100

One of those thrilling moments for a bullseye shooter is when you shoot your first 100 target. I only started shooting bullseye this year, and I hadn't yet shot a 100, either in practice or in competition, until this past weekend. I was practicing timed fire Saturday afternoon when I shot my first 100 target. I'd shot quite a few 99's and 98's, but no 100's. I was pretty excited. I'm holding on to that target until I shoot my first 100 in competition.

What's even more exciting, though, is that I shot two more 100's Sunday morning while practicing rapid fire. It's nice to see that I'm improving.

2400

I shot another 2700 this past weekend, this time down at Central Jersey. I shot another personal best grand aggregate and managed to break 2400 with a, well, um, 2400. (The results are posted here.)

I decided to shoot in the Sharpshooter class this time. I'm still classified as a Marksman, and I would have won the grand aggregate had I shot in that class. I wanted to go ahead and move up, though. Even though winning is fun, I'm mostly interested in improving, and I wanted to be challenged. (Well, okay, the challenge was purely internal, and I'm not sure that I shot any differently, but I wanted to do it, anyway.)

Now my goal will be to get that extra thirty points so I can move up into Expert. It's certainly feasible, although given that I have two more outdoor matches this year, I probably won't make that move this year. But the fall and winter will give me plenty of time to practice.

Speaking of improvement, I only started shooting bullseye this year. In my first 2700, I managed to break 1600 (with three guns, I should probably point out.) I'm now shooting in the mid-2300's. If this trend continues, I expect to break 3000 sometime early next year.[1]

[1] This was a poor attempt at a joke. They call it a 2700 because that's the maximum possible number of points you can score.

Match results -- almost a clean sweep

The match results (with details in PDF) are out for the 2700 I shot this past weekend. I almost managed a clean sweep in Marksman. I won every match but the center-fire rapid fire match, which I lost by either 1 point and 4 X's or two points.

Something else interesting to note from the match is that both the top Expert and the top Sharpshooter out-shot the top Master in the grand aggregate.

Good match/bad match

It was the best of matches, it was the worst of matches.

I shot the 2700 at my club this weekend. It was a good match in that I had personal bests in .22 National Match Course, timed fire, rapid fire, and aggregate; .45 slow fire; and the grand aggregate. OTOH, during the match, I felt like my shooting was absolute crap. Hell, I had a miss on one of the .45 slow fire stages (just outside the 5 ring at 12:00.)

But I think my perception was tainted by expectations. After shooting an 821 .22 aggregate, I thought to myself, "Hey, today might be the day I break 2400." I'd already shot an 800 .45 aggregate, so it wasn't unreasonable to think that. But my performance didn't match my expectations, thus the disappointment.

I haven't gotten the official results yet. It'll be interesting to see how I performed overall.