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October is like Christmas for Highpower rifle competitors, when the Ben Avery Shooting Facility north of Phoenix hosts the 2007 Western Civilian Marksmanship Program Games and the Creedmoor Cup matches. This is nine back-to-back days of competitions and clinics designed to satisfy that need to punch little holes in paper from 200 to 600 yards away. If that sounds dumb, you don't know anything about golf...
The games start Saturday, Oct. 20 with an M1 Garand clinic (no shooting). Sunday 21 Oct. and Monday, 22 Oct. are the combined John C. Garand/Springfield rifle/Vintage Military Bolt Rifle matches. On Tuesday M1 Garand shooters from the first two matches compete in a Leg match. Wednesday is a non-shooting advanced clinic to improve your Highpower techniques, followed by a practice match on Thursday, a Leg match on Friday, an 80-shot/no sighter across-the-course match on Saturday and a four-man team match on Sunday.
I've already registered online for the matches and programmed my out-of-the-office email responder for that week, when I'll be shooting my Garand the first three days, then switching to my AR-15 the last four days. Of course, the doctor has prescribed daily practice the two weeks preceding the match, so the whole month is going to be a marvelous glut of throwing bullets downrange.
You've still got time to register online to shoot in one or more matches, but you'd better do it quick. If all else fails, you can hang around the last morning and hope to get a spot on a team as a “pickup” player.
Just like golf, target shooting doesn't make much of a spectator sport, but CMP will be at the games with a store full of surplus Garand and Springfield rifles for sale, so there's going to be a lot of non-competitors hanging around. There's also a couple of barbecues happening and a lot of shooters will be camping at the range, so it's going to be quite the event.
Life is good. Load up.
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