congrats to steve smith for doing well at camp perry

[Jon Coppenbarger]

steves master card is coming very soon as he shot extremly well during the nra week with a high of 483 in the rumbold match last sunday and he more than averaged enough points over the 4 matches to earn his master rating.
he also placed very high in the expert class all week in most every event.

plus he took 4th expert service rifle at camp perry which is a very great feat!
our colorado experts took 1st,4th and 5th in service rifle at perry.

steve should be back on line sometime late sat.
congrats again steve on some great shooting as you have certainly earned your new card that will be coming.
P.S. have you figured out where you are going to spend all those nra award points yet.
jon

 

[hps1]

If I knew Steve just a little bit better I would (jokingly) accuse him of sanbagging .

All joking aside, Steve, congratulations! Good shooting.

Regards,
hps

 

[444]

That is GREAT news.

Congrats. Steve.

Within the last few days I was reading a thread and thought, Steve would be the guy to answer this, I wonder where he is ? Then it dawned on me that he would be at Camp Perry.

 

[Steve Smith]

awww shucks...

I am literally blushing. Thanks, guys!

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Des Moines, and will return to CO tomorrow evening. Perry was an amazing experience, and pressed me to perform at a higher level than I thought I could. I'd suggest that any of you guys who are thinking about it just go ahead and go next year.

Man, that wind on Navy Cup day (Tuesday) was horrible for everyone's scores, but I think we were very lucky on the whole weather-wise.

Final count, to the best of my recollection:
5 boats in the impact area
3 helicopters
1 truck downrange
4 bald eagles in the impact area
1 guy with a slit open head in the pits
1 guy with a cut hand in the pits
1 guy passed out from heat
ENDLESS alibis
1 funny looking tan on me
50+ new great friends that I look forward to seeing again.
A much closer bond with the CO team
approx 400 beers drank amongst the CO team in two weeks
2 very dirty rifles
and a BIG SMILE!

p.s. I used my NRA points to buy some medals...thought they'd look cool. Come on, Master card, I'm waiting!!!!

p.p.s btw, I think I should also make the cut for "Leg points" toward the Distinguished Rifleman Badge. Time will tell.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Nice shooting Steve! It was great meeting you out there.

The Garands, unfortunately did not win the NTIT. No extra points for the size of the holes. We do have an objective to actually shoot as a team in preparation and beat all the OTHER Garand teams next year. A few of the Garand teams had 1-2 great shooters each.

Attached is a nice photo of the US Navy marksmanship team shooting the rattle battle.

 

[Jon Coppenbarger]

yes the NTIT was alot of fun.
we missed the wind call at 600 but did pretty good at 500.
I had 28 hits at 500 but that was about my whole highlight of the week for my shooting.
steve held it together real well the whole time and what he said is right being around the other co. team members is a great experience.

already looking foward to next year and will be there for the whole two weeks next year as I'am sure steve will also be going.

next year around co. it should be a real dog fight in the master class with steve and a few others moving up.

medals huh! you deserve them as you earned them.
great going again.
jon

 

[Sven]

Steve: congrats!

Just getting started in Highpower, but the dream is to compete at Camp Perry - looking forward to more cool photos and stories.

How did those guys get cut up?

 

[Jon Coppenbarger]

the guy who feel ended up with a fractured skull and they originally were going to air evac him out but after about a 45 minute delay they took him out with a ambulance from what I could tell.
he was an viale range were steve was shooting that day and I was on rodriguez range but we all had to wait.
the target frames have straps or ropes to help you pull them up.
alot of the straps are rotted and from what I gather he pulled on the strap and it broke and he fell over into a pit and thats how he cracked his head.

the other guy and it happened on the same range on the same day had a paster cutter as the paster they use to cover the holes on the targets at perry are large-large squares so a few folks have a special cutter that they run the pasters threw and it cuts them in half to get them down to a normal size paster.
that guy decided to take it apart and cut himself on the razor inside of the cutter.
steve may have more on it but thats what I heard at the time from the pit personel.
that was on the cmp week, I did not have any problems with aircraft on cmp week but several boats and at least one eagle stopage per day while I was there.
those garands sure were fun to watch in the rattle battle.
can't wait till next year. jon

 

[Steve Smith]

Jon has it right, just a rectal-cranial inversion on the paster cutter. #1, don't cut the pasters in half. #2, if you must cut the pasters, don't friggin cut yourself. duh.

I'l be putting together my own "must bring" list for all of us soon, and one thing on it will be a 6-8' length of climbing rope for your pit duty. Cannot trust Perry issue ropes.

Lessons learned and what to bring list will be up in a few weeks I hope.

FWIW, I don't think I'll shoot both weeks next year. NRA week was full of whiners, as I had been told. However, I was squadded with a bunch of Service Rifle shooters, so the local group was great. Both weeks are EXCELLENT but the CMP week was better.

 

[Correia]

Wow. Good shooting Steve. I'm impressed. It sounds like you really were consistently excellent the whole time. That says a lot. It is one thing to be a big fish in a small pond, but you just swam in the biggest pond of all, and did well. Good work.

So I imagine next year your going to win the whole thing right?

Good to have you back.

 

[444]

Correia
You make a great point.
Steve, you shot against the best shooters in the world and held your own. The satisfaction of that must be unbelievable.

 

[EchoSixMike]

Sorry I missed you Steve, I was busy shooting like a chump. Coaching was the only thing I did well. The Garand guys were third relay, low end NTIT, right?

I shot the Garand match with an older gentleman from CO, I believe it was Peter S- something. Relay 4 target 122 Viale after the NTIT. The only match I shot worth a damn in was the Garand match, which didn't really matter since I was using a 1903. I'm not sure what I won since it wasn't the Garand trophy. Guess the CMP will sort it out.

So now the important stuff, who bought what on Commercial row? S/F...Ken M

 

[Steve Smith]

Jeez, guys, lay off, alright? I can't take that.

FYI, Jon did a GREAT job in the NTIT, where I realy screwed up somehow. Great groups, bad placement. Oh well. Bad team wind calls too, but hopefully that will be better next year. Jon did really well in his own right. I know he hated to leave early, and Jon, we wished you were there!

E6M, I can't think of who you're talking about. Possibly Stewart Leach, Randolph Constantine, or Jim Starr? Otherwise he wasn't part of our CO team for whatever reason.

 

[EchoSixMike]

E6M, I can't think of who you're talking about. Possibly Stewart Leach, Randolph Constantine, or Jim Starr? Otherwise he wasn't part of our CO team for whatever reason.<<<<<<

Older guy, maybe 60'ish,he with his wife, seemed to be a junior supporter. Wish I was better with names. S/F...Ken M

 

[Jon Coppenbarger]

echosixmike:
that must of been jim starr as he had his great wife polly with him.
they have been the back bone of the junior program in this state and we would not be were we are at with our juniors with out both jim and polly.
two of the nicest folks you would want to meet.

I believe the garand shooters were mixed in threw the relays exept for the 3rd relay which was set up for most of the military teams so the big teams could fire all together with the same conditions.

steve and I were on the 5th relay in the high 60's to low 70 target range.
we will have alot of practice for it next year from what I can see.
I shot to fast all week, nerves I guess except on the 600 yard line.
shot like a rookie on my off-hand.

 

[SRM]

Well, almost everyone in CO has accused Steve of having pockets full of sand for years.......

Congrats Steve, Jon and 481. Looks like 481 did OK in the leg as well.

SRM

 

[El Rojo]

I got a quick question. In the attached photo above, the targets are up over the berm. Where do the bullets go? Out and about into the distance somewhere or am I missing something. I am just curious. Camp Perry sounds like fun. Sort of makes me want to go even though I don't think I have ever really officially broke 400.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Where do the bullets go?

The bullets go out into Lake Erie - which is well-marked. Hence the periodic stoppages for a "boat in the impact area" and for eagle sightings. I always wonder what kind of numbskull drives their boat past US military warning bouys. Last year during the Garand match, the range officer announced "Cease fire, cease fire. We have a boat in the impact area....unfortunately, we cannot fire for effect". She got a lot of laughs.

Us Garand shooters in the Garand Collector's Association shot relays 1-6 in the NTIT at the lowest end of the Viale range. There ware a few other M1 teams and at least one M1A team I saw. It was pretty humbling pulling targets for a junior AR team behind us getting consistent 24s on 4/6 targets -- and 8s across the board at 300 yards. We were happy to get double digits. Still tons of fun.

 

[444]

"Cease fire, cease fire. We have a boat in the impact area....unfortunately, we cannot fire for effect". She got a lot of laughs.

When I was in the Ohio National Guard we used to fire 40mm guns (M42 Duster) at Camp Perry to the left of the rifle ranges. We fired them at areial targets out over the lake. We had our own boats and heilos out on the lake to keep pleasure boats out of the downrange area. But, at lunch time they would creep in. So, we had one gun crew stay at the range to guard the equipment and also to keep the private boats away. We did this by firing a round of 40mm HEITSD in the area, somewhere around the offending boat. The rounds were SD (self destruct) so they never came back down to earth; they would explode several hundred feet in the air with a tremendous bang and cloud of black smoke. Note: We didn't fire AT the boats, just in the general area with the round exploding high in the air, but close enough that they got the message that those signs were there for good reason.

 

[Steve Smith]

Finally got to a computer with some speed to it. Checked out the NRA site and found that my calculations were correct. I should be receiving my Master card very soon. I am really excited about that, expecially since it was done across the course at Camp Perry. Thanks all for your support guys!

 

[BlindRat]

Congratulations Steve!!

Looks like you're on the bubble on the NTI as well. Let's hope your score gets bumped up a bit as they pull out the "already distinguished shooters"
ahead of you.

Chris.

 

[Steve Smith]

SRM and Blind Rat, thanks, guys, I appreciate it!

 

[OMCHamlin]

Readyontheright, Nice pic of the USN Gold Team, I borrowed it if you don't mind. I captained the USN Blue Team and missed the wind call as well. The words " All guns, gimmie 2 and a half minutes right" will haunt me forever (well, maybe forever is a bit of a stretch....) An extra minute would have put us in there! I said to the guys later, in the pits "Oh, you all were shooting 5.56?" That didn't seem to help much.... Seriously, my M1A would have punched through at 2.5 right I think. Still, we did better then we had in previous years.
Also, get this: I actually let my buds talk me into switching from my M1A to the AR during NRA week! And the first time shooting in competition with one, shot a 197w/5 in the Coast Guard Trophy, went back to the 600 and shot a 194-6. I am converted now. They told me I would like it better and they were right. The darn front sight dosn't even leave the frame in rapids! Gotta be on that wind a little harder with the "mouse" at 6 though.
This was my first time at the Nationals, and boy, was it great. Spent a ton at chiseler's row. Including a bunch of "AR" stuff, cart stuff the Derrick Martin book, an Owen's scope stand, etc.
Congrats, Steve, on your coming Master card!
Chris

 

[ReadyontheRight]

OMCHamlin -- I'll post a few more USN team pics.

 

[ReadyontheRight]

Here's another.