Rain and the BCRC

So yesterday's rainstorm hit in the runup to the British Commonwealth Match. Here's what the weather pattern looked like when we started:

The motto for this match is "he who finishes first, finishes first". This is because it's shot starting at roughly 5:30pm and goes to close to 9pm (when we MUST stop shooting). Normal format is 1+7 on ICFRA targets at 300, 500, 600yds.

I advised the coaches in advance of the weather forecast and our experience two years ago where even in perfect conditions some of our older shooters could not see the target from 600yds (too dark for them) and the shooting order was adjusted accordingly to put those who were younger (or had better eyes) last up.

So, I was last up. Because I see and shoot well in low light.

The format changed this year because of the rain and we went to simply shooting the 600yd stage with 2 sighters (convertible) and 15 to count. Apparently, I shot quite well with a 71-7 (that's with a mystery magpie 3 that must be attributed to me centering the target poorly in the rain). Coach lost one for wind, and apparently I fumbled another out.

I feel good about the process (my shooting) and the coaching. I broke down my rifle after the match and nary a drop of water got into the bedding. (For the non-shooters, it's important to keep the mating surface between the bottom of the action of the rifle and the interior of the stock "dry" so it doesn't either damage the wood, or cause rust.) So my tape job and rain cover worked just as intended. No blown primers (a sign of water getting in the chamber) and I was quite comfortable in my rain gear.

About the only thing that was difficult were the clouds of steam coming off my barrel in the rain - we were shooting fast enough to heat the barrel very significantly.

I clean the rifle last night and will pay some more attention to the rear sight this morning, re-oiling it.

photo credit: Bianca Fung