I like to joke that I have good shooting weekends and bad shooting weekends rarly “mediocre” well, boy did that theroy prove true at Camp Perry this year!
The calendar was “back to normal” this year and the week started out with the Presidents 100 and the NTI.
I had never really planned on making the P100 and was hoping to warm up for the NTI. Short of a depressing off hand score The match went ok. My 300 yard zero came in about 1/4 high which I noted in my book for the NTI the next day.
I was relay 1 for the NTI. I was up first at 200. Off hand then right into sitting. Well the match was more or less over for me after that. I had some time to regroup before moving back to 300 and 600 where I did better but not good enough to make the cut.
Vintage sniper we tried something new at 300, my buddies No. 4 t sniper. This turned out to not be the best idea we ever had as we shotgunss that 300 yard target with 303. That said this was probaly the most fun I had a match in a while as the pressure was off moving back to 600. A break I needed after the NTI!
Bolt guns were up next. My 03A3 is my favorite rifle to shoot. I built it from parts around a real nice CBI barrel. She did not let me down as I took home my one and only medal from Perry 2016 in this match!
The old 1917 and I have only recently started to get along and we more or less did in the prone stages. There was an Incedent involving the pits “missing” then “finding” one of my shots in rapid but they worked it out. I had been trying a reduced rear sight on this rifle which turned out to be a disaster in off hand. With the glare I could hardly see the front sight, which was reflected in my score.
After a long rough week was the Garand match. We waited around for several hours waiting for the USCG to fish a dead body out of the impact area. I took this chance to BS with the York Riflemen cre and take a nap in the shade of my shooting cart. It was nice.
There was a monster system developing and headed our way when I laid down on the line. I shot below my average in slow prone but made up for it in rapid.
Off hand, well I haven’t shot the Garand a lot this year, boy did it show. In my fragile mental state I managed to follow up a 7 with a 0 by bottoming out the sight. Posted another egg before I realized the issue. Got her back on target… On the target next to me and left a cross fire miss hanging in the pits as the clock ran out on my fifth trip to the National Matches!