River Bend Gun Club in Dawsonville, GA hosted the 44th Annual Dixieland Championships this weekend in what can only be described as near perfect smallbore match weather. Bright, cloudless skies, pleasant temperatures and moderate wind conditions produced close competition in all classes, excellent scores and a serious drain on the club’s silver coin inventory for 20X awards. The field included twenty-six competitors from three states and the US Army Marksmanship Unit at Fort Benning, GA took advantage of the excellent conditions to post ten 20X cards and a daily record of four 1600s in Sunday’s Any Sight Championship.
The Metallic Sight Championship on Saturday was all-AMU and was won by Hank Gray with a fine 1599-130x — but narrowly by just 1 x over AMU teammate Jeremy Mangione. Eric Uptagraftt (1598-146x) was third in the iron sight championship. Steve Hardin (1597-125x) was 1st Master, Michael Encinas (1592-109x) was 1st Expert and Matt Whitley (1574-73x) was 1st Sharpshooter.
The 2-man Team Championship match on Sunday morning was won by the Richards Associates team of Steve Hardin and Wayne Forshee (800-61x). Team championship runners up were Hank Gray and Jeremy Mangione, 799-71x.
The Any Sight Championship on Sunday was won by Steve Goff (1600-140x) followed by Charlie Kemp (1600-133x) and Mike Carter (1600-130x). First Master was sophomore shooting phenom Don Greene, 1600-129x, his first 1600 in his short competitive shooting career. Michael Encinas (1597-119x) repeated as 1st Expert followed by Jimmie Fordham (1596-123x).
The gold medal for grand aggregate regional champion was Hank Gray, 3198-270x. The silver medal went to Steve Goff, 3197-264x and the bronze medal to Eric Uptagrafft, 3196-292x. First Master was Don Greene, 3196-255x, 1st Expert was Mike Encinas, 3189-228x and the Sharpshooter/Marksman class winner was David Sisk, 3155-171x.
High Senior was Steve Hardin, 3195-254x and High Junior was Jimmy Holliday, 1589-97x.
Camp Perry certificates were awarded to Steve Goff and Mike Encinas.
2013-ga-dixieland (PDF, 35KB)
