Old, new, borrowed and blue. No, not a wedding report. Just a description of the October Smallbore Anysight Conventional 1600 held this month at River Bend Gun Club. This was the 11th leg of the 2011 Smallbore Prone season including single and two-day matches conducted throughout the year with just one more match next month to cap the series. Unlike the fall matches last year, we have been fortunate to have fine weather all this season with warming temperatures and bright, blue skies. The azure backdrop provided a beautiful contrast for the red, yellow, and orange colors of the changing leaves as we enter the peak period of this annual event. The morning started off on a blue note for an altogether different reason as we just learned of the untimely passing of our friend and fellow competitor Bart Parnall after fighting a long-term and ultimately fatal illness. We miss him.
New shooters made their inaugural appearance at River Bend. These students from North Georgia College had a great day and made a major impact on the match outcome. An “old” shooter also made his presence known and will no longer be given any latitude for recovering from major surgery or given deference for his age. He is just too good. The day was windy and the squirrely conditions on MP 2 were sometimes too tricky to measure until the shot was out of the barrel resulting in wide misses. Business as usual at RBGC. The scope shooters proved to have a slightly better read on things than those with irons mounted, but it was close all day.
The match consists of 160 total shots: 40 shots in each of four sub-matches that include the 50 Yard, 50 Meter, Dewar and 100 Yard segments. The 50 Yard match saw quite a few cleans and near-cleans with Jim Hinkle out X-ing the others with a 400-35X to win over Matthew Parsons from N. Georgia College with 400-32X. First Master was Dennis Lindenbaum (400-29X) and First SS/MK was Ed Foley 400-32X). When the sun rose and the winds picked up, the scores started to diminish by the time the 50 Meter match began. Matthew Parsons, off to a great start this day, read the conditions best and managed the only clean with a 400-34X. Second place went to David Dye shooting a 399-26X. First Master was Dennis Lindenbaum (399-25X) and first SS/MK was Ed Foley (397-27X) with a repeat of their placing in the first match of the day.
The Dewar match revealed a very pleasant surprise as Dave Rabin shot a fast and fantastic 399-19X for the winning score on a tie-breaker just edging Don Greene with the same result. First Master was Jim Hinkle (398-31X) and first SS/MK was Mike Upchurch also shooting well to score a 398-24X. Dennis Lindenbaum shot himself out of contention by scoring a 9 on each of the four 50 yard centers, an experience he would care to never repeat. With the overall scores quite close, the day finished with the 100 Yard match. The new guy, Matthew Parsons, hung tight scoring a 399-25X to edge out the old guy, Jim Hinkle, who was just a single X back with 399-24X. First Master was Dennis Lindenbaum (399-23X) and First SS/MK was Ed Foley again (395-19X).
The awards ceremony saw a happy Matthew Parsons take first place honors with a winning 1597-115X. The Master Jim Hinkle was close in second place with a 1595-119X. First Master was Don Greene (1595-88X), first Expert was Mark Skutle (1583-91X), and first SS/MK was Ed Foley (1589- 103X). High Junior was Christopher Tiller and High Senior was Bruce Kane. Match Director Tommy Steadman returned some of the medals he borrowed from last month’s match to give out to their rightful owners including the engraved plaque that Don Greene earned for the state metric championship.
Thanks to Tommy for running the match so adeptly with Linda Steadman running the stat office; Tom Suswal came just to score and chat; Dave Rabin set up the range and placed the wind flags in almost straight lines; and Jim Hinkle called the line and settled all disputes as CRO. Our next match in November will be a Metric Anysight 1600 and that’s it for 2011. You won’t want to miss this opportunity before the winter hiatus starts.
Complete match results can be downloaded here: 2011-ga-rbgc-oct-1600 (PDF, 25KB)
