Steel Challenge 2001
This year 5 of us (Karl, Penny, Nathan Taylor, David Birdwell and Jamie Foote) made the trip to Los Angeles to shoot the Steel Challenge, which is one of the best-run and most fun matches around. Nathan and David were making their first trip to the match, and both did well. Penny was 2nd woman in the rimfire match (behind Kay Clark-Miculek, who finished 5th overall in rimfire), and 5th woman in the centerfire match, finishing right behind NRA Bianchi Cup Top Woman Vera Koo. The top 5 women this year were the same as last year, with all 5 women shooting better scores and moving up in the overall finish list.
Karl and Jamie both made the top 32 and the shootoff. This year the match allowed competitors to compete with both Open and Limited guns (or semi-auto and revolver), and about 26 competitors show up twice in the overall scores. Because some top shooters placed in the top 32 with both guns (such as Rob Leatham, who was 2nd overall with his Open gun, and 10th overall with his Limited gun), the 'top 32' shootoff went down into the 40's before 32 names were called. Jamie Foote proved he was equally skilled with revolver and semi-auto, finishing 41st and 42nd with the two guns, and finishing 3rd revolver as well as winning the Browning BuckMark side match on Thursday.
Karl finished 19th overall and drew Kamioka Naoki, from Japan, as a shootoff partner. We were the first team in the shootoff, competing against match winner Doug Koenig and 2nd place finisher Rob Leatham. We did our best, but Rob and Doug managed to bump us out after 2 bouts.
We were lucky enough to end up in Squad 4 with a great bunch of local shooters that made the match even more fun than usual.
Complete match results are here.
There are lots of photos of the stages and the shootoff on the pages below.
If you didn't go: there's always next year. The match has an incredible prize table. This year's had more than $220,000 including $41,000 in cash, and over 60 guns. Karl won a $1400 shotgun, donated by VangComp, for his top 20 finish. Thanks to all the sponsors (listed on the Steel Challenge web page) for their support of this fine match!