The
second shoot off was for the Des Burke match at 600 yards on the
last day of competition. This one turned out to be kind of
interesting. The Des Burke match at 500 yards was shot earlier in
the day in the morning to be exact when the weather/wind was
tolerable resulting in a three-way tie between Don McGinnis, Terry
Perkins and myself. The match itself is two sighters and 15 shots
for score. Most of the provincial matches, well actually all of
them are two sighters and 10 for score. The only exception is the
Lt. Governor's match which is back to two and 15 shots for score.
The weather around noon was something else. I remember sitting
through lunch with Norm Barber on the range while a drenching rain
came down. It delayed continuing the matches for awhile. John
Brooks our RSO popped the question about shooting the shoot-off at
the 1000 yard line for the Des Burke match instead of moving
forward to the 500 yard marker and then having to move back. He
felt if we didn't do this there might not be enough time to shoot
the LTG final. The three of us agreed to do the shoot-off at 1000
rather than move forward. This certainly would save a bunch of time
but it would also be interesting at this longer distance.
During the shoot off with Tomasz he shot first and after he finished I fired my shots. For the Des Burke shoot-off we did that differently in that all three of us went to the line and shot at the same time. This made complete sense. Again it was 2 for convertible sighters and 5 for score and again... I shot two veebulls, converted and fired another 3 from the 1000 yard line. I was very happy, ecstatic about that. It was over quick enough and then we got ready for the Lt. Governor's final.
Again this year my shooting partner was Bob Pastor of the United States. I shot the LTG the previous year with him and although I managed to shoot a 78 against Bob's 75 in the LTG final. It wasn't enough for the win, bummer! Bob won by a single point 308 to my 307. Well I had a year to think about that one point difference and don't think for one minute I didn't! This year I was going into the final with 4 points on Bob. Sort of the reverse of what we had the year before.
So what kind of strategy did I have in mind. The normal one don't drop any points! That's negative thinking. I should say I planned on executing 15 perfectly centered veebulls. That's a better picture to have floating around in one's mindset. When it came time to go to the line. Bob gave me the choice of going first or second. At first, I said I go second and then I changed my mind and said I'd go first. Then I wasn't sure what the heck I wanted to do but I decided I had to get my head around shooting first. This is the first time I really don't remember much about what the wind was doing after the fact. I still draw a bit of a blank on this one... all I know was that when we started it was over in under ten minutes. Heck it might have been 7. We were shooting pretty fast between the two of us. I mean we were really whipping them down there! I started off with a 4 wide and to the right at the waterline. That surprised the heck out of me. Actually it probably got the adrenaline going because I'm infamous for 4's under pressure under the weirdest of circumstance. I'm thinking don't blow this now... you've worked too hard, come to far to be screwing this up... get on it and concentrate and get it done!
Prior to moving the the firing line I was thinking this is going to go real fast or real slow. If it's a fast one then there's no point in me plotting shots which I normally do like everyone else on the line. I'm thinking what's the point? I'm going to shoot 15 perfect veebulls so what's to plot, right? Well it's weird but I'm also thinking you know it would be nice to know if they're kinda the big ones or the little ones. We shoot the provincials on the old veebull not the 1/2MOA one so I kinda wanted to know. So I asked Heinz Vollenweider f he would be kind enough to plot my shots for this string. I set him up with my spotting scope on a tall stand behind the line. I remember clamping an umbrella to the stand so that if it rained and it looked like it was going to that he could plot in comfort without having to hold an umbrella if it cut loose above us during the match. So now I could concentrate on shooting. Keep watching the flags and totally focus on everything and there's plenty to focus on as any long range shooter can tell you.
After the 4 woke me up. I fired my second sighter and that went into the 1/2 MOA vee. I definitely converted that one, and my second for score went in nicely. Then I just started hammering the veebull. It wasn't until my seventh for score that it dropped into the 5 ring between 4-5 o'clock just out, but not enough for a challenge. What the heck caused that, I'm thinking? I didn't see it. I don't remember making any corrections. Just kept everything the same and went back to hammering that veebull. On my final shot I did something wrong as it whipped out to a bull five left at the waterline. That shot really ticked me off. I had a very good chance of running clean except for that seventh shot and then I leak another one out. But in hindsight it was very good shooting. Everything felt right... and you just know when it's right and you push it for all it's worth...
I've shot enough with Bob now that I just don't trust keying off any of his shots. He'll hang one right out. You never know where he's holding so I wasn't going to play that game. He dribbled five shots out of the veebull. Thinking back I don't have any idea where they went now... but I'll bet he does, knows where each one of them went. couldn't believe we had shot this so fast. If someone told me it would be over in such a short period of time I would have thought... ya right!
It was a very good thing we did what we did because the wind changed, the rain started an a whole pile of nasty came down on the rest of the guys who were still shooting. I watched some of it and it wasn't pretty. All I could think watching them shoot was holy sh**!
I also had a chance to look at the plots Heinz did for me and it looked really good. I mean the majority of my shots had hit inside the 1/2 MOA vee and I was really happy about that. For the Lt. Governor's HPS I finished with 322 and I believe this breaks for a new record.
I have a lot of people to thank for this... Norm Barber mostly. If it wasn't for Norm way back when pushing me I wouldn't be shooting like I am today... of course Bob Pastor also helped by keeping the pressure up. Bob as thin as he is, he's not an easy guy to skirt around. Heck I should really thank all of the guys in the ORA or their support, their camaraderie and for being great competitors to shoot with.
Eventually I'll put some photos up of the medals. They are the same as last year and those were great to win!
During the shoot off with Tomasz he shot first and after he finished I fired my shots. For the Des Burke shoot-off we did that differently in that all three of us went to the line and shot at the same time. This made complete sense. Again it was 2 for convertible sighters and 5 for score and again... I shot two veebulls, converted and fired another 3 from the 1000 yard line. I was very happy, ecstatic about that. It was over quick enough and then we got ready for the Lt. Governor's final.
Again this year my shooting partner was Bob Pastor of the United States. I shot the LTG the previous year with him and although I managed to shoot a 78 against Bob's 75 in the LTG final. It wasn't enough for the win, bummer! Bob won by a single point 308 to my 307. Well I had a year to think about that one point difference and don't think for one minute I didn't! This year I was going into the final with 4 points on Bob. Sort of the reverse of what we had the year before.
So what kind of strategy did I have in mind. The normal one don't drop any points! That's negative thinking. I should say I planned on executing 15 perfectly centered veebulls. That's a better picture to have floating around in one's mindset. When it came time to go to the line. Bob gave me the choice of going first or second. At first, I said I go second and then I changed my mind and said I'd go first. Then I wasn't sure what the heck I wanted to do but I decided I had to get my head around shooting first. This is the first time I really don't remember much about what the wind was doing after the fact. I still draw a bit of a blank on this one... all I know was that when we started it was over in under ten minutes. Heck it might have been 7. We were shooting pretty fast between the two of us. I mean we were really whipping them down there! I started off with a 4 wide and to the right at the waterline. That surprised the heck out of me. Actually it probably got the adrenaline going because I'm infamous for 4's under pressure under the weirdest of circumstance. I'm thinking don't blow this now... you've worked too hard, come to far to be screwing this up... get on it and concentrate and get it done!
Prior to moving the the firing line I was thinking this is going to go real fast or real slow. If it's a fast one then there's no point in me plotting shots which I normally do like everyone else on the line. I'm thinking what's the point? I'm going to shoot 15 perfect veebulls so what's to plot, right? Well it's weird but I'm also thinking you know it would be nice to know if they're kinda the big ones or the little ones. We shoot the provincials on the old veebull not the 1/2MOA one so I kinda wanted to know. So I asked Heinz Vollenweider f he would be kind enough to plot my shots for this string. I set him up with my spotting scope on a tall stand behind the line. I remember clamping an umbrella to the stand so that if it rained and it looked like it was going to that he could plot in comfort without having to hold an umbrella if it cut loose above us during the match. So now I could concentrate on shooting. Keep watching the flags and totally focus on everything and there's plenty to focus on as any long range shooter can tell you.
After the 4 woke me up. I fired my second sighter and that went into the 1/2 MOA vee. I definitely converted that one, and my second for score went in nicely. Then I just started hammering the veebull. It wasn't until my seventh for score that it dropped into the 5 ring between 4-5 o'clock just out, but not enough for a challenge. What the heck caused that, I'm thinking? I didn't see it. I don't remember making any corrections. Just kept everything the same and went back to hammering that veebull. On my final shot I did something wrong as it whipped out to a bull five left at the waterline. That shot really ticked me off. I had a very good chance of running clean except for that seventh shot and then I leak another one out. But in hindsight it was very good shooting. Everything felt right... and you just know when it's right and you push it for all it's worth...
I've shot enough with Bob now that I just don't trust keying off any of his shots. He'll hang one right out. You never know where he's holding so I wasn't going to play that game. He dribbled five shots out of the veebull. Thinking back I don't have any idea where they went now... but I'll bet he does, knows where each one of them went. couldn't believe we had shot this so fast. If someone told me it would be over in such a short period of time I would have thought... ya right!
It was a very good thing we did what we did because the wind changed, the rain started an a whole pile of nasty came down on the rest of the guys who were still shooting. I watched some of it and it wasn't pretty. All I could think watching them shoot was holy sh**!
I also had a chance to look at the plots Heinz did for me and it looked really good. I mean the majority of my shots had hit inside the 1/2 MOA vee and I was really happy about that. For the Lt. Governor's HPS I finished with 322 and I believe this breaks for a new record.
I have a lot of people to thank for this... Norm Barber mostly. If it wasn't for Norm way back when pushing me I wouldn't be shooting like I am today... of course Bob Pastor also helped by keeping the pressure up. Bob as thin as he is, he's not an easy guy to skirt around. Heck I should really thank all of the guys in the ORA or their support, their camaraderie and for being great competitors to shoot with.
Eventually I'll put some photos up of the medals. They are the same as last year and those were great to win!
ORA Provincial Matches 2007
The 2007 shooting season is turning out to be another interesting year for me! I've managed to continue shooting well building on what I had accomplished the previous season. I did okay at this year's Provincials after getting off to what I'd call a rough start. I would like to offer my congratulations to Pat Vamplew aka Mr VeeBull... who won the TR target rifle part of the event. Nice shooting Pat! I managed to hang in there winning the f-class version. I also won a number of the other awards. In additional to winning the Lt. Governor's match I won, the Brassey match, the MacDonald Stewart match, The Tait Match, The Des Burke Match, the Jubilee agg, Short Range agg, and the Saturday agg. Two of these matches were won in shoot offs. The first shoot off was with Tomasz Bledowski for the Brassey match at 500 yards. You're allow two convertible sighters and five shots for score in shoot-offs. My first two sighters were veebulls which I naturally converted and added three more to run clean in the shoot-off. On the first day of the festivities during the President's match at 900 yard I had my second for score shot come up as a miss. My challenge was denied.
The 2007 shooting season is turning out to be another interesting year for me! I've managed to continue shooting well building on what I had accomplished the previous season. I did okay at this year's Provincials after getting off to what I'd call a rough start. I would like to offer my congratulations to Pat Vamplew aka Mr VeeBull... who won the TR target rifle part of the event. Nice shooting Pat! I managed to hang in there winning the f-class version. I also won a number of the other awards. In additional to winning the Lt. Governor's match I won, the Brassey match, the MacDonald Stewart match, The Tait Match, The Des Burke Match, the Jubilee agg, Short Range agg, and the Saturday agg. Two of these matches were won in shoot offs. The first shoot off was with Tomasz Bledowski for the Brassey match at 500 yards. You're allow two convertible sighters and five shots for score in shoot-offs. My first two sighters were veebulls which I naturally converted and added three more to run clean in the shoot-off. On the first day of the festivities during the President's match at 900 yard I had my second for score shot come up as a miss. My challenge was denied.
