Arizona State Long Range Championships November 19th and 20th 2011

The Az Long Range Championship is now in the books, with both days being nearly identical in the conditions that challenged the shooters this year.
Each day started with near zero wind and cloudy light conditions that quickly progressed to a fishtailing 6 oclock wind that at times exceeded 18 mph.
In the F Class divisions, David Gosnell absolutely whipped his fellow F-Open competitors like rented mules all weekend. Day 1 saw him finish with an
outstanding 589, a full 23 points ahead of second place Eric Cortina. Sunday saw Dave pour it on by agging a 591 to finish head and shoulders above
the rest with a brilliant 1180. Congratulations David on securing a well earned place in Arizona F Class history! Over in F-TR the bipod boys witnessed
no less than an epic performance by first time Long Range F'er German Salazar. The Gman absolutely destroyed the competition, winning every single
match but one, including an F overall win in match two. His day one 575 agg outdistanced second place winner Steve Lockwood by a considerable margin.
Lockwood put in a valiant performance on day two to finish just behind Salazar in that agg but the damage was done and German emerged as the 2011
Az F-TR Champion.

Finally over on the sling side of the line, which by the way was pretty evenly split between F and sling shooters this year, Arizona's own Phil Hayes put in
a masterful performance all weekend. Hayes was running the Berger 115's in a new chamber configuration of his own design known as the 6X51 Hayes.
Based on the 243 case Phil guesstimates he can effectively triple the barrel life over the parent case with his design. They say the proof is in the pudding, well Phil
and his little cartridge crushed the competition, posting a 593 on Saturday and a nearly perfect 599 on Sunday to earn a decisive victory over the rest of
the bondage boys and girls, laying claim to the title of State Champion! Congratulations to Phil, David and German on your respective division victories.

In closing I would like to give a big tip of the hat to Joe, Jack and Richard who setup and ran the pits each day, Fred Filkins on another great call of the line
and to Mid and Nancy Tompkins for all there hard work in the stat trailer. Next up is the Az State Highpower Championship this coming weekend that starts
off with a 3X600 on Friday. Great way to work off all those Thanksgiving calories. Then we hope to see many of you for the Az State Palma Championships
Dec 2nd,3rd and 4th.