El Rojo
Member
It has been a month now since the wife and I spent a weekend in Oceanside at th CMP Western Games and honestly this is the first chance I have had to write about it.
The shoot itself was a lot of fun. I really need to invest in a cheap shooting coat and even though they were there, I didn't. My wife had a good time shooting, but on the second day her elbows were so sore from grinding into the shooting mat, she wasn't a happy camper. The interesting thing is her score was the exact same both days! However she shot better the second day and just had two saved rounds on the rapid. Oh well. I was proud of her and she didn't finish last, which I told her she wouldn't. She finished 137 out of 154.
I shot my Springfield 1903A3 the first day and boy is that thing a beast. It has quite a kick and the trigger is not too impressive at all. I did ok and ended up getting 17th out of 26 shooters that weekend with a 244-1X. I won't complain considering this was only the second time I had ever even shot the rifle!
The second day I shot the Garand and I enjoyed it much better. However, I had a stinking miss in my standing stage and ended up shooting a 244-3X. That was good enough for 62 out of 154 and that I was happy with. I know my score would probably improve if I invested in a coat, but I just have other priorities right now.
On to the rifle sales! If you go to the CMP pictures website you can see all sorts of good pictures of El Rojo shopping at the rifles table (he's the chunky guy in blue w/ blue hat and spectacles). My wife said it looked like ladies in a shopping mall.
MY FIND! So I have my Garand, I have a Springfield Armory low serial number 1903 and a Remington 1903A3, so the only thing I don't have is a 1917. They brought out 36 poor grade 1917s and there were only a couple on the table. I see the box over there and I am telling the guys, "Hey, go pull some more of those things out." The sales guys aren't too interested but as they start pulling them out more guys start coming over to check it out. Some of them have been beat up pretty good and most of them either have shot barrels or poor headspacing, hense being in a $250 poor grade box. I am not much of a hard core collector, I just want something that looks nice and shoots decent. Well I find one and it has a super nice stock and pretty good finish. I am looking at it hard and trying to decide what to do. The bore looks pretty gunky and the guy behind the table doesn't really want to run the rod down it because he thinks it is beyond hope. However there is no "headspace" issue tag on it and the stock is really, really nice. The gun smith behind the table looks at it and says there is some unique cartouche on it and that is a real nice one. Then I get to looking at the tag and it says, "Rack Grade". I ask the guy about it and he says, "Well, you're right, this is probably a rack grade rifle that somehow got placed in the poor grade box, but that is our mistake, it is still just $250." SOLD!!! I marked it and tagged it for El Rojo.
So the CMP just sent me my tracking number and that bad boy will hopefully be here by the weekend. I will post some pictures then.
Overall, it was a nice weekend of shooting and hanging out with my wife. Our expert helper on the first day was Ted and he ended up getting 4th overall in the Garand match and he was a huge help for Kelly. She really liked pulling targets in the pit the most and we were quite the target pulling team. The two other guys on our squad were pretty darn good and they gave us great service kudos.
The shoot itself was a lot of fun. I really need to invest in a cheap shooting coat and even though they were there, I didn't. My wife had a good time shooting, but on the second day her elbows were so sore from grinding into the shooting mat, she wasn't a happy camper. The interesting thing is her score was the exact same both days! However she shot better the second day and just had two saved rounds on the rapid. Oh well. I was proud of her and she didn't finish last, which I told her she wouldn't. She finished 137 out of 154.
I shot my Springfield 1903A3 the first day and boy is that thing a beast. It has quite a kick and the trigger is not too impressive at all. I did ok and ended up getting 17th out of 26 shooters that weekend with a 244-1X. I won't complain considering this was only the second time I had ever even shot the rifle!
The second day I shot the Garand and I enjoyed it much better. However, I had a stinking miss in my standing stage and ended up shooting a 244-3X. That was good enough for 62 out of 154 and that I was happy with. I know my score would probably improve if I invested in a coat, but I just have other priorities right now.
On to the rifle sales! If you go to the CMP pictures website you can see all sorts of good pictures of El Rojo shopping at the rifles table (he's the chunky guy in blue w/ blue hat and spectacles). My wife said it looked like ladies in a shopping mall.
MY FIND! So I have my Garand, I have a Springfield Armory low serial number 1903 and a Remington 1903A3, so the only thing I don't have is a 1917. They brought out 36 poor grade 1917s and there were only a couple on the table. I see the box over there and I am telling the guys, "Hey, go pull some more of those things out." The sales guys aren't too interested but as they start pulling them out more guys start coming over to check it out. Some of them have been beat up pretty good and most of them either have shot barrels or poor headspacing, hense being in a $250 poor grade box. I am not much of a hard core collector, I just want something that looks nice and shoots decent. Well I find one and it has a super nice stock and pretty good finish. I am looking at it hard and trying to decide what to do. The bore looks pretty gunky and the guy behind the table doesn't really want to run the rod down it because he thinks it is beyond hope. However there is no "headspace" issue tag on it and the stock is really, really nice. The gun smith behind the table looks at it and says there is some unique cartouche on it and that is a real nice one. Then I get to looking at the tag and it says, "Rack Grade". I ask the guy about it and he says, "Well, you're right, this is probably a rack grade rifle that somehow got placed in the poor grade box, but that is our mistake, it is still just $250." SOLD!!! I marked it and tagged it for El Rojo.
So the CMP just sent me my tracking number and that bad boy will hopefully be here by the weekend. I will post some pictures then.
Overall, it was a nice weekend of shooting and hanging out with my wife. Our expert helper on the first day was Ted and he ended up getting 4th overall in the Garand match and he was a huge help for Kelly. She really liked pulling targets in the pit the most and we were quite the target pulling team. The two other guys on our squad were pretty darn good and they gave us great service kudos.
