We did it.

There was snow, on the ground and in the sky. Paths were shoveled, preparations made. 14 shooters showed, lead flew, holes were made.

Here are a few pics for proof. thanks to all who showed, it was short and sweet, and all were invited to play afterwards, but I think the allure of warmth and a gun show was too much for most.

See you next month.

What the heck are we doing here?

Frosty?

A firing squad?!?!

Poor Frosty....

Combined results:

Greg J 676
Gary S 588
Bill S 540
Rob S 429
Chet W 405
Brad 354
Jared J 352

Funshoot Status Good!

I was at the range about an hour ago, and the road to the range is clear and quite passable, someone kindly cleared it for us today. There are a couple of inched of new snow, and the lanes on pit 2 did not drift over. Barring catastrophe overnight, I will be at the range tomorrow at 9:00am to setup, and we will start shooting as soon as there are people to shoot stuff.

Parking is still at a premium, and the road only has 2 places to pull over for passing, so carpool from the clubhouse if you can (keep all guns in bags/cases etc until you get to the back and at a safe table). I have a shuttle vehicle ready if we need it.

see you in the morning

Today's tip

Know where you are hitting at different distances. You can bet that Max, Dave, and Robbie know exactly where their bullet is going 100% of the time. You should too. This is one advantage of shooting our fun shoots.

I'll explain. The "fun shoot" is an accuracy sport. Much more so than most of think USPSA is, though you're wrong to think that. Fun shoots are untimed, so there is no focus on time in them like there is in USPSA, but to be good at either you have to have the same foundation ACCURACY.

If you prepare properly for a fun shoot you will sight in at a particular distance. I like 15 yards because it is kind of an average distance for both the fun shoots and USPSA. At 15 yards I like my point of impact to be exactly the same as my point of aim. Then I shoot at 5, 10, 20, and 25 yards holding the same point of aim. Typically, the point of impact will be different at some or all of these distances, depending on the sights and caliber, due to the trajectory of the bullet and the difference of the sight plane and the center of the bore. I note these differences on paper and then calculate exactly where I need to hold the sights to hit dead center. I test and ammend these notes as needed until they are perfect. These hold offs are very important if you want to shoot a high score at a fun shoot, but you should know them for USPSA too. Particularly if there are no-shoots or hard cover. I'll bet very few of us do this and that's why I think the fun shoots are so valuable for USPSA shooters. And they're fun.

By the way the gun show is in York this weekend. Come shoot the fun shoot Saturday and do the show afterwards, or hit the show on Sunday. It's at the fairgrounds Saturday 9-5, and Sunday 9-3.

Feb Funshoot is on!

Thanks to herculean efforts, we have pits 1 and 2 available for use. We can make a shoot out of that! The weather this week is a bit dicey, but Saturday looks like a potential heat wave. That will of course mean lots of mud, so come dressed for that.

I am going to run a short, 4 stage course of clays, 2 kinds of paper and a surprise target, consisting of 36 to 42 rounds, and charge $10 to shoot for score. After you shoot it for score, you can shoot it for fun for another $5, as many times as we can fit you in. We may change up some of the targets, like Bullseys vs. ppc vs. critters vs. cans etc. just to keep it interesting, and you can run clays several times to practice for next month.

I'll be at the range by 9:00am to setup, such as it is, and I will form and send out squads one at a time, with individual briefings, as folks show up or return, until 12:00 or 1:00 or so, depending on interest. We did this at last months' Steel Challenge, and it worked pretty well for this type of format.

If at all possible, car pool, parking in the back is limited, and the access road is only 1 lane, with one pull off for passing at the trap house. You can park at the clubhouse and join up to go rearward. I was going to run a shuttle bus, but it broke down, I'm working on an alternative, but I don't know if I will succeed.

For any questions, comment to this posting, or email me at iwlafunshoot1@comcast.net

g

gary's plan, step 2

Find some enterprising young man with a snowblower to wittle out trails and shooting lanes on pit 2.

Accomplished! Many thanks and cudos to Bernie!

Tip of the day

The most popular and available bullets for sport shooting these days are the Montana Gold Bullets. I've used them for years ,and I like them. Of course you can get them from Montana Gold Bullets directly, but I recently discovered you can get them cheaper from Manny Bragg at www.mannyusa.com The catch is that you have to buy 6 cases. That's really not that many if you shoot multiple calibers like most of us do. You can also team up with a shooting buddy or two to get to the minimum. The trick is to email Manny and ask for mix and match, because the website wants to put 6 cases of a single kind in your shopping cart. He may even offer you a special deal on shipping like he did a buddy and I recently.

Gary's plan, step 1

Get the road to the ranges cleared.

Accomplished! Caretaker Matt completed this task. He is obviously very insightful, and anticipated this crucial detail of my grand plan.

Many thanks Matt

Stay tuned.

February USPSA match photos

Sunday, February 14th, Ben and I rode up to the club to check conditions. The road to the ranges hadn't been touched so we had to park at the clubhouse and walk back. It had been 5 days since the last snow and no one had been to the ranges since. Those are our tracks from where we had to leave the truck. It was a much more challenging hike than we expected. Snow was often over our knees.
We cut across the rifle range and this is the view in throught the gate between the rifle range and the back pits. As you can see it is still quite deep, and barring a radical change in the weather we might be quite a while before we are using the ranges again. Can you say Spring?

Then we had to walk back out. Luckily we were able to follow the trail we had cut on the way in. Here's Ben crossing the rifle range.

Better days are coming!

February USPSA match cancelled

Due to the 2 feet of snow we got last weekend, another storm on the way that has the potential to be up to a foot more, and still the possibility of yet more snow next weekend, coupled with the fact that this much snow won't melt in our back pits for a month anyway, I am cancelling our February USPSA match. Hopefully things will melt in time for our Feb. 27th fun shoot.

Meanwhile stay warm, don't hurt yourself shoveling, load some ammo. and as much as you hate it dryfire anyway.