Things were looking good!
The trip started out similar to last year. I drove 2.5 hours to Boomer’s (Brian Vandenboom) house and spent the night on Wednesday. On Thursday we hit the road. I drove a while, then turned the wheel over to Boomer as he is a driving machine.
The first big surprise was when we arrived at the lookout on the Blue Ridge Parkway. What a view! The Venezuelan and Puerto Rican teams were also there and we got some nice pictures.
Greg and Boomer at the lookout
A short drive after the stop we arrived at the shoot site. What a great location! We said some hellos and got down to the business of checking out our equipment. Many shooters found their guns shooting high at the far targets, probably due to the thinner atmosphere at 2800 feet. I struggled to get my gun to settle in as I had just had it apart before the trip and the velocity was fluctuating up and down. After an hour or so, I got it somewhat settled in.
We said hi to Harold Rushton and he showed us the Steyr he had done for Tyler Patner. What a beauty! Harold is a true Renaissance man!
The third man of our BAGA team arrived shortly after. We were tickled to have Phil Eckley (aka Mr. Pellet) at the shoot. Phil is well known in our parts for his pellet testing and both Boomer and myself were shooting Phil sorted pellets.
I spent some time watching the pistol match as I have a Crosman 1720 and Hawke 3-12 that I am just setting up. I got a lot of good info from the pistol shooters and look forward to trying it next year.
Greg and Phil (the pellet sorting maestro)
After a bit of visiting I felt I needed to confirm my velocity one more time, so I headed down to the lower sight in range and spent another hour verifying things. My guns quirky behavior limited my visiting with the other shooters, and that was a negative.
That evening we went to supper with a fine group including Harold Rushton and his wife Tarrow, Jeff Paddock, Bill Rabbitt, Tyler Patner, Boomer, and Mark Oehlberg.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and sacked out as we were pretty burned out after the long drive.
The next morning it was rainy as expected. I was squaded with Peter Brooks and Kevin Yee, both of whom I knew well from Worlds competitions. The day started out with only light drizzle so I took off my rain pants and put them in the car. This was a major error. Not the first I would make! The Frog Togs rain gear I have is ultra light weight and usually I carry it with me. We shot our first lane and walked to the backside of the course for our second. Then it started raining harder. I was shooting mostly 3’s and 4’s along the pond with no scope or sighting issues. Kevin Yee was having a bad time trying to see as his scope was fogging. Just as we turned the corner from the line along the pond to the back field my optics started getting wet. Here is where I made error #2. I used a wet lens wipe. The wipe made the water smear on the lens and I couldn’t get it better until the last 3 lanes. I remember the squirrel in the crotch of the tree. I knew he was there and could sort of make out the tree outline, so I shot where I thought the squirrel was—he wasn’t. Next lane the fog rolled in. Now I had a smeared scope with constant water blowing into it plus the far targets were almost invisible to start with. Here is where I noticed error #3. I had a “pigs ear” eyecup on my scope and it was catching the rain and directing it to my lens. I had brought along 2 other eyecups, but they were both in the car.
By this time my pants were totally soaked and I was really getting cold. My boots were waterproof, but the moisture wicked down my socks and my feet were also soaked. Several shooters called it quits about this point, but we soldiered on.
It was about here that Kevin had a stroke of genius. He had brought along an electronic notepad and we used it to write down our scores as the scorecard was falling apart.
As we turned the corner for our last 3 lanes (including standing and kneeling) the wind really picked up. We took a break as we were now near our vehicles. I checked my air and used a dry fog cloth (that I had of course left in my car) to wipe my scope lens. At least I could see my last 3 lanes. Too bad I was trying to shoot kneeling and standing in a hurricane! I managed 50% on those and felt lucky. I was never so glad to finish a course.
As neither Boomer nor I had brought dry clothing and were frozen to the bone, we elected to go back to the hotel and missed the auction/meeting.
I spent considerable time with the hair dryer, trying to dry my shooting pants and jacket. Paul Plauche’ was smarter and just stopped at a local Laundromat! That boy is going places!
Gorgeous view of the lake side of the course on Sunday!
Paul Plauche’, Ken Hughes, Danny Ayres and Riz Marquez all had the right VooDoo to get into the 40’s on Saturday. But for me, you can’t hit what you can’t see.
Sunday was a beautiful day and made up for all the suffering on Saturday.
We could really appreciate the beauty and variety of the property. I was teamed up with Harold Rushton and Brian Vandenboom, so I was very comfortable again being among good friends.
Sunday went along very much better for me and I really enjoyed the day. The last 5 lanes I knew I was down 10 and I wanted to stay with 50 so I was extra careful and drove my team mates crazy being so slow. Harold is a machine, and only occasionally waits for the wind. Boomer shoots pretty quickly too. But my patience paid off as I was clean on the last 5 lanes.
Congratulations to all the shooters. There should be a medal awarded to anyone who shot on Saturday, I’ve never seen such severe conditions.
A huge thank you to our hosts who gave us a shoot to remember!
Greg Sauve
The Pyramyd Team