from Tommy Steadman
The 2010 NRA smallbore rifle prone season opener at River Bend Gun Club in is in the book. In his first smallbore prone tournament appearance since the NRA Georgia State Championship in September 2009, River Bend’s own Mike Rossi fired a 1597-116X to best Bill Hocker’s 1596-116X for the match win and to take an early 25 point lead in the River Bend Gun Club Smallbore Rifle Prone Championship points chase.
A total of twenty-two competitors from three states competed under bright, almost cloudless skies and beautiful spring-like weather. During the match, temperatures ranged from 44 to 70 degrees F. Winds during match 1 (Dewar) were negligible but that changed rapidly during Match 2 (100 yards) making the condition much trickier and, by the end of match 3 (50 meters), the last of the 1600 hopefuls had fallen victim to the dreaded 9-ring.
Mikey cleaned seven of the eight cards and lost all three of his dropped points during stage 2 of the 100 yard match. Mike finished strong with a match winning 400-26X in the Meter match and a 400-33X to take 1st master in the 50 yard match.
Bill Hocker, Madison, Alabama, was the aggregate runner-up for the second consecutive NRA smallbore 1600 at River Bend and also took high senior honors.
The master class winner was Tom Suswal, 1590-103X, followed by Signal Mountain, TN’s Val Valentavicius with 1590-99X.
The closest competition was in the hotly contested combined expert/sharpshooter/marksman class in which the top three scored a respectable 1595. The final finishing order was decided by a scant four X’s: First EX/SS/MK was Tommy Steadman with 1595-122X followed by Richards Associates dicktator Vince Greiner, 1595-119X, and R.A. exec. vp Steve Hardin, 1595-118X.
For complete results, please see the attached PDF file containing the official tournament summary results bulletin.
The next smallbore rifle prone tournament at River Bend GC is our season opener non-sanctioned 200 yard rimfire prone match on Saturday, April 3. For details about this event, please visit our website at http://www.rbgc.org/200YardRimfire/200YardRF.html or contact 200 yard SB match director Mark Skutle at mwskutle@netscape.net.
The next NRA-sanctioned smallbore rifle tournament at River Bend GC is a metric 1600 on Saturday, April 17. The official match program for this tournament is available online at http://www.rbgc.org/SmallBore/Smallbore.html or you may contact match director Tommy Steadman at smallbore@rbgc.org or 404-392-7050.
You can download the complete results here: 2010-ga-rbgc-conv-1600-3-20-10 (PDF, 41KB)
