Thanks for the congrats. It was a registered NBRSA match at 200 yards. I looked at the IBS records after the match and was surprised and satisfied that it was a good result. I was shooting a Heavy Varmint gun. At the end of the round I considered having the targets submitted, but didn't for three reasons: 1) It was a small match and the guy running it was a doing it for the first time (and did a good job), and 2) I'm not sure that the NBRSA is collecting world record data yet for VFS, and 3) I'm the Eastern Region Director (the guy who would be submitting the targets) and I was simply satisfied internally for what my rifle did for me today.
I took the targets off the wall and am going to have them laminated. I'm satisfied that it was a good day shooting and I was amoung good friends who congratulated me. I hope someone in either the IBS or the NBRSA shoots 250 -20X some day and I want to be the first person to congratulate them.
Some other things about the match and the range records. I was shooting a BAT/Scoville 6PPC in a HV stock. The stock actually belongs to George Carter, but has my old rail gun action in it. (I still owe George a HV stock.) Krieger barrel and a locked-up Sightron scope that was bumped to 45 power. I threw the gun together Saturday night and decided at the last minute to not pull one of my Leupold LCS 45's off my group gun. I was shooting 29.8 grs. of '09 N133. That, too, was a guess since I just got the powder and it doesn't weigh the same as my old '01 lot. The bullets were Hottenstein 68's off of Lowell's new 8 ogive die and were the 2011 jackets. They seat .012 off of Lowell's old seating, but seem otherwise to be very much the same bullet that you would expect from Lowell Hottenstein.
On the first target, I took the center out of the first three X's and my last two dropped down a bit due to mirage. I put a "patented Krupa mirage shield" on the gun and shot 5 X's on the second target. It was a pleasure to look through the scope on that gun. About once a year, I experience what I call a "gun on auto pilot" and this was what was happening.
I am honored to set our new WWCCA range record. I started shooting benchrest at WWCCA in score matches in 1995, and I look at every match as if it could be my last today. I can remember when "staying clean" at 100 yards was a big deal and 16 X's would win at 100. Since then, the 100-yard record was set at 250-24X's by Dave Holmes from Canada with a 6PPC and then Larry Feusse at 250-25X's with a .30 BR (or maybe his .30 Gorilla).
The 200-yard record was held by Paul Becignuel at 250-14X's and then by Mario Sanchez at 25-15X's (according to our current records), both with 6 PPC's. I was sitting at 200-15X's at the end of the fourth target and started to get pretty excited about shooting again. Chasing a record is about the most fun someone can get out of shooting; no matter what the result. When I shot four X's target on my last target, my hands were shaking. I haven't felt that excited behind a benchrest rifle in a few years. When I got home and looked at the targets, there were nine complete "wipe outs". What a great rifle!
Records are important, and I considered submitting them. But in the end, I decided to go to the club house and have a cold one with my firends. I would like to see someone shoot 250 -20 X's at 200 in either the IBS or the NBRSA in VFS yards pretty soon so that I won't have any regrets about taking the targets off the wall.