The Louisville Rifle and Revolver Club hosted our annual NRA Bluegrass Regional Prone Championships on May 19th and 20th, 2007. In all, thirty-two shooters, including many KYSRPA members, traveled from around the country to compete in one of the finest smallbore prone matches in the country. The Bluegrass traditionally acts as the unofficial season opener to the summer prone circuit and always is packed full of experienced hard-holders. This year was no exception with four of the nations Top 20 shooters and six of the Top 50 entering the contest.
Exceptionally nice weather blessed us for the weekend, leaving only the ever switching wind to contend with. Reigning NRA Smallbore Prone National Champion, Paul Gideon, Paul Vilmer of Missouri, and Kevin Nevius (2006 third place finisher at Camp Perry) slugged it out for the tightly contested Grand Aggregate. In the end, it was Kevin's scope skills that proved too much for the rest of the field as he finished with a 3193-242x score. Paul Vilmer was second with a 3189-226x followed closely by Paul Gideon's 3187-224x effort.
Fine efforts abounded throughout all the classes. Gary Ware took Expert honors with a very respectable 3169-189x score, and C. Beal's 3124-144xs took the combined Sharpshooter/Marksman class.
For those who might be unfamiliar with this discipline, an NRA Smallbore Prone Rifle Regional is a two day event comprising of a 160-shot Metallic Sight Aggregate on day one and a 160-shot Any Sight Aggregate on day two, for a combined total of 3200 possible points for the Grand Aggregate. Each day is made up of four 40-shot matches as follows: 50 Yard, 50 Meter, 100 Yard, and Dewar where 20 shots are fired at 50 yards and 20 at 100 yards. The event is fired from the prone position with any non-semi-automatic .22LR rifle, singly loaded, with standard velocity, solid-nosed ammunition. The use of magazines is prohibited. The metallic sight phase simply means shooters must not use rifle-mounted scopes or any other optical enhancement. The use of precision aperture sights is preferred. The any sight portion allows the use of any sort of rifle mounted optical enhancement and typically scopes in the 20-36 power magnification are used. Shooting coats and slings are encouraged to aid in position stability. |
