Day Four, at long last, and Finale of the 2016 National Smallbore Conventional Prone Championships
The third match of the fourth day was the Dewar won by Morgan Dietrich shooting a 400-36X and followed by Jared Desrosiers who put together a 400-34X just a head of Howard Pitts at 400-31X.
The last fired match of the four day tournament was won by Bill Burkett who shot a 400-35 to edge out Todd Hanson on a tiebreaker at 100yards. In third was Desrosiers at 400-32X.
With all of the shooting done and the challenge period over it was Desrosiers who emerged the daily winner at 1600-140X. Hank Gary slipped into second with a 1600-139X and Hanson was clean with 128Xs for third.
The any sight championship was won by Matt Chezem who dropped but a single point over two days for a 3199-291X. Gray was hard on his heels as he posted another 3199 but with 277Xs. Mark Delcotto was near perfect with his 3199-254X for third.
Delcotto, a noted long range high power shooter had been in the top three in smallbore in the past but this was his year. Only two of his 640 record shots escaped the ten ring and a very impressive 6398-529X anointed him as the 2017 National Smallbore Rifle Prone Champion. With no less impressive performances Hank Gray was the silver medalist shooting a 6397-544X while the bronze went to Matt Chezem who posted a 6396-550X.
While they will all get recognized and a standing ovation at the awards ceremony the competitors all tip their shooting caps to the many known and anonymous volunteers who toiled long hours running the range, collecting and scoring targets, doing data entry, logistics, and countless other jobs that made the championships happen.
More detailed Bristol results may be found online at:
http://competitions.nra.org/championship-results/nra-national-smallbore-rifle-championships.aspx
A tip of the hat to Joe Graf who selflessly insured that your correspondent would have match results at his fingertips throughout the prone championship.
