The Paralyzed Veterans of America shoot went awesome this year thank you to EVERYONE who shot and helped out! Great Tri-Tip Ian!
CAL-DIEGO’S 2017 ANNUAL SMALL ARMS SHOOTING EVENT
The BJ Russell Memorial Trapshoot
Jim Russell
Cal-Diego’s 29th annual small arms shooting events took place over three days and two venues on 24, 25 & 26 March 2017 in Riverside County, CA. The event started with our tenth annual center-fire pistol and rifle event on Friday 24 March at the Lytle Creek Firing Range located in Lytle Creek, CA. The range is in a mountain pass at 4,000 feet elevation, so it was a cool morning, and this year there was quit a bit of snow on the mountain tops surrounding the range. Contrary to all of the predictions for rain, we received no precipitation during our time in the mountains. Fortunately, we did have John Plaza event coordinator for PVA Cal-Diego, Andy Mac Donald from National PVA Shooting Sports and Ian Weitzel associate member of PVA Cal-Diego, doing a great job with range duties.
The pistol event consisted of 50 rounds with National PVA providing the ammunition and the contestants providing the pistols, anything larger than a .22 but not larger than a .45 was allowed, iron sights only. The course of fire was ten rounds practice at the 15 yard line followed by ten rounds slow fire, 15 yard line and 10 rounds quick fire also at the 15 yard line. After removing the 15 yard line targets the target stands with fresh targets were moved to the 25 yard line for 10 rounds slow fire followed by 10 rounds timed fire. When that was all over, the top pistol shooter was Kurt Nelson with 354/400, followed by Doug Vann, with 348/400. Great shooting!
Next, the targets were moved to the 100 yard line and each shooter was afforded the opportunity to fire 5 rounds of practice to check their sights. Then we fired the proscribed rifle course, 5 rounds slow fire, prone position, 5 rounds quick fire, prone position, followed by 5 rounds slow fire, standing position and 5 rounds timed fire, standing position. Top shooter, for the fifth year in a row, was Kurt Nelson with 193/200, followed, for the second year in a row, by Brian Delaney with 145/200. Then we had to break down the targets, police the brass and generally make the range in good shape for the next users. When that was all completed, we had a tasty lunch thanks to the efforts of Keith Rheinhardt. Thanks Keith for the good work.
Following the pistol and rifle events we traveled to the Redlands Shooting Park in Redlands, CA for trap shooting practice. Our food providers for the first time were Melissa Johnson and Ian Weitzel, assisted by Hilda Fox along with Sabrina Vann, and Jessie Mac Donald and they all did a great job for our breakfasts and lunches all weekend long. Our menus consisted of; pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausages, biscuits and gravy, coffee, fresh fruit, tri tip, potatoes, fresh green salads, and elk chili, from a female elk captured by PVA vice president Joseph L Fox Sr. Our heartfelt thanks to all of them. Also, our thanks to first time score keeper Ian Weitzel for doing a great job of manning the computer to do the score keeping. We are fortunate to have such dedicated volunteers assisting us.
Outdoor events are always subject to the prevailing weather and fortunately Mother Nature once again, despite dire predictions from the weather services, smiled upon us, we had great weather for the entire weekend.
Saturday and Sunday saw a total of 126 shooters participate, 65 on Saturday and 61 on Sunday. The trap competition consisted of 50 singles, 50 handicap and 25 pair of doubles on both Saturday and Sunday.
We were fortunate once again to have several young shooters from the Redlands Barrel Blasters trap club, a youth group that regularly shoots at the Redlands Shooting Park. All 13 youths shot on both days and acquitted themselves quite well, receiving 3 awards. It is great to see youths continuing to be involved in the shooting sports. The two top youth shooters were Isaac Smith with a 279 followed by Selina Lin with a 276. That’s great shooting. Please, keep up the good work and we hope to see you next year.
We also had one new PVA Cal-Diego member join in the shooting fun, Harry Parmer, and he did a great job at rifle, pistol and trap. Welcome aboard Harry, glad to have you. We also had Ron Jaffe with us on Saturday photographing the shooting. Thanks Ron, your great work is appreciated.
Top scores for Saturday singles included nine perfect scores, 50/50 followed by nine 49’s and eight 48’s. That’s good shooting. Handicap saw no perfect scores and just one 49 followed by four 48’s. Doubles top scores began with two 48’s followed by two 46’s and six 45’s.
Singles on Sunday saw nine perfect scores 50/50 followed by nine 49’s. Handicap saw one perfect score followed by three 49’s and three 48’s. Doubles a little more difficult saw two perfect scores followed by two 49’s and just one 48.
When the dust had settled The Grand Champion for both days was Logan Mountain 296/300 and the BJ Russell award was earned by Doug Vann with 278/300. Good shooting everyone.
The Cal-Diego trap committee consists of the following members; Hilda Fox, Joseph Fox Sr., Melissa Johnson, Bill Palmer, Keith Rheinhardt, Doug Vann, Sabrina Vann, Ian Weitzel, and Jim Russell, all volunteers for PVA Cal-Diego. They are the folks that do the heavy lifting to make these events possible.
Our major sponsors are National PVA, The NRA Foundation, and the Anheuser Busch Corporation plus all of those individuals that pay the entry fee to join with us to make this possible. Our thanks to them for their past and continued support.
All of the scores on this event can be found at PVA.Org/shootingsports. The remaining events on the 19th Annual National PVA Trap Circuit are listed below. Entry forms and complete scores can be found at PVA.Org/shootingsports. We hope to see you there. Happy shooting!
REMAINING SHOOTS ON THE 21ST PVA TRAP CIRCUIT
Edwardsville, IL April 21 – 23
Minneapolis, MN April 28 – 30
Baltimore, MD June 2 – 4
Cedar Rapids, IA June 16 – 18
