WY State Match

This is where you can place your scores from the matches. It uses an excel spread sheet! If you send me your sheet of scores I can put it on the forum and provide a link where everyone can view it.

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jackrabbit
Posts: 1792
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2012 12:04 pm
Location: Carpenter Wyoming

WY State Match

Post by jackrabbit »

Smithmoor shooters and supporters,
What a pleasure it is to have the opportunity to present you with the 2018 Wyoming State BPCR Championship match write up! It has been 18 years since a Wyoming State championship has been held and judging from the interest we had, it was about time for another one. We had a full house of 40 22 BPCRA shooters and 25 big bore shooters pre-registered and only ended up with one shooter not being able to make it at the last moment. Thank you all for the support!
Friday's 22 BPCRA state championship went off quite well and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We used the portable targets with white backers. The shooters seem to really like those because the targets really stand out and you can easily see your misses on the backer. The weather was nice, but there were still plenty of challenging breeze changes and mirage available to keep it interesting. We were blessed with quite a few new shooters and they were a great addition to the match. I think they all had fun, and we sure enjoyed getting to know them and shooting with them.
We ran a "normal" 22 silhouette match with 5 relays and really hustled along. The match was over about 2:00, which was good as we had quite a few folks that needed to go. For those of us that stayed, Wyoming Sight Drifter sponsored two fun shooting games that we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon. One of the games was a prairie dog shoot. We had life size prairie dog cut outs scattered over the range at various distances. Each shooter had a maximum of ten available. Shooters had 10 minutes and unlimited shots to get as many as they could. It proved very challenging, especially with iron sights. I thought it was great fun and we'll have to do it again sometime. Tom Wengh shot super on this and killed 9 prairie dogs in 5 minutes! His tenth dog had fallen over, so he couldn't shoot at it. It is rather obvious he loves shooting prairie dogs! Tom was our overall winner and received the Top Dog prize of a 3x9 variable power Sightron scope donated by Graf and Sons. He was quite pleased! Thank you to Graf and Sons for their generous donation.
We also awarded a prize to the high A/AA class and AAA/Master class. Don McDowell won the A/AA class (another viscous prairie dog slayer, no surprise there….lol) and Gary Smith won the AAA/Master class. Both of these fine shots received a Wyoming Sight drifter for their win. A big thank you goes out to Wyoming Sight drifter for their generous donation and all of their continued support!
The second game was one I had been wanting to try for some time. As most folks know, I love shooting chickens and I appreciate the shooters indulging me and trying out my game. It worked like this, all the entries received a poker chip and their name was put on it. All the chips were put into a bucket and then two names were drawn out. The two shooters then faced off on the chicken line and shot off for best of three. The winner stayed on the line, while the loser sat down. His poker chip received a strike and was put back into the bucket. Another chip was drawn and that shooter then shot off with the guy still on the line. As long as you won, you stayed up and each time you lost your chip got a mark. When your chip got two marks on it, you were out and your chip was taken out of the bucket. I need to do a little tweaking on the rules, but I really enjoyed it. Tom Reed was quite pleased to win and received a Wyoming Sight drifter and possession of the semi famous traveling offhand trophy that has been going around the front range for quite a few years. Second place went to Kevin Griggs and he took home a tin of SPG lube donated by SPG Sales. Thank you all for playing and great big thank you to our sponsors!
Readers will want to pursue all the pictures posted on facebook and our website, as well as review the picture of the scoreboard for all the juicy details, but I did want to highlight the class winners here. It was fun to see Michelle Garibay win the A class. She and John Brooker tied with 21's, but John elected not to shoot off leaving Michelle with the win. A new to us shooter, John Madden, shot a super 27 to win AA class, while veteran rifleman Mark Pachares shot a respectable 32 to win AAA class.
Master class and overall match winner ended up in a tie between myself and super shooter Kevin Griggs with 35's. We had to settle it in a shoot off, and it ended up being one of the more exciting and dramatic shoot offs I have seen. We went for best of five and tied, then went best of three, then best of two, then sudden death. We then went back and forth on sudden death for several rounds before I luckily managed to prevail. Kevin is a tough competitor and it was an honor to shoot against him. What also makes Kevin's shooting impressive is that his rifle actually broke part way through the match and had to use a borrowed one to both finish the match and compete in the shoot off! For anyone that has had to do this, they know how hard it is to compete with a strange rifle. The match and class winners received some very cool "tattered flag" metal Wyoming State Championship signs donated by Allwayz Manufacturing (www.allwayzmfg.com) , while second place received a Smithmoor Glass and a silver dollar and third received a Smithmoor Glass.
The State BPCR championship also went off without a hitch. We ended up with 24 rifleman making it out to compete on 5 different targets. In addition to the tradition chicken, pig, turkey, and ram, we add a fifth station. We repeated what we did at the Memorial Weekend Regional this spring. We have two 36" gongs on the ram line (500 meters). The left one serves as a sighter target, and then when the shooters goes for score, he tries to put 5 rounds into the smallest group possible. Let me tell you, it is quite a bit tougher than you might think. The exciting part is we break the shooters into two classes, Master/AAA, and AA/A, and the winner of each class won a whole case (25 pounds) of powder! Travis Purdum shot extremely well to win master/AAA and the case of Swiss 1 1/2 while Dick Hennebry received the case of Old Eynseford 1 1/2 to win the AA/A class. Travis shot an impressive 8 1/2" group on day one and an equally impressive 13 5/8" group on day two in some really nasty 30 mph winds. Great shooting Travis and Dick!
We gave out daily awards, but as usual the nicer prizes went to the winners of the aggregate. A/B class state champion went to Dick Hennebry with a score of 38. AA went to new shooter Dan Womer with a 41. Good shooting Dan! You guys keep an eye on Dan, I have a sneaking feeling he is going to be quite good before long. AAA class went to Mark Pachares with a 52, and our Wyoming State BPCR Silhouette champion is Bryan Youngberg. Bryan shot an aggregate score of 55 to win. On day one, he cleaned all the lay down targets to end up with a 32. That means 10 pigs, 10 turkeys, and 10 rams. It does not happen very often and is truly some awesome shooting. Day two he shot a 23 in some very miserable winds. Kenny Wasserburger was Bryan's spotter and did some pretty magic work. They truly made an awesome team. Great shooting Bryan and Kenny!
A few events of note I wanted to mention include Jim Rodebaugh knocked one out of the park by shooting a 33 on day one and earned a 5 chicken pin! It was a personal best score for Jim and tied the Smithmoor Range record. Unfortunately, Jim had to leave on a business trip and was not able to shoot on the second day. Paul Lawrence also shot 5 chickens in a row, unfortunately they were numbers 2 through 6. Paul was quite pleased with his shooting and we gave him a golden chicken pin for his efforts. Mark Pachares shot a 27 on day two, which is a good score but was truly impressive when one considers the extreme wind we were shooting in. I also wanted to mention Don McDowell shot an 8 1/8" five shot group on day two on the fifth station gong target. 8 1/8" is a super group at 500 meters on a calm day, but Don did it in 30 mph winds! Wow! I suspect Don has just lived in Wyoming so long, he can't function without some wind blowing….lol. Great shooting Don!
And then there was the food…..Wow was it good!! The food is usually the talk around Smithmoor and my folks, Gary and Lorraine, hit some serious home runs. On Friday for the 22 BPCRA State Championship they did a taco bar with chocolate zucchini cake for desert. Saturday was smoked tri-tip beef with macaroni salad, potato salad, cowboy beans, and peach cobbler. Sunday we had smoked pulled pork, cole slaw, and strawberry rhubard crisp, as well as a few leftovers from the previous meals. I am telling you, they were meals fit for kings! Thank you to Mom and Dad for the fantastic meals!!
Through the selfless generosity of many donors to Smithmoor Range, we have built an outstanding shooting facility. One of the most generous has been Jim Rodebaugh. Jim is a professional custom knife maker known internationally for his high quality damascus hunting knives. If you want one, be prepared for a many year wait and a price tag that may make you cough! Jim has donated several knives over the last couple of years to Smithmoor Range and blessed us again with one that we used for a raffle. The funds raised through the knife raffles are used for range improvements. The money generated is so appreciated as it allows us to build targets, maintain the range, pour concrete and other major expenses without having to put any overly large burden on any one individual. Please remember this in the future. Your purchase of the knife raffle tickets not only give you a chance to win a very valuable, one of a kind knife, they also let us improve the range. Thank you to all that donate!!
We tried something new this time, and I think people enjoyed it. We did a reverse raffle, where all the tickets are drawn out of the box and the last ticket drawn wins, instead of the first. 100 tickets were available for sale at 20 dollars apiece. We sold 98 tickets and raised about 1700 dollars that will be used for new armor plate targets. Periodically throughout the match on Saturday, we would draw out ten more tickets. The tension built all day until after the match. We served root beer floats while we tallied the score board and prepared the awards. Then we drew the last ten tickets. We had a board with all the tickets and names on it so everyone could see who was left. I had one ticket left in the final ten and my heart was pumping! We drew out 7 more and each time I just knew it would be mine, but it wasn't! We had 100 dollars cash for the third place, 250 dollars for second, and the very last ticket drawn would be for the knife! Coralee took a video of the last three tickets being drawn and it is on both facebook and our web page. The short story is, the 100 dollars went to Paul Shuttleworth, 250 dollars went to Jack Odor, and I couldn't believe that the last ticket left was mine and I was so lucky to win the knife!!! I had always said I was so unlucky in drawings that if they drew every ticket out, mine would be the last one! I guess I was right. Thank you to everyone for playing and generating some much needed money for range improvements!
Overall, I think the Wyoming State Championship went quite well. Thank you to everyone for all of the support over the last couple of years, and thanks especially for entering and making our event so special. We hope to hold a Regional match over Memorial Weekend next year, and also another State Championship again in August. Check out our web page (smithmoorrange.com) or our facebook page for lots of great pictures. I hope to see you all on the range!
Take care my friends, Cody Smith
SFogler
Posts: 524
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 9:19 am

Re: WY State Match

Post by SFogler »

My wife's first .22BPCR match and she really had a good time. She wasn't sure what to expect but she really enjoyed the range, the people, and the food. A well run event in all respects. Any wife or female shooter would feel welcomed at Smithmoor and couldn't help but relax and have a good time. I appreciate the friendly atmosphere and good food - that means my wife will have no objection to going to more matches! Thank you Cody and Coralee!
buffalocannon
Posts: 1583
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2003 2:03 pm

Re: WY State Match

Post by buffalocannon »

Great match write up!
John Bly
Posts: 1078
Joined: Thu May 13, 2010 12:32 pm
Location: Stephens City, VA

Re: WY State Match

Post by John Bly »

Excellent write up Cody. I just wish I weren't nearly 1800 miles away so I could attend some of your matches.
"Perfection consists not so much in doing extraordinary things as in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well"
stevewhr
Posts: 113
Joined: Thu Jan 30, 2014 10:15 am
Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming

Re: WY State Match

Post by stevewhr »

It's a shame everyone can't enjoy the hospitality of Smithmoor. They run a good shoot, open and honest. No nonsense. If you go home not having a good time, it's certainly not their fault. The entire family puts in a lot of time and energy for the sport and I'm grateful for it. Also lucky to live so close to them. Even in his/her write ups, it takes time and willingness to put yourself out there. When I'm home after a match they're doing write ups. During the match while I'm trying to focus on shooting, they're taking pictures for a follow up report. They have dedicated their private property to the benefit of others and if that's not enough, they feed you lunch when you go there to shoot!

So thank you to Smithmoor for making my shooting life such a joy! You've fanned more flames of interest than you ever know. I've benefitted from your encouragement and friendship and proud to call you friends.
wyomingsightdrifter.com
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