Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Old Lion Leads the Cat!

One of the winningest smallbore shooters ever, Lones Wigger of Colorado Springs CO., has recaptured the magic and is our day 1 leader. His nearly perfect 1599-119X leads the field of 50 shooters from around this great country. Former Wildcat Champion and Nevada resident Tarl Kempley, is but a mere 3X's behind. Last years Wildcat Champion Reya Kempley also of Nevada, might be a point down to the boys but her 1598-136X proved convincingly that she was "Queen of the X-Ring".

In the class competition, Michael Seery, also of Colorado Springs leads the Master Class with a 1596-128X. Local Junior and shooting phenom Richard Layton is second Master with a 1596-102X. Another tight battle rages in the Expert Class as Stuart Lind narrowly leads Jim Cobb with a 1592-111X over Jims 1590-110.

In the Sharpshooter Class smallbore newcomer Mick Walker has a bit of breathing room as his 1576-88X came in twelve points and a handfull of X's better than class runnerup Ron Piotrowski. Ron is shooting his new Eliseo tubegun better and better as he gets used to the infinite adjustments on that fine piece of equipment.

The Marksman Class is a bit more of a contest as AZ native Gage Clark has a slim lead over fellow Junior Luke Harper with 1568-70X and 1564-54X respectivly. All in all a fine day of shooting at all levels today as the promised "big wind" never showed up!

On another but related note, the Western Wildcat is one of only two matches that utilize a High Master Class, the Firecracker 4800 in Raton NM. being the other. To be a HM at these events a shooter must be or have one of the following, have shot five or more 1600 or 1200's, be a Distinguished Prone Shooter or be a supported shooter as in OTC or military. I personally would like to see a national clasification for HM just like highpower. What are your thoughts on this? Please feel free to comment anonymously if you desire.I will try to get some of the days pictures up later but now I must take my lady out to dinner.

Look for more news tomorrow,
RCurtis

3 comments:

hlws said...

Thanks so much, Rick, for the great prompt recap! Wish I was there.

Heidi Seery

Unknown said...

Rick:

I agree that a HM class in Smallbore prone would be fine. I need to shoot in the HM class since I am dstinguished and have the 6 1600's too.

There is a huge difference in being able to shoot a 6368 (1592X4)vs a 6385+

I would make the HM class the same definition as the Wildcat and Firecracker, and make it on the honor system, thus NRA doesn't need to send out other cards.

RCURTIS said...

Heidi,
Thanks!Wish you were here as well, the weather is great and Michael is shooting very well.

Morgen,
Thanks for posting your thoughts. Over the last two days this subject as well as adding a Grand Senior category to smallbore have become the focus of much discussion. With Wig here lending an ear as well as some thoughts we will more than likely see the smallbore committee take this up in there next meeting.

RCurtis