This was a match that I was concerned about. Anybody that reads this knows the “journey” of my last 7 months and I had voiced to Mr. Wynne that I was not sure if I could pull my share of the load in a team match and I was not sure if I would even shoot it. But Mr. Wynne took one for the team and agree to be my partner shielding anyone else from the burden. So in ahead of time the “almost 70” team was formed.
If this prearrange team caused any problem, I take full responsibly for it! Now with that stated on to the match.
The challenges of this match:
Because I’m still not allowed to drive, I could not fully go through my pre match prep to make sure I came “ready to complete” I had to rely on what I learned from last month’s 600 yards match and data I had from last year’s 1k match that was shot with the old 6 BrX barrel. Plus, my barrel was CLEAN as in no pre match day fouler shots so when Mr. Wynne posted that we could put a couple in the dirt before the match I had a smile on my face.
So here I am setting at the line feeling very unprepared, teamed with a man that has ask us to come prepared to compete and looking at his gun that would give Mr. Allen’s gun a run for the money on best looking gun at Reese Bottom and I’m shooting something that looks like it can from the bargain basement and I’ve got to shoot the 1st. sighter I believe the pucker factor was in effect more than the 1st. shot that I ever fired at Reese Bottom! Ok so the app said 32.7 I’m hearing 2.5 to 3 offsets, my data from last year and for the old barrel shooting from bench is 29.75 so as a starting point I dialed in an even 30, held dead center and let the hammer fall after what seamed like two weeks the shot marker popped up a high right 10 at that time, I saw my mother in law’s face (that we just lay to rest last Sunday) give me one of her smirky gins and I knew then things was going ok! Mr. Wynne’s time, his 1st.sighter was a hard to find 6 which had us both scratching our heads while he was making corrections, I shot my 2nd. Sighter bang shot marker popped up an X in my mind I sent her a smirky grin back (I loved that lady she was a lot of fun). after a couple of corrections Mr. Wynne had er dialed in So we’re ready to shoot for score and as always when my sighters are good my 1st. couple scoring shots are not LOL and true to form I started out shooting 9’s
Lucky for us after Wynne’s bad sighters he came out shooting x’s and 10’s I made 1 sight adjustment you guessed it 29.75 which produced a few x’s and 10’s and still more 9’s I finished the 1st relay with a 94 and Mr. Wynne with a 98 which gave us a 1st. relay of 192 Our 2nd relay was our best with each only giving up one 9 for a 2nd relay of 198. Our 3rd. relay was our waterloo caused by our second guessing and bad wind reads I fired a 95 and Wynne a 94 for a somewhat disappointing 189 for a match total of 579 and 18 X’s which put us 1 point out of tie for 3rd and 1 X from getting a cut of the gunny pot I shot a 288 and Wynne 3 points higher with a 291 I was somewhat relieved that I stayed close to my partner’s score.
And yes, if I had matched my partner’s score, we would have finished in 2n. But “if’s and But’s were candy and nuts we would all have merrier Christmas.
My take from this match: I like doing team matches a couple times a year I think it can be a learning experience as well as getting to know Reese Bottom people. I would hope that the pairings would always change for this reason. I think Wynne did a great job with the pairings. I really felt like any team could win. I did hear some concerns about teams delaying the match with their high number of sighters other than that I thought the match ran smooth.
This was my 25th. Match at Reese Bottoms which I have fired a total 1226 rounds
I’ve now shot 153 rounds at 1K and the 6 BrX #2 has 353 rounds down it
Thank you, Mr. Wynne, for letting me be a part of Reese Bottom
jrs