November Monthly Match at Smithmoor Range

[Cody Smith]

November 22 , 22 Silhouette Match Write-up

Wow! we couldn't have possibly gotten a more beautiful November day for the match. It was nearly dead still with only an occasional breath of wind. Temperatures ranged from the mid 40's to the mid 30's. The overcast sky did leave a few challenges as the targets were not as bright as we would have liked them.

We had twelve riflemen and women for our inaugural match in Cody's Shooting shed at Smithmoor Range. The shed has been many years in the planning and building and I can't think of a better way to celebrate its completion than with a shooting match. I was very pleased with how well the building worked. About the only hiccup that I forgot was the fact that we cannot use normal shooting sticks in the building as the floor is concrete. The day was nice enough that we moved forward eight feet and shot off of the pad in the front of the building. I will be ordering some benchrest style sticks from Cat's shooting sticks so we won't have this problem in the future. We had the stove fired up and it was a popular place to hang out between relays.

There were several shooters that had not fired a 22 silhouette match before and I think we may have them hooked. Squading worked out perfectly as we have four bays and we ran three relays. Judging by all of the joshing and laughing, I am pretty sure there was a good fit with folks in each group. I broke the shooters into three groups, traditional iron sight, traditional scope, and modern class. Carol McDowell came out on top of the traditional scope class with a 16, I had a good day and managed a 31 to win the traditional iron sight class, and Travis Purdum was the modern class winner with a 22.

As we all know, you cannot have much of a match without shooters and I want to extend a extra thank you to those that came and helped us celebrate. What a great day!

Also, a special thank you to my wife, Coralee, for her continued support and for throwing together some chili and refreshments, and to the Travis Purdum family for helping me get ready this morning as well as all of your help and support you have graciously given.

We will be holding this match the third Saturday of each month while reserving the fourth Saturday if the weather proves too poorly to provide folks with a safe drive down. We will hold these through April. I will be keeping track of the scores and plan on having the April shoot be a series championship with some awards.

Hope to see you next month!
Hold Center, Cody Smith