Paul Bunyan Steel Match Report

It seems like I haven't been shooting much since last October, and that's pretty accurate. I shot one match in October, one in early January, and only had the race guns out of their case once in that period, except for the matches. That's not a very good way to keep up your skills! At the steel match in January I was definitely rusty, but as the day progressed I started to get back on track. It went about the same way yesterday at Paul Bunyan Gun Club's steel match in Puyallup. Will, the match director, sets up his steel stages differently every match, and the theme for this match was "Up Close and Personal". A good point shooter could probably have shot the match without using sights at all. Every stage featured fairly close in targets and pure speed was the game of the day. A great way to develop bad habits, though, since fast and sloppy shooting would still get you a good score. To give you an idea of just how fast the watch was, my average five shot string starting with the muzzle on a barrel was 1.575 seconds! That's the average for the whole day!

Keewee went along, and although she hasn't been shooting much either, she did very well. The weather wasn't all that bad for this time of year, and it only rained a little bit, and they it was very light rain. Even with the less than ideal weather, we had 81 guns entered, so the turnout was really excellent. We all had a lot of fun, and several of us had dinner together after the match. Still, it was a long drive home, and I went out like a light as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I DO need to get out and practice every day now though, as I can't count on having big close targets for the rest of the season...........