wrote it and saved it as a draft, then forgot about it..........)

Nothing to it, just knock down the big ones first,
then shoot down the little one.
Oh, and do it in less than two seconds! Piece of cake...............

Sunday just didn't start off on a good note. Some days you wonder if you should have just slept in! KeeWee spilled a bottle of face lotion to start the morning, and it was one thing after another from there. Once we got to the range KeeWee discovered that the magazines for her High Standard race gun hadn't found their way into her range bag, and there wasn't enough time to drive back to the house to get them. Her High Standard uses the slant grip type magazine, whereas my High Standard has the military grip angle like a 1911, so the magazines won't interchange. Bummer!!

I did happen to have my Smith & Wesson 422 rimfire race gun with me, so she decided to give it a go with the 422.

The falling plate matches involve a lot of shooting as it's a round robin format where you shoot three runs against every other shooter entered. We had a relatively small turnout with only twelve shooters (I think the threatening weather had something to do with it), but even so, that means everyone gets to shoot 33 times against another shooter. That makes for a fairly busy morning! My first opponent was Chris C., Tony's dad. I think Chris is possibly the most improved shooter in our club, and he was really shooting well today. In fact, he beat me two out of the three runs, putting me in the hole immediately. "Evil Al" was also shooting really fast too, and guess who I came up against in my third matchup. Yup, Al! Al got me two of the three runs too. My chances were sinking like a stone. Then I noticed something. The top five shooters were ALL beating up on each other. Mike F. and Tony C. were also shooting well, and even Al was losing a table here and there, too. KeeWee was having a bit of trouble shooting the unfamiliar S&W, but she was winning a few, too. Lou G. was shooting well, too, considering he's spent the last several months recovering from a badly broken forearm.

As we neared the end of the round robin, there were four or five shooters within a point of each other. I had started to get my act together, and hadn't lost another table since the first four, but I still had a couple of tough opponents to go. Today the steel gods were smiling on me, and I managed to run the table without losing any more points after the initial four losses.

When the scores were totaled up my 29 points was good enough for the win, with Chris and Al tied with 28, right behind me. Chris and Al then had a 2 out of 3 shootoff to decide second place. Three very close tables later Chris had an ear to ear grin, having got by Al by fractions of a second on two of the three runs to clinch second place. What a great finish to a fun, fast, and furious rimfire falling plate match.

After the falling plate match KeeWee and I drove to Oak Harbor to try out a new fish and chips place, then to pick up some floor tile to replace a piece of carpet that was ruined by an over-flowed drain that flooded our basement last week, and finally we swung by the DQ for our "After Shoot" ice cream.

A great way to spend the day, I'd say.............................