Looking For N. Illinois & S. Wisconsin smallbore shooters

[pccraig]

I’ve posted this on as many Rimfire / Smallbore forums as I could find, so forgive me if you see this everywhere.

Just wondering if there’s any smallbore / rimfire shooters out there in N. Illinois or S. Wisconsin looking to get together for some “unofficial” matches. Nothing fancy. I got this idea when I joined a group of fellow bass fishermen this summer. We’d get together on a scheduled basis at a pre-determined lake or pond and fish for bragging rights. Biggest catch, total weigh, etc.

There seems to be a few ranges in the area with 50 to 100 yd lines, and I was wondering if anyone would be interested in doing something like this. There’s a few good formats we could follow:

Smallbore 3P / Smallbore 4P / Mini Palma / CMP Sporter / Benchrest / Etc.

Or, to start, we could just agree to attend any of local ranges who host their own matches:

Bristol / Sycamore / ISRA Range / Beloit / Racine / St Charles / Aurora / etc.

Thoughts ????

[BikerNut]

I'm a N. Illinois (Evanston) Mini Palma shooter and compete at the range in Bristol, where I'm a member.

Mini Palma season at Bristol (4 matches/year) is now over, though. If you wanted to organize an informal match at Bristol (for example) you would need to talk to them ahead of time for booking and scheduling conflicts. Also, it's a single-round-load-only range, and you can only shoot loaded mag/rapid fire during one of the rapid fire stages in their official matches.

I can't remember if smallbore 3P/4P includes rapid fire, but if it does, you would have to clear it with the range first.

I'd meet anyone/anytime at Bristol for an informal competition. But ISRA and Beloit is a long-ass drive. Racine's range is a pain in the ass to get to, but I'll go there. Never been to any range in St. Charles or Aurora, and haven't got a clue as to what they're like.

[pccraig]

BikerNut,

Thanks for the input. I'm a member at Bristol as well, but have only participated in a few of thier HP matches. How many shooters typically attend the Mini Palma in Bristol ?

Do you shoot Mini Palma anywhere else ?

3P & 4P smallbore has no rapid fire stages, so there wouldn't be any issues there, but the 50yd line at Bristol can get a little crowded on weekends, so asking the board to sanction an NRA stye match might be asking alot. I know the range opens at noon on Fridays, so maybe a match held in the AM might work; provided we could generate enough interest and had enough shooters of course.

What do you think ?

[Thomas G]

The Aurora gun club is out near Big Rock somewhere.

[BikerNut]

Originally Posted by pccraig

BikerNut,

Thanks for the input. I'm a member at Bristol as well, but have only participated in a few of thier HP matches. How many shooters typically attend the Mini Palma in Bristol ?

Do you shoot Mini Palma anywhere else ?

3P & 4P smallbore has no rapid fire stages, so there wouldn't be any issues there, but the 50yd line at Bristol can get a little crowded on weekends, so asking the board to sanction an NRA stye match might be asking alot. I know the range opens at noon on Fridays, so maybe a match held in the AM might work; provided we could generate enough interest and had enough shooters of course.

What do you think ?

At the start of the season, there were about 15 people competing in the Mini-Palma at Bristol, but it winnowed down as the season progressed. In the last match, I was the only one there because the range scheduled a Carbine Match for the same morning, and everyone else decided to do that instead of the Mini-Palma. So I shot the three stages for the Mini-Palma in the same (shorter) time allotment used in the first three stages of the Carbine match. I shot my highest score ever that day, so it's too bad nobody was competing against me.

Despite the lack of participation towards the end, there are a lot of dedicated Mini-Palma shooters there, and I think next year will be very competitive.

Don't know if any other ranges have Mini-Palma events, but if they did I would probably make the effort to go, since I really like this event and am starting to get pretty good at it.

The 50-yard line at Bristol is limited in space, but I wouldn't recommend using it for a .22 match anyway. There's lots of room on the 100-yard line, plus it's more fun to lob little 40-grain slugs at that distance.

The range is much less crowded on weekends now that deer season has started. An unofficial organized match of six or more shooters might need a range officer to call time and do safety checks. If there were only 3-4 shooters, they could probably manage themselves. After all, it's unofficial, no longer NRA-sanctioned, and not going into any record books.

I missed the season's last High Power match, so I went to the season's last (my first) Carbine match at Bristol last weekend. It was conducted CMP-style, was ton of fun, and I actually shot a higher score with my little 1943 Underwood M1 Carbine than I have all year with my AR in the High Power matches.

So if Bristol ever again schedules a Carbine match and a Mini-Palma match on the same day, it would be a real tough choice for me.