Our 2022 Montana NW Regional Championship was held this year at the Missoula, MT Deep Creek Rifle Range on Sept 15th thru the 18th . The weather was typical Indian Summer days with days about 70 degrees and nights down into the 40s. We did have some rain on Wednesday evening that made the berms kind of dark for Thursday's iron sight match but the berms were sufficiently dried out for most of the matches. Friday about half the way through we had a short rainstorm that made shooting difficult. During the next relay, just as shooters were about to go-to-score, the sky opened up with quite a bit of wind and started to drench the shooters on the line reminiscent of Raton monsoon season. We called a cease fire and pulled all the equipment off the line and had a half hour or so break. Just as quick as it started, the rainstorm quit and the sun came out. That was the last that we saw of rain for the weekend which was nice! Most of the shooting was done with very mild breezes with Saturday and Sunday being downright awesome for a match. Even the forest fire smoke which was a problem up to Wednesday abated considerably and was mostly gone over the weekend.
We hold the iron sight matches on Thursday and Friday which is somewhat different from most other matches and the reasoning behind that is that we are able to get target setters only for the weekend which causes us to have to set our own targets Thursday and Friday. Since deteriorating eyesight and physical ability seem to go together, we have target setters when we shoot scopes. Hopefully keeps a few shooters still shooting. We had 19 iron sight shooters as well as five shooters shooting their scopes during the Iron Sight Match just for fun and practice. We did keep track of the scores for the scope shooters during the iron sight match but they weren't competing for the Iron Sight competition. We had one Iron Sight Match Only shooter, five Scope shooters during the Iron sight Match, and six Scope Only shooters over the weekend. The scope sight had 28 shooters total shooting.
While our numbers were down this year on attendees which appears to be a common issue for most shooting sports, I think driven primarily this year by high price of fuel and other things. There were also a number of folks that dropped out due to health and other issues. This competition has competitors who do this primarily for fun and when issues threaten to make it not fun, they quite often decide not to participate. Hopefully this is a hiccup and not a lasting trend.
Thursday dawned cold and mostly clear and we got the match started at a little after 9:30 when the shadows were mostly off the targets. I was able to shorten the match due to the numbers being down to three relays as well as only using banks one through three. Bank four is the bank with the worst early shadow issues. This shortened our day considerably making the start time not so critical. We were done about 3:00 which beat the shadows on the other side of the range. We give out awards each day for the top three overall shooters and Dan Steinmetz was first shooting a 32 with six chickens, Dan Smrdel was second shooting a 29 with three chickens, and Ritchie Tilton was third shooting a 28 with three chickens beating out Doug Gazaway with only two.
Friday was about the same as Thursday with the exception of the early afternoon rainstorms mentioned above. First Overall for the day went to Ed Tilton shooting 31 with 3 chickens, second to Dan Steinmetz with 31 but 2 chickens, and third to Doug Gazaway with 29 and four chickens beating out Jim Brannon who had 29 but only one chicken. For the shooting-scope-for-fun shooters, the high score for both days went to John King shooting an awesome 64 with two 32's both days.
We had a short Aggregate Two-day Iron Sight Awards ceremony presenting awards for all the different classes. First in A was Roy Sandford shooting a 44. First in AAA was Brad Niemeyer shooting 55, second AAA was Don Johnson shooting 54, and third AAA was Dan Smrdel shooting 52. First Master was Steve Hubbard shooting 55, second Master was Jim Brannon shooting 54, and third Master was Toby Crisler shooting 33. First overall went to Dan Steinmetz with a fantastic 63, second was Doug Gazaway shooting 57, and third went to Ed Tilton shooting 56 for both days.
Saturday was bright and shiny for the most part. Later in the day there were nuisance clouds that created dark and light on the range but there was light breezes all day. First Overall for the first day of Scope was Blair Svihra shooting an awesome 33 with five chickens, second was John King shooting 32 with four chickens, and third went to Jonathan Currey shooting 31 with 5 chickens.
Sunday was a repeat of Saturday weather wise with slightly more breeze which caused up and down problems on turkeys and rams for most everyone. First Overall for the day went to Jonathan Currey shooting a 33 with three chickens, second to Del Niemeyer shooting 30 with four chickens, and third to Don Johnson with a 30 with four chickens and decided with a coin toss.
The final awards for the Aggregate Two-day Scope Match were given out after the targets were put away by our trusty target setters, everyone was back, and we thanked a paid the target setters for their efforts. First AA went to Roy Sandford shooting an overall of 46. First AAA went to Dan Steinmetz shooting 56, second to Brad Niemeyer shooting also shooting 56 but losing in a coin toss, and third went to Skip Steinmetz shooting a 55. First Master was Scott Lindley shooting a 59 and winning a coin toss from John King who also shot a 59, and third Master went to Del Niemeyer shooting a 58. First Overall for Scope went to Jonathan Currey shooting a great 64, second overall went to Don Johnson shooting 61, and third overall went to Blair Svihra shooting 60.
We also give out a four-day Ironman award which was won this year by Dan Steinmetz with a four-day total of 109 and earning him a $250 MVA Gift Certificate as well! Great shooting Dan!!!
Saturday afternoon we had our Door Prize giveaway. Here is a list of the generous businesses that supported our match:
1. Old West Bullet Molds
2. John Walter's
3. Starline
4. Gary Ladd - Cats Shooting Sticks
5. Montana Vintage Arms
6. Treebone Carving
7. Redding Reloading Equipment
8. Wolfe Publishing
9. Graf and Sons
10. Schuetzen Powder
11. DGL Lube
12. SPG Lube
13. Wyoming Sight Drifter
14. John King
15. Darrell Smithson
16. Judy Niemeyer - Quiltworx
We want to thank all our friends in the BPCR business that donated to us this year. Donations are getting harder to give and we really, really appreciate your effort to support our match. Thank you each and every one!
Here's a link to a picture of the quilt my wife donated this year: http://www.mtbpcr.com/2022NWRegQuilt.jpg .
It was a very nice quilt that was given to Jonathan Currey this year. My wife offered to donate $1000 cash to support our match but we shooters took a vote on whether or not the shooters would want a quilt or cash and it was a resounding vote for a quilt.
Here's links to both sets of scores for the matches:
Thursday/Friday Iron Sight Championship: http://www.mtbpcr.com/2022NWRegionalIronMatch.pdf
Saturday/Sunday Scope Sight Championship: http://www.mtbpcr.com/2022NWRegionalScopeMatch.pdf
2022 Northwest (Montana) Regional BPCR Silhouette Championship
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- Posts: 229
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2022 Northwest (Montana) Regional BPCR Silhouette Championship
Fortune Favors the Bold...
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- Posts: 229
- Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:29 am
Re: 2022 Northwest (Montana) Regional BPCR Silhouette Championship
Woops.. I forgot that on Friday Ed Tilton and Dan Steinmetz had a shootoff for first Overall for the day with Dan winning after a grueling effort on both their parts! Just love shootoffs!!!
Fortune Favors the Bold...
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- Posts: 742
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- Location: Great Falls Montana
Re: 2022 Northwest (Montana) Regional BPCR Silhouette Championship
It was a great 4-day match. Thanks to Del & Bradley for putting it all together. If you have never shot the NW Regionals, it's well worth your time to attend and shoot on one of the nicest ranges anywhere.