South Mississippi Practical Shooting

We were SO close to setting a record today. Our previous record for match participation was set way back in April of 2010. On that day, we had 40 shooters and today, we had… 40 shooters. A tie is nice but one more shooter would have set the record. Oh, well. Forty is great and we really appreciate the participation on the make-up Sunday.

The stages were pretty good, and featured a quick classifier (which no one did particularly well on, with the very best score only reaching a middle A level), and an easy (really?) steel stage that will appear in the Optics Nationals next weekend. The other three stages were more traditional, with a 38 rounder that invited the shooter to re-engage multiple targets, and another stage from the upcoming Optics Nationals included 27 targets with only the heads exposed that required a single shot on each. The final stage featured moving and shooting with a good mix of paper and steel. The best hit factor was only 5.29, so it paid to be accurate and not too slow.

There were two unfortunate DQ’s today, both for accidental discharges while reloading. It’s a good reminder to make sure your finger is out of the trigger guard when reloading. It can happen to anyone when the finger gets in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now, for the good news (for one person). The match today was runaway for the overall match winner and Limited division winner. With a commanding lead of almost 14%, Gerwin Henn put on a clinic on how to win a match. He shot the high point stages really fast and really well and built an insurmountable lead. The Open winner was Bill Jackson, with Wayne Alcock taking Limited 10. Blayne Dupuy scored his first division win in Poplarville with a great Production score, at the ripe old age of 13. Single Stack was taken by Jacob Thomas, and Don Evans won Carry Optics. Roger Follette took PCC, and Keith Ferguson rounded out the podium with his Revolver win.

The match staff thanks everyone for coming out today when the weather was perfect and the shooting nearly so. Once again, thanks to everyone who helped to get everything torn down when the shooting was done. We also appreciate the new shooters to our range. There were quite a few today and we hope you enjoyed our stages and come back in the future.

And, last but not least, next month (April) is our membership renewal month, so please continue to support our club by renewing or joining for the first time. The annual membership is only $25 and gives you the right to use the range on non-match days. It also gets you a $5 discount on both pistol and 3-gun matches. Last season, we had 44 members. That paid the rent with a few bucks left over.

For the complete match results, click the score computer at the right.