Bucks County Schützenfest

The Irish Armalite  acquitted itself well. Now was the time for my Swiss Miss to shine!

Last time at the Swiss matches, I didn’t have my game face on and it showed. This time I was prepared.

The first match; as always, is the Obligatorisches Programm or the Swiss qualification course. You have to pass this during the season or nothing else counts!

The first part is fired on the A5 target. Yeah, I let one slide wide.

The second part is fired on the much hated B4 target. It is scored as follows.

Despite the two low shots, I can hold my head up as I passed the qualifier!

OK, on to the Feldschiessen match. It is fired entirely on the B4 target.

The first half is a mix of slow and timed fire. I hammered it, only dropping two points.

The second portion starts with three rounds timed fire followed by six rounds rapid fire. Rapid fire on the B4 is daunting to say the least!

Yeah it got a little wild but I managed to post a medal score! So now I am guaranteed a silver medal at the end of the season. But the fight continues to see who gets the single gold medal for top shooter.

The last match for the day, the Einzelwettschiessen. To date, I have never won a medal in this match. I have always come close but missing by a point or two. Ten rounds in ten minutes in the prone position on the A10 target. It is the same size bull as the A5 but with much tighter scoring rings.

I fired my first shot then nervously looked through my nearby spotting scope. A “10”!

My next two rounds were a pair of “9”s high and low stringing vertically. I made the decision to forgo the spotting scope for the remaining rounds. I knew my zero was spot on and I didn’t want to over think things. The next seven rounds thundered down range at a leisurely pace. Not keeping a running score helped me to concentrate on each trigger squeeze.

And then, it was all over. I didn’t even watch as the score was tallied. And then the match director spoke…

“John, with no points to spare, you have earned an Einzelwettschiessen medal!”