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2008 World Creedmoor Match
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The World Creedmoor Association 2004 match was held September 12th thru the 18th at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. For those who attended we had a great time; for those of you who did not attend, I wanted to take a few minutes to let you know what you missed. Ed Force and I arrived Sunday morning from Wisconsin to find Ernie Stallman, Dave Gullo and the Australians on the Silhouette range. Colin Dobson was getting some instruction from Dave Gullo on the use of his Borchardt rifle which he would be using for the week. Soon to follow were several of the other competitors. We played with match guns and non-match guns until we were asked to report to the high power range for chronographing. Once this was accomplished along with a little organization we were soon on our way back to the silhouette range. There we hunted the white buffalo on the mountain 1123 yards away. The old Buff took many lethal hits but still stood. Monday was the first day of midrange practice at 300, 500 and 600 yards. Our shooting position was in accordance with international rules, that being prone with the use of a single point or double point sling. Ed and I had built wrap around leather straps with a swivel stud to attach a sling so we did not have to drill the forearms of our rifles. This worked very well for us. The sponsors of the event served lunch at noon. Well fed, we returned to finish up practice. I should state here that we both practiced and were looking for a good zero for our rifles. A point of interest was that the thinner air at Raton, compared to Wisconsin, changed my zeroes much more than I had anticipated. My 900 yard Wisconsin zero was my 1000 yard Raton zero. Tuesday went much the same way with long range practice at 800, 900, and 1000 yards. Again our shooting position was governed by international rules which for Creedmoor distances is a steady or wrist rest. A wrist rest is any means of support from the ground up. However, a hand must hold the forearm between the rifle forearm and the rest. For those who are use to sticks with one hand holding up the rifle butt this position creates its own level of challenge. I won't use any names here but Kenny Wasserburger was missing his cross sticks. I think it really worked on him as I later found him beating on the front sight of his rifle, something about his zero wind sight setting being off. Must have been his spirit level bubble being a little left of center. Other’s and Kenny report his bubble has always been a bit left of center. Kenny Reports when he returned home after some time at the local range it would seem that after 18,000 or so rounds his poor old Shiloh 45-110 barrel had joined the great spirit. I have never seen a guy go to such lengths as have his gun re-barreled to cover his shooting performance. He also mentions something about the lack of cross sticks being a communist plot. Wednesday was the first day of competition at midrange. Same course of fire as Monday practice except it counted this time. I guess I did not point out earlier that Raton has a healthy share of wind and heat. I was told before I left that Raton can be brutal, that was just a little understated, it basically ate my lunch, supper, and dessert. Before the end of the match I was wiping with every shot and taking a doctoral course on wind and mirage reading with none of the undergraduate prerequisites I needed. Also by international rule your spotter can only tell you the position of your hit and score or the location of your miss which you know the score of. I shot with Colin Dobson from Brisbane, Australia; it was his first match. I warned him I couldn't help him on match day; however the look I got was priceless when he asked, "About 2 minutes left?" and I said, "that is up to you sir". Actually Colin shot very well for his first match. We told him Dave Gullo's Borchardt would shoot better if he cleaned it better. This could easily be accomplished by rubbing the cleaning patch in the gritty cinders and gravel on the ground before using it, the extra grit would really help shine up the bore. We told him that Dave already shot well enough and not to share our special cleaning methods with him. On the more serious side Colin was loading in his hotel room at night for the next days events. I asked him one day if he wanted to convert any of his sighters, his response was I'll take them all; that's three less I will have to reload tonight. Thursday the day with no wind ..in any one direction that is. This was the individual long range competition. I thought I had died and gone to heaven when my first sighter was a 10 followed by two X's at 800 yards (First relay early in the morning). Colin got even by asking, "I suppose you want to convert those" -in other words a competitor can convert his three sighter in reverse order. Needless to say the 10's and X's soon came to an abrupt and rude halt; I think they called it shot four. At 900 yards I fowled out badly and by 1000 yards I was wiping the bore at each shot along with a few other competitors. Steve Baldwin had a neat little device he pushed though the bore with each shot. It was a bore weasel or nylon brush with a urethane washer set up as a squeegee to leave a dry bore. He had about 20 of them and after each shot he pushed one through the bore. I think Thursday was the day we found Dan Theodore drinking some canned soy bean, organically grown bunny hugger milk in the pits. Rick Moritz was the man behind the bunny hugger milk of course, after all Rick is from Colorado. However, the guys in the pits were so open minded and non opinionated I don't even think anyone teased him about it. It was very supportive in the pits. Everyone was sharing their political views, talking about world events, making suggestions for a better world. The guys from Wyoming even shared some very insightful methods of sheep herding. Don't know if I would ever need to know something like that but, they really seemed to know their stuff. Rumor has it that this bunny hugger milk was the main cause for Dan's demise and his vacating the range after Thursday, and it was not the headache he kept mentioning all day. Dan is after all from California and perhaps Colorado Bunny Hugger milk is hard on his system? I wonder where Rick got that stuff? Friday was the first day of team shooting. Since the Americans pretty much had the rest of the world outnumbered, many of us shot under other country flags. Friday we shot as teams at 800 and 900 yards. In this format we were free to help our teammates by calling wind or shot location in a particular wind condition. To give you an idea of the conditions and what you may hear on the line, I remember over hearing a conversation between Kenny Wasserburger and Jimbo (Jim Terry), at 900 yards. It went like this "Looks like 4 minutes right from your last shot to me." "Yeh I was thinking the same thing" "OK put in 4 minutes and let’s go" "Still the same go" "Bang" (pause dust left of target) "Huh must have been 8." "Yeah must have been 8." Colorful metaphors deleted of course after all these guys are from Wyoming. At times I had in as much as 26 minutes from my zero wind condition and was making up to 8 minute corrections between shots and still coming up short. This happened to the majority of the shooters, after all it is Raton, no free lunch here but a lot of practice in doping wind conditions. Saturday we shot two rounds of team shooting at 1000 yards, with fish tailing tail wind almost directly behind the line. The target is about 8 minutes wide, so if you are centered up on the target, you have four minutes to dirt on either side. So a tail wind that moves you what you think is 5 minutes right means you have to adjust yourself off paper and shoot before that condition changes. Making a sight adjustment of what I know has taken me off the target from where I just shot a 9 or a 10 is likened to just plain faith. It is very difficult for me to trust what I am seeing and make the move. But you know that Dave Gullo is down their cranking away and staying on paper so you just suck it up and do it. Man is it fun. Top shooters in the Team event, where Steve Baldwin and Jimbo Terry. Steve was using a 45-90 and Jimbo was shooting his brand new Shiloh Sharps in 45-110. We left the range about one in the afternoon and headed to the café at Whittington center for a steak dinner and the awards and door prizes. The scores for the week are posted so I will not go into all the details of who did what other than to say you really needed to know how to read conditions to score well. I came away from the experience a much better shooter than I went in as, and for that I owe a debt of gratitude to the sponsors and especially Ernie Stallman for heading the match up and making it happen. The sponsors were. Badger Barrels, Buffalo Arms, ASSRA, Single Shot Exchange, and C. Sharps. A special thanks to John Hart who controlled the line and called the match and Donnie who tried to control the pits, they simply volunteered their time to serve the competitors. I know I speak for all of us in saying thanks for a job well done. We had a great time and came away better for the experience. John served this post in the first World Creedmoor match in 2002, John and Donnie are both Game and fish officers in their home state of Missouri and are friends of Lee Shaver. Shooting in the match was not the only thing we did. Ed and I had a truck full of guns and ammo. After the match almost every day we went to another range to just play. We shot Silhouette, 22 silhouette, went out spotting deer and lopers. We could have shot trap or hand gun silhouette also; we simply just didn't have time. Friday night we met Kenny and Jimbo on the silhouette range after the first leg of the team match. We were harassing the white buffalo again at 1123 yards. There is a 16 inch black gong on that buffalo denoting his vitals. Jimbo wanted to see if he could hit the buffalo off hand; he not only hit it off hand, but he hit the black dinger twice in a row. We basically shot from dawn to dusk and cleaned guns while cooking steaks on the grill at the cabin on Whittington Center grounds. Now that's a week of vacation!! The best part of this entire match was the sharing of information, and what all the shooters were using from wind charts to bore pigs or weasels, to dip lubed bullets, and sling mounting systems. The next World Creedmoor Association match will be in 2006; the location has not been currently set. However, Ernie says either Brisbane, Australia or back at Whittington Center. This match is open to all comers just sign up and attend no invention required. The time to start practicing to the international rules is now so you can be ready for 2006. Information on rules along with match information can be found at http://www.worldcreedmoor.org Also note that by competitor meeting ruling, practice will be consolidated to 1 day at the next match allowing Saturday as a full travel day for competitors. I also want to thank Kenny Wasserburger, Jerry Stallman, Ed Force, and Dave Gullo for additional in formation, proof reading, pictures, and helping getting this done. Cliff Gregg |