Well, I was hoping to follow the other Match with a tale of soul-stirring Triumph at the Quigley, but alas, it was (mostly) not meant to be.

Got into Forsyth the Wednesday before the Match, just as they were fixing up a water main that had burst somewhere downtown. No problem with water flow, but we were advised to boil the water before drinking it for the rest of the time I was there. It added some verisimilitude to the adventure, at least for those of us who read of the Old Buffalo Hunters having to drink Buffalo Whizz out of Buffalo Wallows, just to survive in the summer heat.

Practice days I did pretty well, with several hits in a row on the offhand Bucket and a general agreement in elevation settings for both days of practice on all the targets. I had hopes of getting a 30, reasonable expectations of a 28, but wound up with a 26, and was lucky to get that, I think.

Started out with a 4 on the Octagon, which was pretty bad, even for me. There was only a mild breeze going at this point, adding to the disgrace. Then I sort of hit my stride, I guess; 6 on the Postage Stamp, 7 on the Diamond and 5 on the Rectangle.

Was hoping for 4 or 5 on the Buffalo the next day and maybe 2 on the Bucket, but the wind was blowing up a gale and I only got 3 and 1, respectively. At least I didn't get skunked on any target. I was 150th out of 575; almost in the Top 25%. So I guess others were having their troubles, too.

The load for the sit-down targets was modified 348 Winchester cases, Federal Gold Medal Match Large Pistol Primers, punched out target paper primer wads, 80 gr Olde Eynsford 1Fg, 1/16" cork wad, little or no compression and the Red River Rick 456-457 gr concave base boolit, 1:16 pewter and Strathmore 0.0015" paper. I used a slight mouth reduction to keep the boolits from falling out of the shells. For the offhand Bucket, I used neck turned .348W cases, Remington 9-1/2 Large Rifle Primers, no primer wad, 77 gr of OE 1-1/2Fg, a Walters 0.454" wad, compression QS, and a Rapine 0.446" 340-gr grease groove boolit, lubed with 3:1 mutton tallow/beeswax. I used a blow tube. There isn't the room for all the fouling control paraphernalia needed for paper patch boolits on those little platforms at the Offhand range.

I'd run out of the Federal GMM LPPs, and counted myself lucky in finding a couple flats of them (presumably new manufacture) at Sportsman's Warehouse, (not cheap) but now, I dunno. Had a number of failures to fire both during practice and during the Match. They all fired with the second snap, but I've never had new primers do that before, and only a few of the old primers I used to buy from people getting rid of their leftovers ever did that, either. They did the same thing loaded into .45-70s in another rifle, so I don't think it was a mechanical problem. I wonder sometimes if these shortages aren't encouraging shortcuts in manufacture to get something (anything) out on the market. It certainly does nothing to help your concentration.

But it was a great time as always. Saw bunch of friends on the way up and back, and at the Match itself, and the drive was spectacular as usual. I won a MVA B5 telescope sight as a door prize, so I was a big winner in any case.