November 2003 Newsletter

November Match: The turkey match. What a great day! The stage designers, unrestrained by convention, went all out setting up five extraordinary, fun and very challenging stages. When it was over Ron & Bonnie Joslin whipped up a Mexican lunch of roll your own burrito’s with marinated meat, rice, beans and all the trimmings. Ummmm … muy delicioso. When all had their fill we made trips to the prize table based on the order of finish of “Who’s The Turkey” stage. The prize table was so bountiful that there is no doubt every shooter walked away with at least the match fee in prizes. Even the weather smiled as the forecast rain never appeared and the day was mild without wind. Flights of fancy aside, I don’t see how it could have been better. Ron W. won the match and divided stage wins with Derek at second. Pete came in at third overall. Several people in fact shared the stage three win. Richard, Gary and Billy. Fine shooting by the young man Billy. Cedric won the limited division with Dan at second and Richard at third. The stages: White Things; Three boxes on the horizontal with an array in front of each. Start at left and knock down a popper to start a spinner with two paper, don’t hit the no shoots. From the next box engage the nine steel of various size, watch the no shoots particularly a steel rectangle with hole you have to shoot through. Last box engage three paper each covered by no shoot with a hole of varying size. Gobbled By Turkeys; A row of six paper at 20 ft. with turkey stickers about 1.5 inch in diameter pasted on center. Two 10 inch plates spaced wide at 30ft. Two 12 inch plates closer together at 60ft and a big rectangle center at 120ft. Engage each target three rounds and hitting a turkey takes a second off. Go For X’s; A single paper at 25yrds. Minimum six rounds or as many as you can with a 20 second par time. Seemed simple before you shot it. The scores show experience was not necessarily much help. Who’s The Turkey; A gigantic field course. Start by rolling a bowling ball down a ramp to activate a bear trap then navigate fault lines through what surely must be the largest single array of reactive targets ever assembled at an ICORE match. A full description would take a page so only a few stats here. 30 pieces of steel including plates of all sizes and shapes, poppers, a plate rack and the shooting star. Seven paper including two bear traps and a swinger. Barrels for cover and shooting through and finally a shotgun for knocking down two steel for an optional minus five seconds each. More than one shooter had an open jaw and deer in the headlight eyes during walk through. Tales were heard of seventy plus rounds being expended. Slow Down; From box A engage the six plates to the left with only six rounds then move to box B and engage one of three arrays of three paper each. The arrays are set at increasing distance and difficultly. The array to be engaged is based on the steel. No missed steel engage the near array, one miss then engage the farther array. Two missed or more then engage the farthest array. Missed steel doesn’t add time, just makes the paper harder. Paper is two rounds each reload and two more each.

Club Match: The final match of the year will be on December 13th and the stages will be done by Nelson. This match will be joint with the Northrop club (USPSA) so you can bring either a semi or revolver and maybe for an extra fee both. Before you start feeling disadvantaged understand the match will be scored separately. The drawing for a S&W686 among those who designed and setup stages this year will also be held at the December match.

Power Assist: For some time now Ron W., Cedric and Rich have been working on a target mover. You may have noticed the poles and cable recently placed on the range. The target(s) will ride on a trolley along the cable driven by a remote controlled, reversible motor. The project is nearing completion and we are in need of a smaller and quieter generator than the one we currently have at the range for powering the motor. Our current generator is loud enough to bother the shooters. The motor draws roughly 600W. If you have something that will work we would appreciate borrowing it for the matches when we will use the mover. Let Ron or Cedric know if you have something.

More Shooting: Here’s some info on other South CA revolver matches. Hidden Valley Revolver Club (HVRC) ICORE match on the 4th Sat. at the Escondido Fish and Game (EFG) Assn. Go to http://members.cox.net/hiddenvalleyrc/ for directions and information. Team Lopez has monthly ICORE matches in the northern Los Angeles area. For more information and a contact, go to http://www.22rimfire.org/teamlopez.htm .