Kitty's take on Raton.

[jneihouse]

Thanks to all of you that expressed concern over my silence here on the board. All is well, just been busy.

Here are a few thoughts on the Smallbore and Highpower Nationals held at Raton.

The Whittington Center.....If you haven't been you have to go. This should be a required pilgramage for all shooters of all diciplines. 33000 acres, only roughly 1 percent accessable by vehicle, the rest by horseback. Guided hunts (very expenseive) lots of antelope, mule deer, elk, bear etc all free to look at and photograph. Just past Raton starts the Rocky Mountains. A 30 minute drive will leave you breathless.

Speaking of breathless, the Whittington Center is roughly 6400 feet above sea level. Oxygen is rationed.

Raton itself.....Nice small town. A few good (sorry, not great) restaurents. Food tends to be a little pricey.....Seems to be a direct corelation between the number of animal heads, horns, and skins on the wall to the price of food. The more dead stuff the higher the prices....go figure. Watch out because they try to cover everything with either green or red chili.....

The Sante Fe Trail runs nearby. If you go, bone up on your old west history. Seeing the trail and the historic buildings gives one a new respect for what the settlers went through.....

As you can see from the pictures, it does rain in Raton. Most every afternoon a light rain falls cooling the temps and making the transition from daylight to dusk a nice one. Occasionally it does pour down and hail.

And I don't thing the concept of humidity has reached the high plains. High temps in the upper 80s are very pleasant with 30 percent or less humidity. Evenings will have you reaching for a light jacket. Wonderful. Locals were complaining about the heat......I just smiled.....Bless their hearts.

Well worth the drive is Colorado Springs. Roughly 1 1/2 hours from Raton, Colorado Springs is the home of the US Olympic Training Center. Tours are available. You can visit the shooting training area on your own. This is truely one of our National Treasures.

Got to see a lot of old friends and made some new ones. Was disappointed to not to get to meed my kindred spirit, Bob McAlices' Chimp...Maybe next time.....Made it through the week without getting thrown out of anywhere....that's a good thing.

Statistics...One odd stat was found in the shooters by state. Arkansas sent 10 shooters, New Mexico managed only 12 natives......On the firing line once again Anschutz was far and away the most popular choice of rifle. One CZ452 was listed, one Remington 504. A distant second to the Anschutz was Kimber. In the highpower division Remington 700 actions were the top choice.....No surprise there, a lot of donor guns available at reasonable prices and a lot of aftermarket support.....Most smallbore rifles sported the factory barrel, with Lilja leading the way in replacement barrels. The ammunition of choice for smallbore was Eley, with Tenex being the #1 choice.....Popular highpower calibers were 260 remington, 7-08, and 6.5X55. The new 6.5X47 Lapua was well represented. I shot mine and was very impressed. I shot 123 grain Sierra Match Kings across the choice and didn't ring a ram. And before you ask, yes I did hit my share of rams. Most folks in the 6.5 calibers were shooting 107's at the Chickens, Pigs, and Turkeys and 140 grainers at the ram.

Of course by now most have heard the results. Sanchez won the standerd rifle smallbore National Championship and Cathy Winstead-Severin made a return to the winners circle by winning the Smallbore Hunter Rifle National Championship. In Highpower, Sanchez swept both titles by playing the game he plays best. Shooting consistantly and shooting well and letting the others fall by the wayside.

A great crop of sub junior, intermediate junior, and junior shooters were present. Folks, there are some great shooters coming up, which bodes well for the future of the sport.

I'll post scores and results sometime tomorrow or Thursday.

I also noticed several highpower rifles that broke late in the match. Apparently shooting 6 matches over 3 days puts a lot of strain on the guns as well as the shooters.

Some folks were quite disappointed in the trophy system this year. The "offiicial" reason for cutting out a lot of trophy spots and replacing the trophy with NRA award points. Two schools of thought seemed to prevail. One was "I have enough trophies already and I don't need anymore" and "I paid good money and shot well enough to place and all I got was 5 NRA award points. I'm not sure if the National Championships are supposed to show a profit, but at 140 bucks a pop for Smallbore and 140 for highpower it looks like the funds should be there......I think that shooters are tiring quickly of hearing "It's not in the budget" and of the decision makers changing their minds at the drop of a hat. If the reasoning they use is reasonable they can very well communicate that to the shooters. If we are being fed a bunch of BS then we need to know. Gas, food, and motel accomodations are climbing and the shooters have to have some incentative to attend shoots such as the Nationals. If we don't have better communication between shooters and our leadership then more and more of us are going to cite bugetary constraints as the reason we don't go back.

While on the subject it is proper to bring up the competitor's meetings that are held at the smallbore and highpower nationals. Semi organized bitch sessions, they are a waste of time. I just don't think the Committee is listening with an open mind. I won't waste my time at another.

Anyway, enough rambling. I'll get the highpower pics up and post the link. And, for those of you that would like to have a picture CD with all the pics on it I'll post instructions on how you can get one as soon as I figure my cost of creating and shipping the picture CD's . I've done this in the past and not had great response, but I thought I'd give it another try and see if there is enough of a demand for me to spend time on it.

Kitty

[Bob259]

Great recap....

[Deguello]

Has anyone figured out why it costs $140 to shoot the Nationals at Raton?

[jneihouse]

Because the NRA says so..........

[papabear]

Has anyone figured out why it costs $140 to shoot the Nationals at Raton?

Same reason it costs $6.00 for a sandwich


Monopoly, where else can you win NRA points.......gotta have them. They so cool. My wife and I won 39 points so 241 more and when come back for free ......

[Deguello]

PapaBeer: Now you only need $11 more...

[jneihouse]

During the wind and hail match I snuck in and won 5 NRA dollars......If it hasnt' been said before let me say it. We spend $1000's in travel and in equipment. If you can't afford a 10 dollar trophy just tell us, don't give us 3 or 4 NRA dollars........It is an insult.

I think we ought to put all them together and do something crazy, like pay a young person's entry fee to the nationals.........

Kitty

[Innocent]

Kitty,
The thought of a youngsters entry being paid is great but...if the junior has shot in a state or regional match and placed in the top three of that catagory, he/she has already won a free entry to the nationals in the provision by the NRA.
Coates has even passed on entries that he won to other junior shooters.

As for pooling the points, I have seen Zander and several others throw all the points into a pot and shoot off for it, so there was at least a resonable reward for one shooter.

My sentiments are with yours, do not insult me with 4 to 10 award points for anything but 1st in the class, and anyone in th top five atleast deserve to have their name announced, not "check the board and go to Greg's trailer to collect your points."

Mary

[Jerry G]

10 spots in every class is way and above. I think the top 10 to 15 percent of the shooters in each class should get a reward. The rest should be an also ran.