tomdagadget

Stages and Round Counts should be up by the end of this week. Just finished up match #4(or is it 5?) so i should have the time to finalize stages and what to bring Tom Here's the round counts: 57 rifle 60 pistol 56 shot 20 slugs There will be 9 stages. The most distant rifle shot will be around 300 yards. See you at the match. Tom Chambers Range Master

Stages and Round Counts should be up by the end of this week. Just finished up match #4(or is it 5?) so i should have the time to finalize stages and what to bring Tom

I'd like to add my thanks to the staff and to the shooters for putting up with the heat and long days. The previous week it was 42 and raining! One of the depressing aspects of matches in this particular day and age is the absence of volunteers. While we had a lot of folks come out and put the match on the ground we could have used several more RO's. On the other hand one of the reasons I keep going in this sport is the willingness of shooters and others to step up and help out in a pinch. Shooters Carol, Becca, Dave, and Ron all did yeoman's work, RO'ing, running side matches, and gathering score sheets. Brianna (my girlfriend) at her 2nd match ever as an "observer" ended up hauling in ice and verifying score sheets for 2 days while her son Kiran got to harass Bruce. We knew the door was going to be controversial on the way into the match but came up with what we considered to be the most equitable way to handle it. Yes, it would have been nice to have allowed folks a chance to practice on the door but we would have run out of plugs about half way through the match. Shutting down Saturday before all the squads had finished was a tough call to make but by that time I was tripping over bodies in the Stat Shack. As our illustrious President had mentioned to me in the long ago, just because we can kill off the staff by overworking them doesn't mean we should. That goes for shooters as well. Nothing scarier than a shooter with a gun in his/her hand wending their way through a stage while suffering from heat exhaustion Fortunately everybody recovered and we managed to post most of the finals around 2 pm and those who stuck around for the finger food, awards, and prize table seemed to have a good time. Finally, I'd like to thank Norm Bright and Steve Graham for helping me finish tearing down and loading up the stages for the trip back to Albany Monday, and for Mike McCarter for being there, as always!, to help me unload. Adios! Tom Chambers Range Master 2008 A1 Pistol

If you're shooting tomorrow or Sunday expect it to be Warm! Had a couple of RO's get hit hard by the heat today. While we have water on the stages you might think about bringing your own. Sunscreen is going to be a must. Tom Chambers

After careful deliberation it has been decided that the USPSA's US Junior Invitational Match has been cancelled. Mike McCarter, USPSA Junior Coordinator and (former) Match Director asked that the match be cancelled after receiving only a handful of applications. Both Mike and I realize that there are a number of high quality matches being put on this summer, including the Area 1 Pistol, in close proximity to the original dates for the Junior match and that travel costs have skyrocketed this year due to gas prices. Thank you for those who expressed an interest in this match. Tom Chambers

Okay, Boys and Girls, it's official. The NEW Dates for the Area 1 Multi Gun are...August 22nd through August 24th, 2008. After looking at our options Mike and I decided that this was the best fit we could come up with. See my previous post for our reasons. We are going to explore a couple of different scenarios for the match itself. Instead of having a relatively static long range rifle stage we are going to attempt to have a 'Jungle Run' involving plenty of movement, lots of targets, and the opportunity to shoot at around 250-300 yards at the end. In fact, we do not plan to use the main rifle or shotgun ranges at the club at all. There is also the possibility that there will be a fun shoot stage at the match. The match fee will be $85 If you have questions send me an e-mail. We are always looking for staff (shoot for free, other stuff). We should have the entry form up at nassonline.org 'soon'. Tom Chambers Rangemaster Area 1 Multi Gun

After all the vacation scheduling challenges people have talked about.. I really hope not... At this time we are exploring moving the Area 1 Multi Gun Championship Dates to August 22nd-24th. THIS IS NOT OFFICIAL YET. We have contacted the Area 1 Director to see if this is OK with him. When the World Shoot was moved back to October that caused a domino effect on the dates for the US Pistol Nationals, which moved them into the week before our original dates. Since a number of our staff will most likely be working and/or shooting the Pistol Nationals we decided to look at other dates. Albany Rifle and Pistol Club has other disciplines that have scheduled events and we needed to avoid conflict with them. Pushing the dates back would have a good chance of running into nasty weather. Pushing it into July would have impacted several other big matches, leaving us with the, hopefully, new dates in August. I realize this might be an inconvenience for some but we do have to look at the issues of sufficient staff and minimal conflicts with major matches. As soon as we find out if we can move the dates we will post that information. Tom Chambers Range Master Area 1 Multi Gun

Barry, it was great to see you at A2 and nice to hear you made it back home! See you next year! Tom Chambers

The 2008 Area 1 Pistol Championship will be held at Tri-County Gun Club in Sherwood, OR. The dates are June 26 for the staff match and June 27-29 for the regular match. At this time we anticipate the entry fee to be $95. This is the same venue as the 2006 A1 Match. The same core group from '06 is putting this match on. You can expect an even more lavish prize table than we had in 2006. We are planning on 12 stages and a fun shoot. The prize table is probably going to be by order of finish instead of a random drawing. We will have a web site up soon with more info and forms. Tom Chambers Range Master

I don't know if we'll do the MOR again. 5 shooters this year doesn't equate to a lot of interest for the amount of work setting up stages for the MOR and then resetting them for the regular match. IF I do it again it might just be a one stage, maximum range kind of a deal like they're doing at the A1 Pistol Match. And yes, Mike and I are exploring the possibilities of doing the Multi Gun next year but its just at a "let's talk about it" stage right now. Tom Chambers

Back in 2001, when Mike and I first thought up North American Shooting Sports, our dream was to become the "Have Props, will Travel" guys. But logistics keep getting in the way of that golden dream. Imagine the size of the rig(s) needed to haul all the stuff we had at the match this weekend. About 100 walls, tons of steel, 200 target stands( well, 187), awingers, activators, props, various and sundry other items that would require at least two semis and that was for just 10 stages. Your right, putting on a big match is hurdle many small clubs can't get over. One thing that has been a boon for us in the Willamette Valley is to pool the resources of the 3 local clubs for Sectional and Area matches. That works because there's mutual trust amongst the three clubs and the willingness to make things work. And oh, by the way, just send us money-for the props! Tom Chambers

The match results are up at nassonline.org or uspsa.org-thanks Brian! The MOR Match was won by Dave Neth, Gordon Baladad took 2nd, and Chuck Anderson was 3rd. Gordon, you left before I could give you your prize money but we'll send you a check. A personal thanks to all of the RO's who really had to hustle their squads around after we experienced major delays on the long range rifle stage, which ended up being tossed. The domino effect took over and we ended up having to scramble to get the rest of the match done. Another thanks to the shooters who had to put up with the delays. Mike and I are talking about if we want to continue putting on multi gun matches. I think that after the pain goes away we'll sit down and look at doing one next year, if it pencils out. I can tell you that the match fee is definitely going up, probably closer to $100. We really couldn't afford any major advertising on our current budget and some of those props are getting pretty tired. And we'll probably look at holding a match(if we do this again) later in the summer or early fall to avoid issues with the grass seed farmer and the long range rifle spot. The guy held off harvesting for our match but we can't expect him to lose part of his crop and we can't set out anything closer than 300 yards without damaging his grass. Albany is talking about adding another 6 bays to the south of the 'upper' bays which would give us some more options. I've put in my ideas of making those bays deeper to get us more options for multi gun. The issue with the long range stage will be resolved by next year, I hope, if we can get a time cap initiated for rifle stages, based on some type of distance/number of targets/??? matrix to determine the max allowed time. For those of you who kept saying "Time Fire" that won't work with steel and I wouldn't want to create another set of confusing rules for pistol and/or shotgun. Thanks again for all the folks who came out to help set up and for all of you that came out to shoot... Tom Chambers Range Master 2007 Area 1 Multi Gun

There are a number of good places to eat in Albany. Newport Bay Seafood, Novak's Hungarian Resturant, and others. If I get a chance this morning, after I get to the range I'll look up some others and post them. Tom Chambers

Just to put this to rest... Being the curious sort I wondered how you could get the bolt to return without an intact buffer spring so I pulled mine out of my Colt HBAR to see what would happen. To get the bolt to return(and that is a very loose term, pardon the pun) I had to use a screwdriver to coax the bolt forward from the rearward position after pulling the operating rod back since the rod doesn't assist in getting the bolt forward. Not safe and not very competitive. Rumors and innuendos aside, I will allow AR style rifles to be used with the gas disconnected or otherwise rendered inoperable and the buffer spring in place. If, for some reason anyone is still upset about allowing them AR's into the Side Match, then don't shoot it-that'll show me. Enough said Tom Chambers Range Master 2007 Area 1 Multi Gun Championship Match Director, MOR Side Match

Tom, Travis w/MGM Targets here. You stated that an AR rifle with the gas tube removed would qualify, but all operation must be done manually including the ejecting and loading of a fresh round. My question is does the spring pushing the bolt forward to load the next round qualify as manually inserting the next round? If it does, that is great and I'll be there. If it doesn't, the only other bolt action gun I have is a 300WM so I'll have to keep looking for one! Thanks and take care. TG Travis, the gun cannot automatically cycle the next round into the chamber. As long as you pull the operating rod back to eject the spent round you can let the spring chamber the next round. Hope this answers your question. Tom Chambers Range Master