March 15, 2009 Clays Match Report

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH 16 Guns Class won by Score Open - 8 Jay Schoonmaker 45+7 Limited - 8 Bryce Brown high 30s (blame old age...Ed.) Attention shooters, winter is still here. We got snowed on early this morning, and the match dawned cold, 44 degrees, wet with rain mixed with snow & sleet, and windy. All the heaters were on and roaring, and everyone could easily be found huddling around them. Still, 16 guns came out to enjoy the fresh air; 8 Open guns and 8 Limited guns. The arrays changed with each round, and were all colorful and challenging. The trick today was deciding the best way to engage each array so that as little movement on the part of the gun was necessary. If each array is studied, there comes a roadmap dictating the best path through them. Round 1 showed a black micro surrounded by 8 orange micros. ooo o ooo o o Round 2 showed 3 orange micros over a green standard, with a black micro in the middle ooo o ooo O O Round 3 showed all black micros surrounding an orange center micro ooo o ooo o o Round 4 showed 8 black micros surrounding a green standard ooo O ooo o o Round 5 showed alternating orange and black micros, all the way across o o o o o o o o o At the end of regulation play, Bryce Brown had won the Limited Class with a score in the high 30s. This reporter apologizes for the oversight, but it got kind of busy toward the end of the match, and I forgot to look at the final scores. (except for my own of course) Hal Hansen and Jay Schoonmaker shot to a tie in the Open Class, each with a score of 45. Yep! Shootoff!! The target screens moved back to 44 feet and sported all black micros, all the way across. Shooters to the line, load 5 rounds. Shooters ready? Fire!! Jay and Hal limped through the strings of fire with each getting 2 targets. Hmmm. Finalists ought to do better than that. This reporter even had a failure to feed malfunction that he was lucky to clear without dropping a round. Still, after the jam was cleared he managed to hit a 2nd clay to tie Jay for that string. Let's try this again. Once again Hal and Jay square off on the target arrays, showing the same array as the first shootoff string, and with the targets once again at 44 feet. Shooters, load 5 rounds. Shooters ready? Fire!! This time is much better, especially for Jay Schoonmaker. Jay hits all 5 of his targets, while Hal misses one. String, Shootoff and match high score to Jay Schoonmaker with 45+2+5. Well done Jay. I'll be back. Next Sunday will once again be Ruger - Ruger Playtime. See you then, and we'll both see you all next Sunday. In the meantime remember, March has definitely come in like a lion. I guess we'll all see if it goes out like a lamb. Hal