California, Here I come........

KeeWee and I have just about got everything all ready to go for our big annual adventure to Piru, California and the World Steel Challenge Championships. We catch the airport shuttle at 11am. today for the jhour and a half ride to the airport.

I think I've got my #1 rimfire race gun, and High Standard with a Volquartsen barrel and a C-More sight, running reliably, at least I hope so. Just after I returned from the European Steel Challenge Championships a crack developed in the frame of my primary race gun and it had to be retired. I built up and modified another one, using many of the "tuned" parts from the broken gun such as the hammer, sear, and a few other bits, and used it in Coeur D'Alene for the Idaho Championships. It stove-piped a couple of times in Idaho, and clearly wasn't quite ready for prime time. Since Idaho I've done a bit more work to it, and particularly to the custom modified extractor I use. I shot it last Saturday at Kitsap's monthly fun steel match, and it worked perfectly. I've gone over it carefully and everything looks good. My backup race gun isn't quite as reliable, but it's running pretty well, too. Hopefully I won't have to use it.

We fly from Seattle to Burbank, arriving around 6pm. We pick up the rental car in Burbank, then drive North for about 45 minutes to get to Valencia and the hotel. Tomorrow morning early I check in at the range, find out my squad assignment and start stage, then at 8:30am we start shooting. By early afternoon the match will be over, at least for me, as I only shoot in the Rimfire Optic Sight class. We'll probably hang around the match range for the afternoon and watch the fast (pro) shooters, and if there are any interesting side matches I might give them a try.

By the end of the day we will both be hot, tired, and dehydrated, so we'll head back to to hotel to get something to eat and probably conk out early! We'll be at the range all day on Friday watching the shooting and checking out the vendor's booths. Friday night The is the NSSF banquet at the hotel, where we'll get a chance to sit and visit with a lot of folks we haven't seen since last year.

Saturday morning we'll probably head out to the range for a couple of hours in the morning, then head back to the airport, turn in the rental car, and fly back to Seattle. From Seattle is back to Whidbey Island on the Shuttle bus, arriving home at approximately 00:30 Sunday morning. Sunday I plan to sleep all day!

I'm taking my netbook with me, so, hotel WiFi willing, I will try to post a progress report or so over the next few days.