Jay Christopherson
Not An Admin
The 2017 Burden Memorial was shot this past Memorial Day weekend at Douglas Ridge Rifle Club, in Eagle Creek, OR. This is a 3-Day NRA Regional, consisting of 2 individual days and 1 team day. The individual days are a combination of a 45 shot Palma match (800/900/1000) followed by a 20 x 1000 iron sight (Day 1) and a 20 x 1000 any/any (Day 2). For F-Class, it's shoot what you rode in with both days.
FWIW, in 2011, this was the first LR match I ever shot and my 5th match ever. I shot a 1226-33X, which really wasn't competitive, but it was pretty eye opening at the time. We won't mention some of the not-so-fun parts of that weekend.
NOTE: The FTR results were really blurry in my picture, so I couldn't make them out. If anyone from that match has them, please post them or let me know. I only know the winner, listed below.
TL'DR Results:
Sling:
The two individual days were hot. Damn hot. Well into the 80's hot. I felt bad for the sling shooters until we got to 1000 and they were shooting in the shade. Then I was just jealous. Conditions were not particularly tough, though the mirage was heavy at times and the wind that did show up did not carry a condition for very long. You generally got 2 - 3 shots out of a particular condition, before having to re-evaluate (personal note on that later). For the Team matches on Monday, the weather gave us a break with near dead calm conditions, 60-ish degrees, and overcast. You really got a chance to see how well you could hold and how well your rifle was shooting.
Sling Notes:
Kerry Spurgin, as I understand it, is a long time smallbore shooter who decided to "try High Power". Clearly he's doing something right as he shot extremely well against a field that includes some of the most proficient HPR shooters that I know. I heard someone suggest he try F-Class, and frankly, we'd be just as happy if he stuck with a sling... I know that there is at least one write up out there from the sling shooters perspective, but as I understand it, it was a very close match all weekend, with a lot of excellent scores being posted.
F-Open:
Open, once again, was hotly contested throughout the weekend. In the end, Keith Glasscock prevailed (again), with myself bringing up the "Cal Naughton Jr." position, and Tod Hendricks rounding out the top 3. Keith just doesn't let up - you really cannot afford to have even a mildly bad relay shooting against him. For myself, on Day 1, I had a "mildly bad relay" at 900, dropping 5 points as I took a few chances trying to chase the condition and paid for it. Those 5 points haunted me the rest of the match as I attempted to make up points, but even with them, I would have been just short. I have to admit I was pretty happy with my X count though. Both of the rifles that I brought to this match shot extremely well.
FTR:
Tom Hubbard won FTR going away - it wasn't close. That's not a knock on the competition he faced, more a statement on how well he shot the entire weekend. His final score (as best I remember) was competitive with the most of the Open shooters even. Really quality work - I've known Tom for a while now and he's really stepped up his game both behind the rifle and in the loading room. I don't know the other top shooters in FTR personally (and really wish I had their scores), but they also scored very high relative to the rest of the pack. Some great shooting going on.
Team Matches:
There were only two F-Open teams and one Sling team, which is unfortunate because the conditions could not have been better for pursuing records. Overcast, nearly dead calm, maybe the best range conditions I've seen outside of Deep Creek.
Sling:
Once again, I only have partial results as I never got a picture of the team results to record. As I understand it, the Wranglers came within 1 point of the National Record and may get on the books under a new NRA record classification system (HM record?). There was a mini-match between them and the two F-Class teams for the match "money" and they certainly cleaned our clocks.
In F-Open, Team High Life took the match win for the 2nd year in a row, albeit with a few different shooters. This year, we pulled from the FTR pool and had John Whitlatch (also on last years team) and Tom Hubbard (FTR MW) shoot with us using Keith Glasscock's rifle and my backup rifle. Even though we had some great coaching, great conditions, and some very stout shooting (and beat the standing record of 1786 by 1 point), we came up just short (1787-98X) of the pending NR of 1789-100X, also coached by Keith. We held a very tight X-ring all day, but DRRC will show you some vertical if you blink and we caught a couple of corners here and there.
FWIW, in 2011, this was the first LR match I ever shot and my 5th match ever. I shot a 1226-33X, which really wasn't competitive, but it was pretty eye opening at the time. We won't mention some of the not-so-fun parts of that weekend.
NOTE: The FTR results were really blurry in my picture, so I couldn't make them out. If anyone from that match has them, please post them or let me know. I only know the winner, listed below.
TL'DR Results:
Sling:
- Kerry Spurgin, 1286-66X, MW
- Wayne Budbill, 1286-61X, 2nd MW
- Anette Wachter, 1284-71X, 3rd MW
- Keith Glasscock, 1289-62X, MW
- Jay Christopherson, 1283-68X, 2nd MW
- Tod Hendricks, 1281-59X, 3rd MW
- Tom Hubbard, 1260-41X, MW
- Kevin Morris, 1238-23X, 2nd MW
- Bob Wilgus, 1236-27X, 3rd MW
The two individual days were hot. Damn hot. Well into the 80's hot. I felt bad for the sling shooters until we got to 1000 and they were shooting in the shade. Then I was just jealous. Conditions were not particularly tough, though the mirage was heavy at times and the wind that did show up did not carry a condition for very long. You generally got 2 - 3 shots out of a particular condition, before having to re-evaluate (personal note on that later). For the Team matches on Monday, the weather gave us a break with near dead calm conditions, 60-ish degrees, and overcast. You really got a chance to see how well you could hold and how well your rifle was shooting.
Sling Notes:
Kerry Spurgin, as I understand it, is a long time smallbore shooter who decided to "try High Power". Clearly he's doing something right as he shot extremely well against a field that includes some of the most proficient HPR shooters that I know. I heard someone suggest he try F-Class, and frankly, we'd be just as happy if he stuck with a sling...
I know that there is at least one write up out there from the sling shooters perspective, but as I understand it, it was a very close match all weekend, with a lot of excellent scores being posted.F-Open:
Open, once again, was hotly contested throughout the weekend. In the end, Keith Glasscock prevailed (again), with myself bringing up the "Cal Naughton Jr." position, and Tod Hendricks rounding out the top 3. Keith just doesn't let up - you really cannot afford to have even a mildly bad relay shooting against him. For myself, on Day 1, I had a "mildly bad relay" at 900, dropping 5 points as I took a few chances trying to chase the condition and paid for it. Those 5 points haunted me the rest of the match as I attempted to make up points, but even with them, I would have been just short. I have to admit I was pretty happy with my X count though. Both of the rifles that I brought to this match shot extremely well.
FTR:
Tom Hubbard won FTR going away - it wasn't close. That's not a knock on the competition he faced, more a statement on how well he shot the entire weekend. His final score (as best I remember) was competitive with the most of the Open shooters even. Really quality work - I've known Tom for a while now and he's really stepped up his game both behind the rifle and in the loading room. I don't know the other top shooters in FTR personally (and really wish I had their scores), but they also scored very high relative to the rest of the pack. Some great shooting going on.
Team Matches:
There were only two F-Open teams and one Sling team, which is unfortunate because the conditions could not have been better for pursuing records. Overcast, nearly dead calm, maybe the best range conditions I've seen outside of Deep Creek.
Sling:
- Washington Wranglers, 1795-??X, MW
- Todd Branin (448-??X), Michael Storer (447-??X), Anette Wachter (450-??X), Wayne Budbill (450-??X) shooting
- Gary Rasmussen, David Littlefield, coaching
- High Life, 1787-98X, MW
- Jay Christopherson (448-29X), Tod Hendricks (443-23X), John Whitlatch (449-27X), Tom Hubbard (447-19X) shooting
- Keith Glasscock, coaching
- Oregon F-Open, 1779-??X, 2nd MW
- Bill Brown, Keith Ague, Jeremy Smith, Steve Zock, shooting
- Kevan Hoffarth, coaching
Once again, I only have partial results as I never got a picture of the team results to record. As I understand it, the Wranglers came within 1 point of the National Record and may get on the books under a new NRA record classification system (HM record?). There was a mini-match between them and the two F-Class teams for the match "money" and they certainly cleaned our clocks.
In F-Open, Team High Life took the match win for the 2nd year in a row, albeit with a few different shooters. This year, we pulled from the FTR pool and had John Whitlatch (also on last years team) and Tom Hubbard (FTR MW) shoot with us using Keith Glasscock's rifle and my backup rifle. Even though we had some great coaching, great conditions, and some very stout shooting (and beat the standing record of 1786 by 1 point), we came up just short (1787-98X) of the pending NR of 1789-100X, also coached by Keith. We held a very tight X-ring all day, but DRRC will show you some vertical if you blink and we caught a couple of corners here and there.
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