Alex Belt has again scored BIG in a leg match. June 14 and 15th were the dates for the Missouri High Power Service Rifle High Championship, held at the St. Louis Benchrest Rifle Club in Wright City. Saturday was the 80 round match for the championship, and Major John Schwent of the U.S. Marine Corps won with a 778-23X. (Match winner was a gentleman from Illinois, Kerwin Law, who shot the same score but 24X. Since he is from Illinois and Schwent is from Missouri, Schwent is the Missouri Service Rifle Champion and Law is the match winner.)
Three Sharpshooters competed: Alex Belt, Ed Bowles, and Bill Corcoran. Our scores were nothing to write home about, but none of us embarrassed himself either. Major Andrew Cempa, a sometime Sharpshooter was also there, and he shot a personal best of 727 with an M1 Garand. Because of other commitments, Ed Bowles and Bill Corcoran went home Saturday evening, while Alex Belt stayed in the Super 8 motel to prepare for the leg match on Sunday.
This match is held the 3rd weekend in June every year at the St. Louis club, and I wish more Sharpshooters would attend. The club grounds are spacious, the clubhouse air conditioned and plush (including a pool table), and they put on a nice meal after the match on Saturday—the smoked pork chop and cherry pie are hard to beat. This is the only match I know of in Missouri where they give you a T-shirt for participating. Range safety is a bit of a bugaboo for these people because someone built a house 1700 yards beyond the impact berm, and a few shots have apparently gotten off range. So the club rebuilt the impact berm so high it now looks like a mountain. Still, the range officer will natter at you if the muzzle of your loaded rifle points over the berm, no matter whether your finger is on the trigger or not.
One of the best things about the Service Rifle weekend is the schedule on Sunday. They run a team match in the morning where each team consists of 4 people, each shooting a 30 shot President’s match (10 standing at 200 yards, 10 rapid prone at 300 yards, and 10 slow prone at 600 yards). This is a fun match, goes fast, and allows you to get solid zeros at the various yardlines, and it doesn’t wear you out. Then they squad for the 50 shot leg match which begins at 600 yards, right where you were just firing in the team match. So you get to shoot over the course twice in a day and fire 80 shots for record, but it’s not particularly taxing on your physical capabilities. (For comparison, at Bucksnort on a leg-match Sunday we will typically fire a 50 shot team match followed by a 50 shot leg match. We don’t get done until after 5pm, and it’s a tired ride home.)
Alex Belt held tight and finished the leg match with a 484 for first place and a gold medal.
To get points at a leg match is one of the most exhilarating experiences in all of shooting. It’s like a kiss from the prettiest girl in high school (OK, or the biggest hunk—we have some excellent female shooters too) or maybe like buying your first car. And finishing first, beating Major Schwent who just the day before became Missouri’s Service Rifle Champion, well, there’s no feeling in the sports world quite like that. And, to top it off, a 484 is not just any old score, it is top-shelf shooting. You can see the top scores in leg matches year-by-year on the CMP’s web site: http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_topEICScores.cgi?year=2008&eic=RIFLE and in a couple of week’s, Alex’s score will be up there near the top.
This gives Alex 24 out of the 30 points necessary to win the Distinguished Rifleman Badge. The next leg match we will all be shooting is Sunday, July 20, in De Soto, Kansas. I hope many Sharpshooters will attend that match and help Alex finish out his badge on home territory. If he doesn’t, he will have to depend on finishing in the money at Camp Perry this year. We’re all counting on attending the awards ceremony at Camp Perry this year to see Alex get his badge, and I hope many of the Sharpshooters can be part of this effort.
The CMP has some very good write-ups about the Distinguished program, and you might read the ones by Dick Culver and Hap Rocketto: http://www.odcmp.com/Competitions.htm#U.S.%20Distinguished%20International%20Shooter%20Badge
To briefly state the important issues at hand, the Distinguished Badge is awarded to shooters who have demonstrated the ability to consistently place in the top positions in match shooting. A shooter must earn at least 30 points by finishing in the top 10 percent of non-distinguished shooters in leg matches. In addition, the shooter must also earn at least one ‘hard leg’ equivalent to a first or second place finish (among non-distinguished shooters). Since the rules are already sounding a little arcane, let me go a bit further in explaining how leg points are awarded.
In a leg match, anyone may shoot, but only non-distinguished shooters may earn points. The top 10 percent of non-distinguished shooters earn points, and of these, the top one-sixth earns 10 points, the next two-sixths earn 8 points, and the last three-sixths earn 6 points. As an example, if a match had 60 non-distinguished shooters, the awards would flow this way: a total of 6 shooters would get leg points. The highest non-distinguished shooter would get 10 points; the next two shooters would get 8 points each, and the next 3 shooters would get 6 points each.
The arithmetic is easy when we use big numbers such as 60 non-distinguished shooters, but in reality and in the Midwest, more typically we have 10-20 non-distinguished shooters in the leg match, so the percentages start to get a bit dicey. You start to calculate that 1.5 shooters earn 8 points or some such nonsensical computation. Since people can not be divided into fractions, we enter the realm of 7th grade arithmetic known as rounding and chopping of fractions.
A match with less than 10 non-distinguished shooters can’t award leg points. (Ten percent of 9 people is 0.9 people, and that’s not a person, so there is no leg awarded.) A match with less than 15 non-distinguished shooters can only award one leg (and it will be a 6 point leg). Ten percent of 14 is 1.4 people, and the 0.4 person is simply ignored (chopped).
A match with 15 or more non-distinguished shooters but less than 25 will award a 6 point and an 8 point leg. (Ten percent of 15 is 1.5, and the extra 0.5 person is rounded upward to 2, so 2 legs can be awarded.)
It takes 25 or more shooters before the CMP allows the full cadre of 10 point, 8 point, and 6 point legs.
I hope my thrashing around in the underbrush of leg point calculation will point out why it is so important that team mates support each other by going to leg matches. In May at Bucksnort we ‘forced’ the father of one of the junior shooters to enter the match because he became the 15th non-distinguished shooter, and thus they could award two legs rather than just one. In 2006 at Bucksnort we were in the same situation—14 non-distinguished shooters in the match, and our own Jerry Patten became a hero by entering and becoming the 15th non-distinguished shooter. I took the 2nd leg of that match and finished out my Distinguished Rifleman’s badge. In a sense, I owe my success directly to Jerry Patten. (Did I even remember by buy him lunch?)
The weekend of the leg match in De Soto, Kansas is Saturday July 19, and Sunday July 20. It is the Kansas Service Rifle Championship. It is a busy weekend with many opportunities to shoot. We have our Carbine match that Saturday at the Dalton Range, and the Joplin club has a highpower match on that Sunday. Talk about bad scheduling! In De Soto, there is an 80 round match on Saturday and a leg match followed by a Garand match on Sunday.
De Soto is an easy 3 hours from Springfield (2:45, actually), and it’s all 4-lane. The Super 8 motel in De Soto is clean and has a nice breakfast (913) 583-3880. Shoot the Carbine match, and as long as the truck is loaded up, head up Hwy 13 to Kansas City and take Hwy 10 towards Lawrence, Kansas. Halfway between Lawrence and KC you’ll run into De Soto, and it’s a wonderful place to stop and shoot. Come on up.
It’s time to start thinking about our June 28th match and picnic at the Aim Rite Range in Miller. The match will start at 10AM or even a little before if there are enough people there. Setup of the range will begin about 8:30. We have found that the firing line won’t accommodate more than 10 shooters at a time, and less is better. Since we have had 11-13 shooters at these matches in Miller, and we always shoot 2 relays, it hasn’t been a problem. If we get a good turnout we have the option of shooting as many relays as we want, since we have the range for the whole day. Please don’t get too carried away, though, and think that you can show up at 11:30 to shoot on the 3rd relay. We won’t know how many relays we have until that Saturday, and there’s no guarantee that you will get to compete if you arrive late. Anyone may shoot on their own, however, after the competition is over.
Please plan on bringing something for the picnic. The club will provide hamburgers, bratwurst, and hot dogs along with buns, plates, and plastic utensils. Unless you volunteer for a major item (see below), please volunteer to bring a dish to share (salad, potato salad, beans, chips, whatever you can think of). And remember to bring something to serve it with.
I need a couple of volunteers to help with more major stuff: first, two propane grills would be good; second, I’d like someone to organize a large cooler of soft drinks—the club will pay for the drinks and ice. I can bring my grill, so we only need one other volunteer here.
And finally, please let me know if you’re planning on coming. I’d like to have a rough count when I go to the store. It would be good if you gave me some idea of what you’re bringing just in case 6 guys are bringing beans and we have nothing else, but we won’t hold you to it. And double finally, if you aren’t planning on coming to the picnic, and then your plans change at the last minute, please come. Or maybe a spouse, child, or other relative decides at the last minute they’d like to come—great! There will be plenty to eat and drink, I assure you.
Any questions?? Contact… Bill Corcoran (417) 862-861 or send me an email