2022 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship – Final Results

Saturday, September 3, 2022 was a calm sunny day, that turned challenging as the morning continued to noon. Twenty-four (24) competitors competed for the Michigan Championships.

For this match, we combined Palma, Service and Any Rifle shooters into a single category.  The match winner was Gary Duda using a Palma Rifle with a score of 596-27.  He was trailed by John Luitnik with a 593-19 and Peter Church with a 592-33.

Of note, Jason Quayle firing a service rifle briefly had a 200-8 in his first string. Unfortunately, his target was configured for a .30 bullet, however, he was using a 223 Remington.  Given the few thousandths difference between the a .308 and a .224  I did not expect to see a change, but one close round converted to a “9” as a result of a change.  Jason’s 199-8 was still his highest 600 yard score. Good job, Jason!

In F-Class the F-open winner was Dave Monette with a 599-36, followed by Marcel Bollinger with a 598-35, and Don Hicks with a 597-36.  For F-TR Jim Grissom was high in a small turnout with a 591-22.

2022 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship

The next match at Midland will be the 4th of the Suburban Mid-Range prone league on September 17, 2022.  Program is: 2022 Suburban Mid-Range Prone League

2020 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship

The 2020 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship was held on Saturday, September 5, the year of the Coronavirus (2020). There was a few of milestones reached for this match:

  1. The largest turnout we have ever had. We had 32, which is capacity. We have had matches prior that filled to capacity the week before, but with “morning of” cancelations we had never had a full line before.
  2. During this match we added competitor 424 in our database (Robert O’Donnel). At the same time we had competitor 1 from the database (Ed Gostomski) as a competitor.
  3. For the first time in a long, long time, we had more sling shooters than F-class (Thank you, Jamie Root!).
  4. We had sufficient entries to have awards for five categories: F-Open, F-TR, Any Rifle, Palma Rifle, and Service Rifle.

The day was overcast and ultimately rainy. After a vote was conducted it was decided to shoot the entire match at 600 yards, and to deploy our rain covers on the line. So, you tended to get damp when you weren’t shooting, but you and your equipment stayed dry while you were shooting.

So, we have quite a list of winners:

Any Rifle: Chris Whitney with a 599-37X, out Xing Matt Wieczorek who posted a 599-25X.

F-open: Mike Ruhlman wins in a run away with 598-34X besting Dave Strycharz with a 593-25X.

F-TR: Doug Boyer with a score almost high enough to win in F-Open 598-33X. It was a contest with Austin Nelson finishing second with a 596-34X.

Palma: Hanne Brantner won the Palma Category with a dominating 598-39X over Jamie Root with a 593-29X. Since Hanne is not a Michigan Resident, Jamie is named high Michigan Palma Shooter.

Service Rifle: Tim Plowman fired a 587-20 besting Brock Murphy who fired a 583-22X. Unfortunately, neither Tim nor Brock are Michigan Residents, so Gordon Mason is named high Michigan Service Rifle Shooter.

2019 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship Results

On a sunny, cool beginning of Labor Day weekend, thirty competitors took part in the 2019 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship at the Midland County Sportsman’s Club.

The day resulted in some outstanding performances.  Jack Abrams won the Any Rifle (Any sight sling shooters) with a 595-29X.  Jack used a scoped rifle with LoaderMonkey ammunition.  In second was Steve Bair with a 595-19X using an iron sighted Palma Rifle.  A great performance by both.

In the F-TR Category, Sydnie Lipski, a Junior from Hubbard Lake bested the field with a 590-30X, beating second place shooter Austin Nelson with a 589-26X by a single point and four X’s.

F-Open was won by repeat winner Marcel Bollinger with a 595-29X leading Ed Gostomski’s 590-24X.  Notably, the conditions must have been worse that last year, Marcel had posted a clean 600, a year ago.

We had a few bumps in the road during the match, but we may have learned from them.  At 300 yards, we were unable to open the file folder on the running access point.  So there was no way to see past strings.  We were concerned that this might be the precursor of worse things to come, so we switched over to another access point for 500 yards.  Unfortunately, for reasons that we suspect, but have not yet been confirmed, that access point was displaying shots 20-30 seconds after the round was fired.  At 600 yards we went back to the original access point and performance once again jumped to 1-2 seconds for each shot.  We still couldn’t open the files folder, but the performance was excellent.  We are exploring with the Shot Marker manufacturer why that might be.

Way on the right on target eight, Ray Gross and Leo Cebula were getting wide unexplained shots at 500 yards.  Since I’m old enough (Leo) to not always see well, I attributed it to my vision.  However, Ray was using a scoped AR, and had no trouble seeing.  After a little detective work we realized our bullets were penetrating the lower foliage of the tree on the far right of the range.  Ray removed some lower branches and leaves before the 600, and I (Leo) was able to shoot a decent 600.  Ray, firing an AR, that was likely not as flat as my 80.5 Bergers at 3050 fps, shot his string on target 3.  Both of our scores were dramatically higher.  I think this means its time for some more landscaping at Midland.  At least on Target eight.

2019 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship

Our next Suburban Mid-Range Prone League match is on September 21, 2019.  The program is here:  2019 Suburban Mid-Range Prone Championship

2019 Michigan Fullbore Rifle Prone Championship Results

On May 25, 2019 the Michigan Fullbore Rifle Prone Championship was held.  We had twenty competitors who chanced a poor weather report and came to shoot. Fortunately, we had nice weather, some overcast, gentle winds.  However, it did rain.  Shortly after the targets were put away we had some sprinkles.

Of the Twenty (20), we had nine (9) F-Open Competitors, four (4) F-TR, and surprisingly seven (7) Target Rifle (sling) competitors.

The Winner and State Champion for F-Open was Marcel Bollinger with a 445-18X.  F-TR was won by Steve Goyette with a 437-14X.  Target Rifle was won by Leo Cebula with a 447-21X.

Championship plaques will be available at the Suburban Mid-Range Prone June League Match on June 15, 2019.  Program is available:  2019 Suburban Mid-Range Prone Championship

2019 Fullbore Rifle Prone Championship

2018 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship Results

It was the best of times, it was the worse of times….

Saturday, September 1, 2018 started out as a good, if a little humid day.  More importantly all the targets were operational (all eight), and we had twenty-five (25) competitors.  Towards the end, however, things got nasty.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photos are of my home office with the score sheets arrayed to dry.  It got wet.

However, some very good performances were recorded:

Any Rifle Champion:  Chris Whitney  597-37

F-Open Champion:  Marcel Bollinger  600-37  (I believe this to be the first 600 clean shot at Midland on a 300-500-600 course of fire – Outstanding performance)

F-TR Champion:  Josh Moore:  599-41

Junior Champion:  Sydnie Lipski  598-39

The complete results are available here:

2018 Michigan Mid-Range Prone Championship Results

Our next match is on September 22, 2018, and will be the September Mid-Range Prone League match.  Program is available here:

2018 Suburban Mid-Range Prone League

 

2018 Michigan Fullbore Rifle Championship Results

On one of the first days this year that it was actually hot, 19 competitors completed the Michigan Fullbore Rifle Championship.  We had a few no shows, and three withdrawals (heat, rifle issues were the major culprits).

Then the Techno-Gods decided to strike.  First two targets failed to function, then after finding a broken cable on one, and just a loose connection on the other, we did our move to 500.  Where upon, our master server died by issuing an error message, and could not be convinced to resurrect itself.  That forced the use of the targets directly, which worked okay, except not all targets had the 500 yard F-Class and Target rifle targets.  After finding away through that goat rodeo, we moved to 600 yards, where all of the targets operated.  Amazingly, we didn’t finish much later than we expected.

We had eight (8) F-Open competitors, Mark Ruhlman of Charlevoix was the F-Open Champion with a score of 443-9X.

In the F-TR category we had six (6) competitors, with John Pierce besting Josh Moore with a 444-25X, bettering Josh with a 443-22X.

Lastly amongst the sling shooters, we had five (5) competitors.  Dan Altman from Ohio won with a 449-32X. Dan becomes the match winner, but because he is not a Michigan resident, the second place shooter, Chris Whitney with a 448-24X became the Michigan Target Rifle Champion.

2018 Michigan Fullbore Rifle Championship Results

2017 Michigan Fullbore Prone Championship Results

On Saturday, May 27, 2017 the Midland County Sportsman’s Club ran the 2017 Michigan Fullbore Rifle Championship.  We had a beautiful day, and twenty-one (21) competitors enjoyed gentle conditions for the match.

The course of fire included ten (10) shots at 300, 500 and 600 yards, followed by a single fifteen (15) shot string at 600 yards.

Our turn-out was sufficient to provide three (3) State Champions:  Target Rifle (the dudes with the slings), F-Open, and F-TR.  Target Rifle was won by Peter Church with a 449-35X,  Pete was chased by Jake Bondy with a 447-19X.  F-Open was won by Marcel Bollinger with a 445-21X.  F-TR was won by John Pierce with a 448-28X, who out Xed John Droelle, who posted a 448-21X.

Left to right:  Marcel Bollinger, F-Open Champion; John Pierce, F-TR Champion; and Peter Church, Target Rifle Champion.

2017 Michigan Fullbore Prone Championship

The next competition at Midland will be held on June 10, 2017, and will be match two (2) of the Suburban Mid-Range Prone League.  Program is here.