Steel Challenge World Championship - Part 2

Thursday morning arrived WAY too early, but with the comfy bed and air conditioning we both managed to get some rest before the big day. We slurped down some coffee and ate some rolls and stuff for a quick breakfast, then loaded the gear into the rental SUV and headed out to the range. I wanted to shoot a few magazines through the High Standard to be sure everything was still working.

When we arrived at the practice range we headed to the "Outer Limits" stage, as I knew that was by far my weakest stage, and worse yet, it was going to be the first stage of the match, too. I shot the stage a few times and had a couple of reasonable runs, and several runs not so good!

Not much I could do about it at this late date, so we headed up to the main range area and met up with the rest of the squad I would be spending the day with.

Squad number four gathered before starting the match. Not a bad shooter in the bunch, although the guy in the black hat and blue shirt was questionable.

Flora made Outer Limits look easy!

Outer Limits has two things that make it difficult to shoot it quickly. First, the two rear most targets are 35 yards away, but worse yet, you have to shoot two targets from one shooting box, then run to the second box for the remaining three targets. The good shooters make it look easy, but for some of us it looks more like a caffeine'd up three legged pig on an ice skating rink. Not a pretty sight, indeed........

My main goal was to try to not dig myself a deep hole and jump in on the first stage. My first run sucked big time, so I shot the next three runs slowly and carefully so the first run would get thrown out. Certainly not a good start, but not totally damaging, either.

Bang, bang, run-run-run, bang, bang, bang! What could be difficult about that?

Flora on one of the other stages.

With Tammy and Loren running a stage "Yes, Ma'am!" and "No, Ma'am" were usually the correct answers! They did a great job!

They also let an old slow guy shoot with the squad.

After the last stage KeeWee gathered everyone in the squad together for a group picture. You couldn't have asked for a nicer bunch of folks.

As we moved from stage to stage I concentrated on shooting as fast as I could without missing any plates, and after the first stage I think I only missed one plate, and that was on a run that was thrown out anyway. It had been hot and dusty all day, and I was drinking water steadily trying to keep from getting dehydrated. By the time the eighth stage was completed I was ready for a quart of Gatorade, an air conditioned hotel room, and a cool shower.

We wandered around the exhibitor's tables and tents a bit, then I tried out a dueling tree side match. Shortly thereafter we climbed into the SUV, turned the A/C on full, and headed back to the hotel.

-- End of Part Two --

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All photos in this post were taken by KeeWee,
as I was kinda busy all day......