It was an absolutely beautiful day to be shooting. Perfect temps, light wind, and plenty of sunshine, what more is there to ask for a Matchday? We only had a few shooters show up again this month, Partially my fault as I didn’t get the
reminder out this time to urge folks to come to shoot as I was in North Carolina all week shooting Fullbore. It was a mad dash for me to get the range ready to shoot, late last night but it all got done and ready.
Match #1 Standing. This was won by yours truly again with a sturdy 194-4X. I opened up with my first shot on the record being an eight. That never allows a guy to shoot a perfect 200… just in case you didn’t happen to know that. LOL. had a 98 on my back ten shots. It’s funny as I have this old Match Rifle upper that has an unknown round count on it, but it’s a bunch. It was built by Scott Medesha back in the 2003 or 02-time frame and still has the original 4 groove Lilja barrel on it. It’s as rough as a cobb now but it just keeps hammering. It even has rust pits in the barrel and still shoots lights out.
OK, enough of that story let’s get to the Battle. Jim Sokolowski our resident High Master Prone shooter and Thomas
Adcock has been around South East TN shooting high-power for over 40 years. Poor Jim who as you may have read in a Past report has been inflicted with Off-Hand Palsy shot a 183 on his feet while Tommy sped past him with a 186. This sets the stage as we Rumble into the sitting Rapid fire.
Match #2 Sitting Rapid Fire: Russel Theurer was able to shoot 199-11X to earn first place. Jim was able to shoot a 4X
clean on his first string to make up some points of the 3 point deficit that Tommy left him in standing. Tommy shot a
99-5X for his first ten sitting. After the Smoke cleared Jim let slip a nine as did Tommy for both of there second string of Rapid fire so now we have Jim trailing two points going into Prone Rapid Fire. Its coming down to the titan’s of prone here. Look out its going to be a close one again!
Match #3 Prone Rapid Fire. This Match was won by Russel Theurer with a double clean. First string was a tight little
Knot, just to the right of the X ring with a wopper 2X Clean. LOL. Good grief. Followed up by a 6X clean for 200-8X. Our
big battle of Jim and Tommy continues to keep getting closer as they duke it out. Jim now off his feet and comfortably
on his belly shot a 98-4X to Tommy’s 97-2X placing him only one point behind. With the lead closing in on him, Tommy had a lot of pressure to shoot well on his second and last String prone rapid. It was just a little too much and Jim with Hunger in his eye’s bared down and ripped off a 5X clean to Tommy’s 98 on his last ten as he let slip two shots into the nine ring. The pressure was just to darn much too much I say. Jim now up by one point and ridding on cloud nine. I think I saw him take a victory lap around the parking area, however he may have just gone over to use the rest room.
Match #4. 600 yard Slow Fire. An Interesting wind came up as we moved into the 600-yard match. Wind blowing out
of the west at about 5 or 6 mph Full value. The problem is it lulled you into complacency and just when you were
going along Bam! Reversal. 1 MOA the other direction and if you had not looked at it in your spotting scope and the
flags went limp not indicating right the left mirage.. you ate a big ole fat 8 out the left. And the same back the other
direction. Bam! 8 out the right. Russel Theurer shot a 199-12X to win Match #4 with a crazy old rust pitted unknown
round count barrel and the Berger 75 VLD built for another rifle. Let’s Check in on our two men battling it out for
Second and Third as Jim now taking the lead by one point. The Wind gods did not smile on these two guys as it
switched back and forth Jim got punked for not one but three 8’s back to back. Doh!!! That’s enough to make a grown
man curse, all the while Tommy let slip an eight as well and a couple of 9’s, this puts Tommy and Jim right back into a
Darn Dead tie….. Holy cow it’s getting crazy up in here! A huge crowd is now developing behind our two shooters, and
on the edge of the seat or maybe those are ants on the seat on some spilled cola? It’s exciting either way. How is this
going to end? Who is going to come out on top?
Hang on Folks… here we go onto those last ten shots… With the Huge Crowd behind Tom and Jim, the pressure is on, Jim let two shots slip into the 9 ring at 3:00 and 9:00 for a 98 desperate to keep them all in the ten ring. Tommy shot some low tens at 6:00 but could not hang on to that ten ring as it slipped out of his hands sliding down and hitting the floor with four nines on his back ten shots. That left Jim with a close aggregate to Tommy, just skimming by him with a two-point lead right up to the very end. I think I heard the crowd gasp on the last few shots. Tommy finished with a 770 to Second place finisher Jim and his 772 who is desperately working on his High Master Classification. Thus being just four points short of that goal.
Overall Agg: Russel Theurer ended the day with a 792-35X besting last month’s match by a couple of X’s getting into the NRA special “792 Club” twice in two months. Always a good feeling. Come on out and join us here at DeadZero
Shooting Park. Sure is a lot of Fun.
Russel Theurer
Match Director
