December 8, 2001

Y RIGHT HAND IS STILL LETTING ME DOWN, but I was shocked to find out at the end of the day that I had finished in first place in my shooting class, and this time I wasn't the only one shooting Duelist! There were two other fellers, and they finished close behind me — if I'd missed a couple more targets, it would have been a different story, that's for sure.

Again we had a gorgeous day to shoot (though Wiz and I almost didn't make it to the match when a garbage truck backed out onto the highway right in front of us. I was very glad the Explorer has anti-lock brakes...) and it seemed like late September instead of early December; 75 degrees and sunny just isn't what I consider "winter weather." But I'll take it!

After the match, the Carolina Cattlemen's Shooting & Social Society (and especially Wicked Wanda, who pretty much was the "producer" of the meal) treated everyone to lunch, with hotdogs and all the trimmings, including the Reverend Will U. Sinmore's special baked beans and Del Rio Donna's famous chili. Very tasty, and a wonderful day all around.

Our posse began on Stage One for once. The targets had been painted in the spirit of the season: There were red and green cowboys and even a few targets painted in a very nice "Frosty The Snowman" motif (complete with a painted orange carrot for a nose). The stages were designed for the holidays, too.

Stage One: A Nevada (Sweep) Christmas
This stage was all about a Nevada sweep. For the uninitiated, a regular sweep is simply shooting a series of targets (say, four of them) in a sequence (from left-to-right or vice-versa). A "Nevada Sweep" differs in that the targets are first shot in regular sweep (say, left-to-right) and then the direction is reversed and continued back down the target order to end on the first one. So a series of four targets would require seven rounds of ammunition, as the shooting order (L-to-R) would be: Target One, T2, T3, T4, T3 (again), T2 and end on Target One. Seven shots.

Anyway, I was the first shooter on this stage, and I began with a bell in hand. Ringing the bell, I yelled "Merry Christmas, Nevada!" then exchanged the bell for a pistol and shot through a Nevada Sweep on three pistol targets. Holster and repeat with second handgun. I picked up the rifle from the table in front of me and used seven rounds in a Nevada Sweep on the four rifle targets. Then I needed to grab the bell and ring it while moving to the table where the shotgun was staged, put down the bell, pick up the scattergun and take out two targets. Done. Well, I managed to miss two targets with my right-hand revolver, so my "Nevada Christmas" wasn't as merry as it could have been. Fun stage, though.

Stage Two: Christmas Gold
After the first stage, someone decided to shuffle the shooting order for subsequent stages, so I went to the end of the line for this one. I was glad I had my vest on for this stage, since it gave me a couple of pockets to stash the large "gold piece" that I had in hand when I started the stage. At the beep, I dropped the coin in my vest pocket and ran through the course of fire, which I can't remember exactly but should, since I shot the stage clean — the only clean stage of the day for me. I do remember that the "Bad Guys" were after my Christmas Gold piece and I didn't have to shoot the Nevada Sweeps of the previous stage. Ah, well, I'll have to take better notes next time...

Stage Five: Christmas Supper
The other posse wasn't finished by the time we had shot the first two stages, so we moved over to the last bay to shoot stages five & six. There was an iron triangle hanging in the window of the saloon false-front in this stage. I had to ring the triangle while calling out "Christmas Supper! Come-n-gettit!" Put down the iron ringer, pick up the rifle and shoot through the window at the targets. The last cowboy rifle target on the right was mostly obscured by one of the pistol silhouettes in front of it, so many of us had to move slightly to one side to get a clearer shot at it. I managed to hit all the rifle targets, even the tough one, but missed three pistol shots with (what else?) my right hand. Low and left. Gotta be a grip problem, but Pixelwiz has suggested that I swap my revolvers and try with my right hand the pistol that I normally shoot with my left. We'll see what that does for me; I'm not expecting much.

Stage Six: The Rev's Holiday Elixir
This promised to be an interesting stage, for it would be the first time I'd ever had to reload a revolver on the clock. I've had rifle reloads before (either as part of the stage design or to make up a shot when I mistakenly ejected a live round), and those are really no problem.

The stage specifed that we would have five rounds in each holstered handgun, four in the rifle and four shotgun targets. I had to begin with a bottle of "The Rev's Holiday Elixer" in one hand and a pistol cartridge in the other At the beep, I had to place the bottle of liquid on the window ledge, then put the cartridge into the revolver and sweep the five pistol targets through the window, putting the sixth round into the center target (the one that was painted as a snowman: "Die, Frosty!").

I thought I had the perfect plan for the pistol reload, but I muffed it. I held the cartridge in my right hand, since that would be the hand I'd use to put the round into the cylinder; the Elixer was in my left. I set the bottle down and drew my left-side pistol, pulled the hammer to half-cock, flipped open the loading gate, spun the cylinder to the empty hole and pushed the round in. Then I had a brain fade and grabbed the gun with my right hand and shot it. Now, that's not against the rules, and it's not unsafe, but it's not what I meant to do — especially since I'm shooting better with my left hand these days. So I ended up shooting both pistols with my right hand on this stage and missed two targets. Dang, I hate it when The Plan falls apart...

Stage Three: The Ho Ho Ho Hat
We took a very short break before moving on to this stage, since we had lunch waiting for us at the end of the shoot. On this stage we had to wear on top of our cowboy hats a Santa-style hat with "Ho Ho Ho" embroidered across the front. The target order on this one was really bizarre (thanks a lot, Wanda!). There were five rifle targets spaced as far across the shooting bay as possible, and the order specified two rounds on the first target, then a Nevada Sweep on the next three — T2, T3, T4, T3, T2 — finally two more rounds on target number five. Whew! And that was just for the rifle targets! The order on the pistol targets was similarly complex and I missed one shot with my (right hand, of course) revolver.

Stage Four: Can I Open It Now?
I got to ditch the Santa hat for this stage, beginning instead seated in a chair by a "Christmas tree" with a shotgun across my lap and a gift box in my hands. I said, "Can I open it now?" and at the timer beep put down the box and stood up, loaded the shotgun and took down two targets. I moved to a table where I secured the shotgun and ran through the rest of the course of fire, missing a shot with each revolver in the process. It was the only shot I missed all day with my left hand, but the 9th miss with the right. Ouch. Somethin's just not working there, and I need to figure it out soon.

Here are the numbers:

Deputy Gene won the overall match and the "Shootist" class, though he shot Traditional-style) with a Total Time of 168.20 seconds and 13 Rank Points. My friend Tatonka obliged me by missing four targets on one of his stages, in effect handing me 1st place in the duelist class. He finished right behind me with a Total Time of 329.34 seconds and 108 Rank Points, so those extra misses really cost him dearly. Actually, all three of us shooting Duelist finished next to each other. Rocky Mount Rebel was right after Tatonka with a Total Time of 352.58 seconds and 125 Rank Points, so a few misses more or less could have made the difference for any of us.

I was as surprised as anybody when the Rev called my name out as the Duelist winner for the match. It was much more satisfying than winning the class because I was the only one in it!