Allan Peeters & John-R Jones
“One for the books, man oh man was it cold. The weather outside was frightening (Rain and wind and sleet), so the fair-weather shooters were absent.
John says we start at 10, and so we did. The ranges were already set. There were only 4 of us old and determined guys to shoot. Come hell or highwater. The Millennials were nowhere to be seen.
We eventually got underway starting at the runner; we only got through two of us who were there (Tom and Markus), before the weather became unbearable. Then the heavens opened. So, paper targets and patches don’t work, so we retired to the clubhouse. So we sought shelter in the club house for a time to warm up externally in front of the heater and internally with some “antifreeze”.
Here we met the RO for the day, Leon (and his wife). WELL, DONE THAT MAN!
With this done, the gas fires going, it turned out into a great morning. Lots of discussions around the bar. War stuff, Ukraine, Astrophysics, the big bang theory, lots of hunting stories, flat earth society, ANC’s R22 Million flag, we even had a movie clip on that, earth’s magnetic fields, Climate change, and Biden also was mentioned. All very invigorating. But because we had a lady present, we never got to any dirty jokes. I mean we are a bunch of crazy old guys, but still gentlemen.
We missed Dave who was away on a vintage bike rally. That’s determination. I can see him blasting down the road on his steam driven motorbike in clouds of steam, raincoat flapping in the breeze. B@lls of brass that man.
The weather gave us a gap, and we were now as strong as a “Zulu Impie”. So off to the ranges we went to complete the silhouette open sight section. There were 4 of us still, and man, oh man did James Appleby shoot well, but in the howling rain, James clobbered 4 Turkeys and 4 Rams, with open sights at 100m, that’s shooing.
Tom and I tied for second place. My gun came second twice as Tom used it; the ruling applies, if you shoot a better score than the owner of the gun, that score goes to the gunowner. Tom deliberately missed a Ram so that I could not come second. Bastardo! John came in fourth.
Then back to the bar and OB’s and lots more intelligent discussions. Way too much to mention here.
Well done to Jimmy Appleby who shot a very respectful score of 65/100 with Allan and Tom tying for second place both on 50. My wheels sure came off on this one. So nice to see Allan participating in the 22 rifle and air-gun shoots, he truly in an inspiration to us all.
The full score for the day are listed below:
