|
Osage Orange
Sharpshooters 2004 Updated Schedule - Online at www.swampworks.com/OsageOrange.html Osage Orange Sharpshooters Other Matches Ammunition Upcoming John
C. Garand Match Great Outdoors
Days Rifle Raffle Small Arms Firing School on Sunday and Monday introduced the attendees to unmodified, rack-grade M16 rifles, most of which were so well-used that the sight adjustment wheels didn't even move the sights. Because the M16 in its military configuration is full-auto-capable (disabled for Camp Perry), it is required to have a trigger pull heavier than the rifle, so most of these had about a 9 pound pull. Along with 55 grain FMJ ammunition, the results on target were quite disappointing for your Sharpshooters, and this was particularly disturbing because the "M16 EIC Match" scheduled for Thursday was to use these exact rifles. It was clear from the start that doing well in the M16 match would be the result of getting a rifle that actually shot straight and had a consistent trigger pull. On Tuesday, the first match, the Presidents Match (Presidents 100 or P100 in the table below) is a 30 shot match, 10 standing at 200 yards, 10 rapid prone at 300 yards, and 10 slow prone at 600 yards. It took a score of 287-4x to make the prestigious first 100. None of us made it. But we were off the range by 3:30 PM, not bad considering we were on the range with 1300 other competitors around 6:20AM. The second match, on Wednesday, was the NTI (National Trophy Individual Match), also known as the leg match; it is the 50 shot National Match course of fire: 10 standing and 10 sitting at 200 yards, 10 rapid prone at 300 yards, and 20 slow prone at 600 yards. This match was interrupted by the passage of a cold front, 65mph winds, and torrential rain. After a couple hours of waiting (one hour on the range like cattle in a storm, and one hour drinking coffee in the cafeteria) the match was cancelled for the day. Approximately 80 percent of the shooters had finished their 200 yard matches, while the remainder still had the sitting phase to complete. By the end of the day, the big question was what exactly would they do to make this a valid match? The short-term answer was "show up tomorrow (Thursday) at 1400 hours on the range, ready to shoot." The big problem with canceling a match in the middle is that there is no convenient rain-out time for reschedule; the only free time was the afternoon on Thursday, since morning on Thursday was already scheduled full with some other matches. As bureaucracy would have it, the 2:00 PM resquaddinng turned into a 4:00 PM match…not a good thing for 1200 competitors squadded in 5 or 6 relays. To make a long and irritating story short, the National Trophy Individual Match was declared over after the 300 yard rapid prone phase. In other words, we waited around all day to shoot 10 rounds. And those of us on the last relay shot at 6:30 PM. In my particular case, on the low end of the Viale range, my target was completely shaded by the trees next to the range, and it was too dark to see. To get leg points, a shooter needed the score of 283-10X or better. Mike Thorn came darn close, so let's encourage him to learn to shoot from the sitting position. Three more points in the NTI and Mike could have brought home 14 leg points towards the Distinguished Rifleman's badge. Thursday morning was the big match for the Sharpshooters; this was the M16 Excellence in Competition (EIC) Match using as-issued M16s supplied by the military. Only those without leg points were eligible to shoot this inaugural match, and 460 people lined up for the fun. Your humble reporter watched many of the Sharpshooters compete, and it was fun to observe a match and agonize with the participants. At one point a young guy came up and sat next to me on a piece of plywood covering some range equipment. We had chatted about Denver, life, roofing, and shooting minutia for half an hour, and I had told him what he needed to do to become a better shooter and competitor, from my point of view. Finally I asked him if he had leg points and was he trying to leg out in the NTI? He responded that he was trying to win the whole match. Name: Shawn McKenna (he won the Alice Bull Trophy for combined P100 and NTI scores, finishing 21st in the NTI and 3rd in the Presidents 100). It's nice to sit and chat with the best shooters in the world and not even know it In the M16 match, Les Welch got issued a rifle would need a bayonet if used in combat, because this rifle couldn't hold the aiming black. Les stuck with it gamely and shot a good score standing with a 15 mph wind blowing, finishing with a 350, but the cutoff for leg points was 357. Jeff Patten finished 11th with a 364, and Mike Thorn finished 20th with a 361. Both garnered 4 leg points for the effort. I expect this means that Mike and James Thorn will be participants at all future leg matches in the Midwest! It only takes 30 points to go distinguished. Beth Spears shot a 355, leaving herself only 2 points from getting the valuable leg points. Bill Baldwin was doing quite well for himself in the slow and rapid prone. Sitting and standing, however, took him out of the hunt for leg points. And Jerry Patten had a similar story, although I didn't get to seem him shoot. He shot in the 90's through slow prone, rapid prone, and sitting, but then shot a 53 standing in the wind. Twenty four more points would be a 77 standing and a 357 aggregate to win leg points. It can be done. On Friday the Springfield Match is shot on one range and the National Trophy Team (NTT) Match is shot at the same time on another range. Four of us joined three Kansans from the Mill Creek Club and had a good time in the NTT. Les Welch pulled targets for us all day without shooting, and the Ponderosa steak dinner he got in return can't possibly make up for spending 7 hours in the pits. On the other hand, Mike Thorn and Pat Worley bought the dinner. By the way, if you go to the CMP's web site and look at the individual scores, I believe that Mike Thorn and Bill Corcoran had their scores reversed on the official score card, and I have corrected that in the table below. We didn't really burn up the range with our scores, but it was fun. On our left was a team from Illinois that had recruited Chris Furuya (Blind Rat), a noted Internet personality. On our right was the hard-holders from Illinois, including gunsmith John Holliger, and it is always a fun to see good shooters shoot. One of the Del Cotto boys from Illinois turned in a 100-7x in the rapid prone, and the group he shot was so small as to be unbelievable. Not being present at the Springfield Match, it is hard to comment, but Gene and Beth Spears shot a Mauser, thus qualifying themselves for the "Vintage" rifle category. They finished 42nd (Beth) and 52nd (Gene) out of 70 participants. Jeff Patten's 264 placed him 239 out of 686 participants shooting Springfields and got a medal. Besides our individual goals, all the Sharpshooters were drooling to have another shot at the National Trophy Infantry Team (NTIT) rattle battle. Saturday morning, August 7, dawned clear and cool, a perfect day for shooting. We shot 3rd relay and had a chance to hear (we thought) some of the wind calls for the other teams. The wind was blowing from the left, and all the teams shot out the right side of the target. We discussed it for an hour, put 2 minutes left windage on, and went up to the 600 yard line confident that we would easily better our score of 653 from last year. Disaster is an easy date. The wind call by the captain was too conservative and we too were blown out the right by the wind. Our swing shooters got no hits. We left the same 2 minutes on the sights at 500 yards and got a bunch more hits, but Mike Thorn's rifle jammed permanently. Even at 300 yards, with 1.5 minutes of windage on our sights, our shooters were out the right side of the target, and I think we were the only team shooting AR-15s to have ammunition left at 200 yards to shoot standing; these were the rounds Mike was unable to shoot because of the jammed rifle. We finished with a 424. On the other hand, we finished 45th out of 53 teams, which is not awful considering Mike Thorn's rifle snafu. And a team of pretty fair shooters from Missouri/Kansas/Illinois (Lewis and Clark team Bravo) only finished a few points ahead of us. From the looks of the scores, everybody missed the wind call at 600 yards. At the August 15 Joplin match, a shooter named Marc Richards from the National Guard Marksmanship Unit at Camp Robinson Arkansas came up. He made the wind call for the Guard team at Camp Perry, and they finished 3rd in the rattle battle. They used 3.5 minutes of windage (compared to our 2 minutes). He won the match in Joplin too The John C. Garand Match closes out CMP week at Camp Perry. Frankly, your club president was physically, emotionally, mentally, economically, and morally drained by the end of the rattle battle on Saturday morning, and I got in the truck and drove off with my tail between my legs to see my family in Wisconsin. From the looks of the scores, Beth Spears definitely has a shot at being one of the better women shooters in Missouri (heck, one of the better shooters of either sex). Many of the top competitions such as the state championship or state regional give awards to the top woman, top junior, and top senior shooters. Beth certainly has the ability to compete at the top level, and I hope we see her out shooting with us at the monthly matches more often. Other scores of note in the JCG match were Jerry Patten beating his son by 1 X (that cost Jeff some money), and Mike Thorn continuing to shoot well. Les also came back and got a medal in the Garand Match after having a week long visit from a guardian angel named Chuck (inside joke). When 10 people participate
in an event of this magnitude spread over 8 days, no single viewpoint
can possibly summarize the experience. We had a few winners,
and we had a few disappointments. We got real tired, but we had
fun. We hated the huts, but we loved being close to the By the way, in the rattle battle we swapped magazines among shooters, so some of us may have mags that belong to someone else. In particular, someone acquired Les's 30 round mag; it has all the anodizing pretty much worn off and is sort of a gold color. Please let me or Les know if you have it. Osage Orange Sharpshooters Camp Perry Scores Camp Perry 2004 * = Medal or leg points **************** |