ORA Provincial Matches 2006
There There are two major matches that happen annually the Provincials and the Nationals. I’ve never shot the Nationals. My excuse has been work related. I’m a freelance guy and train time is anytime and I never know when I’m going to get my next job so it’s difficult to schedule something like the Nationals in the middle of August, that’s one for retirement for sure! Those matches are well over a week long if you shoot most of them and you end up being one tired puppy once it’s over. I have been shooting the Provincials for a number of years now and I love ‘em! The Provincials span three days of shooting and the number of shooters who show up for the match is mucho! Also we have the cadets fluttering around on the range which adds a lot of excitement to the festivities. Heck we even get a chance to shoot right alongside them... isn’t that right BoB? Pastor makes his annual trek into Canada having discovered the Provincials a few years back and unfortunately what we’ve discovered about BoB’s discovery is that he’s one tough competitor to beat... but were all working on that.
There There are two major matches that happen annually the Provincials and the Nationals. I’ve never shot the Nationals. My excuse has been work related. I’m a freelance guy and train time is anytime and I never know when I’m going to get my next job so it’s difficult to schedule something like the Nationals in the middle of August, that’s one for retirement for sure! Those matches are well over a week long if you shoot most of them and you end up being one tired puppy once it’s over. I have been shooting the Provincials for a number of years now and I love ‘em! The Provincials span three days of shooting and the number of shooters who show up for the match is mucho! Also we have the cadets fluttering around on the range which adds a lot of excitement to the festivities. Heck we even get a chance to shoot right alongside them... isn’t that right BoB? Pastor makes his annual trek into Canada having discovered the Provincials a few years back and unfortunately what we’ve discovered about BoB’s discovery is that he’s one tough competitor to beat... but were all working on that.
The story behind BoB is long and extensive as are
his wins. Norm Barber introduced him to Canadian
F-Class and Norm ya know I’ve been wanting to thank
you for BoB! BoB usually pounds the heck outta
most of us on the line. There was a story
circulating that BoB not knowing what we did up
here and coming from a 1000 yard benchrest
background, well BoB didn’t know what to expect.
Norm filled him by telling him our V-bull inside
the Bullseye was 12” across at 1000 yards, to which
BoB gleefully replied, ”hell you guys are shooting
at a garbage can lid!” So BoB’s sort of the guy to
beat considering he wins most of the trophies,
plaques, and assorted paraphernalia that’s
presented to the winners each year. Were the Reese
good Bob? Thanks for sharing! Wait a minute you won
those in 2005, I’ll pass.
My game plan has always been to beat BoB
unfortunately so far he’s still top banana in the
Provincials which is certainly not to be confused
with the Nationals in Ottawa! That’s a whole other
ball game rather bullet game. Norm Barber has
certainly given Bob a few moments of pause but I
would really like to stop his clock! In 2006 by the
luck of Zeus I drew BoB as a shooting partner in
the Lt. Governor’s final, again not to be confused
with the Governor Generals final. What are the odds
of being partnered on the line with the guy your
trying to beat? I would imagine less than winning
Lottario. Apparently not as I subsequently found
out they squad you accordingly based on your
performance, That turned into a very interesting
match as the wind gods decided they should blow us
a few curves. The mirage in that match was just
killing us, brutal. BoB and self had a very hard
time deciphering the values of our shots downrange
but I gotta tell you when BoB shot that 3 there was
absolutely no question what he shot. I could see it
“perfectly” downrange. That’s a THREE!... BoB.
It took less than the lock time of my firing
pin in my bolt to get that number down on his score
card. It’s amazing how crystal clear things can
look through your scope under certain circumstances
eh! I managed to shoot a 78 in that match against
BoBs 75 but it wasn’t enough to win the LTG. When
the smoke had cleared he was a single point up 308
vs 307. So that meant I needed two. Woulda, Coulda
Shoulda... hey there’s always next years crack at
the garbage can lids, right?
I won a couple of the provincial awards this year
in 2006 which made me pretty happy. The pictures
don’t tell just how nice these awards are. I
managed to win the short range agg and the Brassey
match.
Below is a pretty good rundown of who shot what in
F-Class for the majority of the ORA Pronvincials in
2006. I've bolded and changed the font to red so I
could see exactly where I stood in the shoots.
Every one tells me the first day which in 2006
started on a Friday didn't count. Well I don't know
where they're coming from because not doing well
that first day can really screw you up up in the
aggs not to mention your overall standing... I
subsequently confirmed this the following year in
2007. Terry Perkins through some pretty brilliant
strategy went after the aggs and he almost got all
of them.
Bob Pastor true to form won the Lt. Governor's Match in 2006. I tried as hard as I could to catch him in that final match. Only 6 f-class shooters got to shoot the LTG final. From top to bottom they were Bob Pastor going into it with 233 points, I was next with 229, Leo D'Amor was third with 227, Tomasz Bledovski in fourth with 224, Ed Boynton in fifth with 224 and Norm Barber in sixth with 222.
If I remember it correctly the 6 of us went to the firing line in pairs of two. We were shooting to the right of the TR shooters on the right side of the range.
I'm trying some new software and I'm doing this all on a Mac now. I had some issues with cutting and pasting the Excel cells from my spreadsheets onto the new webpages. I then discovered that Excel writes the rudest html code that you can possibly imagine. I had to resort to doing screen grabs of parts of the sheets. I then saved them as jpegs and dragged them below. Seemed to work okay but you can't grab the cells so you can dump thm back into a spread sheet. I do this a lot when I'm on the web looking at who shot what. I'll take their scores, et everything up in Excel sheets and review them later. All of this information is also available with more detail on our the ORA website here... http://www.ontariorifleassociation.org/ . naturally you have to go to the Match Results section.
Theres a photo below the spread sheets of Bob and myself getting ready to have at it... this was the Lt. Governor's final and it's the match that Bob shot his infamous 3! I don't think Bob even knows how to mark one of those Naturally I do and it didn't take me long either to get it on his score card.
Bob Pastor true to form won the Lt. Governor's Match in 2006. I tried as hard as I could to catch him in that final match. Only 6 f-class shooters got to shoot the LTG final. From top to bottom they were Bob Pastor going into it with 233 points, I was next with 229, Leo D'Amor was third with 227, Tomasz Bledovski in fourth with 224, Ed Boynton in fifth with 224 and Norm Barber in sixth with 222.
If I remember it correctly the 6 of us went to the firing line in pairs of two. We were shooting to the right of the TR shooters on the right side of the range.
I'm trying some new software and I'm doing this all on a Mac now. I had some issues with cutting and pasting the Excel cells from my spreadsheets onto the new webpages. I then discovered that Excel writes the rudest html code that you can possibly imagine. I had to resort to doing screen grabs of parts of the sheets. I then saved them as jpegs and dragged them below. Seemed to work okay but you can't grab the cells so you can dump thm back into a spread sheet. I do this a lot when I'm on the web looking at who shot what. I'll take their scores, et everything up in Excel sheets and review them later. All of this information is also available with more detail on our the ORA website here... http://www.ontariorifleassociation.org/ . naturally you have to go to the Match Results section.
Theres a photo below the spread sheets of Bob and myself getting ready to have at it... this was the Lt. Governor's final and it's the match that Bob shot his infamous 3! I don't think Bob even knows how to mark one of those Naturally I do and it didn't take me long either to get it on his score card.
Bob and I are in prep time here. You can tell who's
who. I'm the guy with hair under the hat. I'm
fiddling with something probably organizing my plot
sheet. You always have to pay attention when it's
your time to get gear to the line. You only get
between three and five minutes prep time. That more
than adequate on most occasions. where it might be
a problem is if you're moved or squadded on another
target becase you're a single or you've brought
your gear to the wrong target. Then you've got to
scramble to sort it out. Get your mat up first or
rest if you use one. Check how level it's going to
be in relationship to your shooting position. Not
all the positions on the firing line have the same
slope or grade and sometimes you have to move your
rest further forward near or over the edge and
other times further back from the edge. You can
only roughly place it until you can bring your
rifle to the line. You need your ammo, score ad
plot sheets and rear bag... the rest of your stff
you should keep it behind the line... TR types
obviously need to bring a spotting scope to the
line. During the final stages of prep you need to
check you've build your prone position perfectly.
Not so and so... "perfectly is needed here." Cross
hairs line up, no cant on them. Rifle tracks very
smoothly back and forth and the crosshairs only
move vertically during your push pull test. If they
wonder sideways or angular you need to fix it
pronto! Do you have the right coe-up on for the
yardage being shot. One last thing, are you really
lined up on the correct target? Well are you Bob?
:-) Maybe you'd better check with Terry or
something? Man I love this shooting game!