John Rutherfoord-Jones
What a great day we had on the .22 range on Saturday. We got started a bit late due to the committee meeting some of us were required to participate in earlier that morning, but once we got going, a great time was had by all.
The shoot was very well attended, perhaps it was because it was the first .22 shoot of the new year or perhaps it was because there were no other shoots scheduled on the same day by other disciplines. We had 16 shooters who shot the .22 scoped event as well as the sport handgun, but only 9 of those participated in the open sight event. We had four (4) ladies competing, very nice.
Rimfire Sport Handgun
The RF Sport handgun is shot at chickens at 20m, pigs at 30m, turkeys at 40m and rams at 50m (5 of each).
The sport handgun was sorely competed by the 16 shooters. Anso Spencer and Jacques Potgieter faced off to open the range they too matched each other just about shot for shot. Jacques taking all 5 pigs against Anso’s 4 (good shooting). They each only took down 2 turkeys and then the pain came in at the rams, Anso managed 2, but Jacques only 1; this put them tied for 3rd place. Allan Peeters shooting with his injured hand scored an amazing 65 putting him in 1st place for a while, and then came Berdi Meintjes; despite a disastrous start with only 1 chicken, she cleaned up on the pigs and got 4 turkeys with 3 rams, thus tying with Allan (very well done Berdi).
Please find the results for RF Sport Handgun event below:
Rimfire Open Sight
The open sight is shot at chickens at 25m, pigs at 50m, turkeys at 75m and rams at 100m (5 of each, same size targets as small bore handgun silhouettes).
Jimmy Bekker and I opened the open sight range facing of against each other. The pressure was intense, Jimmy a past world champion in the .22 scoped light and silhouette rifle aggregate and myself a .22 4 rifle aggregate world champion (two scoped rifle events plus the two open sight rifle events). I took an early lead missing only 1 chicken whilst he left two; we both left one pig (sinful), we each only hit two turkeys (those things are skinny at 75m); unfortunately, Jimmy struggled to find the ideal sight picture until the last silhouette.
So, I ended on top of this one which gave me overall first place. Then with Jimmies help and encouragement Anita Bekker won herself a box of wine when she equaled Jimmy’s score of 50.
Please find the results for Rimfire Open Sight event below:
Fat Silhouettes
The Fat Silhouettes consisted of a mix of small-bore handgun silhouettes and standard small-bore targets. The inclusion of “mik-sticks” is to allow competitors a better chance of seeing the small bore rifle turkeys and rams falling over.
Once again Jimmy and I faced off against each other for this part of the competition after some had already put up some pretty good scores. We both elected to start at the back of the range on the small turkeys sitting with mik-sticks; I cleaned up with a full score whilst Jimmy left the first one. We both only managed 3 rams. It was then when Jimmy showed his skills of shooting out the shoulder cleaning up all the chickens and all the pigs bringing his final score to an impressive 85. I on the other hand ran out of mojo and only hit 1 chicken and 3 pigs ending on 60.
I think that some people were very comfortable with their scores; and then along came Dave Wilson. He shot all 5 chickens, pigs and turkeys and then leaving 2 rams: giving him the winning score of 90.
We won’t mention the fact that some shooters got confused between small-bore turkeys at 77m and the handgun turkeys for the open sight competition and shot them down instead.
Please find the results for Fat Silhouettes event below:
Due to the fact that SAMMSA has decided that the Mini-Matches being hosted by each club will replace the monthly league shoots, this frees up the 1st Saturday of each month to offer these shoots. See you at our next event.
