A Windy Rifle Match

Chicago – The windy city, the Hudson River Valley has a wind called ‘The Hawk’ but, we have the PCSC Wind that makes those two other breezes seem, well mild at best.  That PCSC wind was blowing its best on November 15, the day of our last Service Rifle Match, to be sure.  Targets were blowing off the frames, anything less than about ten pounds that you laid on the shooting benches just blew right off, hats rolling along the ground, dust, dust, dust!  I saw a dog running past and the wind was blowing the hair right off his back, birds were walking and laughing at the dog!  And, to top it all off, it was pretty dang cool to.

But all this did not deter the PCSC Riflemen, a hardy bunch to be sure.   The match was our Urban Three Gun match where one shoots a rifle, pistol and a shotgun plus running from barrier to barrier.  I had a little surprise for this bunch in this match; I had them throw a hand grenade at a target and scored the results this time!  The throw started the clock and the shooter had to then run, in some cases walk, to the first barrier and start shooting.  (The wind actually blew the hand grenade off the table once!) The riflemen and our first riflewoman seemed to enjoy this little added step in the fun.

I mentioned our first lady shooter, Megan Glass joined our happy group of shooters and she did just fine.  She had a bit of gun trouble and that hand grenade was a first but, she seemed to have fun like the rest of us.  Megan, welcome to the rifle matches and we all hope to see you back next season.

Most of our entrees shot modern self loading rifles in this match but we did have two bolt action rifles as well. David Rueter shot his Type 99 Arisaka again, Tom Tenseth shot his 1917 Enfield. One a bit different that isn’t exactly a Service Rifle but we let him in with it,  Clifford  Tynes used a Beretta CX4 Storm in 9mm!  Several AR’s some Garands and one Dewoo.  Just about everyone had a little trouble with the wind blowing so much dust around but we made it work in the end.

The trophies went to three shooters (one can enter more than one rifle) Rusty Perrin won first and second place in the Open Sight Class using an AR-15 and a Garand plus he won second in the Optic Sight Class!  Stewart Alexander took First in the Optic Sight Class and third in the Open Sight Class.  Rod Fears grabbed the last trophy for third place in the Optic Sight Class using and AR-15.  Lots of goods score and lots of fun had by all.

Service Rifle Championship 2008

The race for champion was tight all season and it went right down to the wire as expected.  For the overall championship only 18 points separated the top three contenders!  The victors were:

Stewart Alexander – Overall Champion scoring a total of 218 points.

Frank Bliss had 206 points for overall champion, while Rusty Perrin had 200 points.

Frank Bliss – Division I Vintage Rifle Champion scoring a total of 98 points.

Stewart Alexander was next in this division with 92 points and David Rueter had 72 points as next closest shooter.

Rusty Perrin – Division II Modern Rifle Champion scoring a total of 130 points.

Stewart Alexander was next in the division with 126 points and Frank Bliss followed with 108 Points.

Great shooting from our Champions as well as from all that took part in the 2008 Service Rifle Matches.  Thanks for participating and I hope to see you all next year pulling the trigger and feeling the recoil.  It was a great and fun season!

Learn to love the smell of gun smoke in the mornings.

Joel