Greetings!
June and July are busy months for our club, and this year was no exception.
Our 2016 Joe Ocken Montana Classic GSSF match set a new record - 226 entries! While the Friday setup crew and ROs had intermittent rain, the weekend was unusually cool and clear. When some competitors commented early Saturday on the lack of a food vendor truck, they were soon surprised by the arrival of the Selway Armory staff. Selway provided pizza, chips, Gatorade and water at no charge for everyone. Comments quickly changed to amazement that lunch was being provided for the match. Our thanks go to Jim Zimmerman of Selway for this generous contribution. We hope that with additional media attention next year's match will be even bigger.
A side stage at the GSSF match was named the "Frustration Station" and gave shooters a chance to engage the Polish Plate Rack. Proceeds from the stage were split with the Wounded Warriors Outdoors, Montana Chapter and provided $100 to the worthy charity.
Despite the scheduling conflict with the Missoula Marathon, we had a successful 2016 George Thompson Single Stack Match: Cool weather made for great shooting, and the rain didn't arrive until after the range was secured and everyone had left. Jeff Turek and the rest of the Stage Committee had converted stages from the Single Stack Nationals for the match, and they proved to be interesting and challenging. We had a visiting competitor from Sweden, Johan Modigh, who had to borrow a pistol in order to compete, but still managed to turn in a winning performance in Production Division; while Nate Martin was High Overall Single Stack. We already have requests from other foreign competitors for our next two matches, and hope that we can continue to attract international shooters.
Our match this weekend will be our July Special Classifier. So all of you who have not shot enough matches to be classified in what Bill Scholl calls "Geri-Optics" can finally get your classification. The Stage Committee has selected some fresh and challenging classifiers, including one that will be Fixed Time. As always, please come out on Saturday afternoon if you can help with setup.
Our Second Multigun Match of the year will be held on August 21st and will have all new stages, and some new targets from MGM and Farley Collins. Look for details and a registration link to be posted on our website.
Improvements continue at the range. WMFGA has completed the concrete pours for the new Safety Areas, and Jim McDonald's crews have been working on our new target storage containers. While the word "mowing" hasn't been associated with 50B in a long time, the new grass has actually been cut a couple of times, and now looks good enough to walk on with bare feet.
We have started to construct our last batch of mesh walls and to repair the ones that were damaged during the season. While it is true that I hit 2 different walls on 2 separate stages, I think the moniker "Wall Killer" is undeserved. However, I will be personally replacing the portions of the walls that jumped into my line of fire.
Along with the lumber for the walls, we have new 2x2 fault lines that need painting. If you would like to help, please let me know and I will arrange for paint, tools, and lumber to be provided.
See you at the range,
Scott