Ladies and Gentlemen,
I’m home from the long and exciting weekend that was our Great Lakes Invitational from Southern Michigan Gun Club (SMGC). I’ve been accused of writing long match reports. Well, a short one wouldn’t do this match justice. This was the Match of the season for the Great Lakes region and it turned out to be the best, most highly contested Benchrest match that we have seen locally in a very long time.
Before I go into who shot this way or that way. We have some well earned “Thank Yous" to mention. Firstly The Club, Chris Martin the Pneumatics Director at SMGC spearheaded the movement to get this match going. He came to me Early this spring and we chatted about the idea, and there was little time to waste in getting everything ready in order to pull this match off. Eric Simmons (My Son) and my IT guy helped us with the design for the match logo, which was used in our advertising and our tee-shirts, and trophies. Michelle Becigneul, (my very forgiving Wife) basically spent many hours with me getting things such as targets and target frames and and awards worked through. Francis Becigneul,(my Father) who’s been shooting with us and running centerfire matches at Harrison has been printing target labels that we’ve been sticking to our targets to make it so much cleaner and easier for me and the shooters. For the catering we used Chris Martin, and his right hand man Mike Aspan. Mike Aspan drove from Chicago suburbs and spent his time helping us. The 2 of these guys basically fed an army of air rifle benchrest shooters this past weekend. Food was delicious, and perfectly timed with our activities. One of the Items was an awesome chocolate cake donated and cooked by the infamous Dave Lovio (Cake Dave). We had a few shooters, Donnie Reed, and Michael Gann come up from Ohio… These two work with Dennis Baker of Baker Airguns. Dennis has been very supportive of our Pneumatics program, and had sent 10 Gift Certificates with Donnie and Mike as awards to shooters in our program. We shooters need to remember this and be sure and patronize Dennis’ shop, “Baker Airguns”. Throughout the summer getting things ready Chris Martin came to me with some volunteers from the club as we needed to put together a target crew to ease some of my load through the day. Bill Mehl, and Terry Wood did a great job and took time out of their weekend to help me immensely by doing the leg work that I just couldn’t do. These guys probably could have been doing some shooting of their own, but they helped us. Also throughout the Summer any help we needed along the way, Mark King, John Ayers, and Greg Vaughan were right there to help. Thank You all above, we couldn’t have done this without you.
Now getting into the match results. We shot 4 classes of Rifle, HV, LV, Open, and Sporter. As shooters preregistered they were given the opportunity to choose to shoot 2 rifles, or 1 rifle twice. Most chose 2 rifles, which set them up for a 2 Gun Aggregate. The classes that we chose for the 2 gun were Sporter / Heavy, Light / Heavy, and Open / Heavy. Most of our shooters chose the Hv or the Open as their primary rifle, and therefore, Heavy / Open was our most contested class. We also had a fair number of shooters that only shot the Sporter.
In the sporter class we had Mark King, Albert Duster, Alan Moerdyk, and John Ayers. Albert Duster and Nancy drove from North Central Pennsylvania to come to our match. Mark King topped that Class, Al Duster coming in second, and Alan Moerdyk third. Some very good scores were posted by these guys, and you know they have been practicing.
Light Varmint class we had 2 shooters, Vern Bouws, and Michelle Becigneul. Man was Verns Air Arms working well and he did a great job steering it. Michelle came in second also with some very good scores.
Heavy Varmint class, we had the most shooters. Joe Chapman, Michelle Becigneul, Francis Becigneul, Ryan Parks, Tom Evans, Eric Simmons, Donnie Reed, Michael Gann, Greg Vaughan, John Ayers, Mike Hagerty, and Rod Parks. Greg Vaughan smoked everyone by shooting a 248 on all 3 of his targets, plus 2 more targets that were on his next Aggregate, his total for the day was 1485-54 out of 1500-150 possible. Second in HV was Eric Simmons, and third was Joe Chapman. We had, sun, puffy clouds, cool weather, and a rain last night which made for some tricky mirage. All the shooters did real well. Michael Hagerty drove from south central Illinois to compete with us again. And Donnie and Mike drove from Columbus Ohio Area. We had the Great Lakes Region covered
Open class we had “Cake Dave Lovio”, Joe Chapman, Francis B, Ryan Parks,Tom Evans, Donnie Reed, Michael Gann, Mike Hagerty, and Rod Parks. On Friday during practice, Cake Dave showed up with a rifle he got from Chris Martin. He was going to shoot the match with this rifle, and Francis and I talked with him and helped him “Tune” the rifle for the match. The rifle had been a very good shooting rifle, but for some reason was just not performing at it’s best. All of a sudden this thing just came alive again. Dave seemed satisfied how it was shooting. I guess so. He basically Ran away with the Open Class recording a 744-27, and a 737-25, totaling 1481-52 out of 1500. Only his 744 score was used in the class, and he lead the class. In second place was Joe Chapman with 740-31, then Michael Gann with 732-12, then Tom Evans with 731-26.
So those are the individual placings in the single gun aggregate. The 2 Gun Aggregate that was really contested was the HV/ Open. Joe Chapman, One of regular “hard to beat” guys won the “Great Lakes Invitational 2 Gun Aggregate’ with a combined score of 1474-54 Xs. Second was Eric Simmons with 1468-55 Xs, and Third was Tom Evans with 1462-45 Xs.
Below I’ll attach a word file with the full score sheet.
I’m tired and it’s time for bed. But I need to say, as much work as we put into this, It was definitely worth every hour, knowing that the competitors and the sponsors and the club got every hours worth out of this event.
View attachment Great Lakes Invitational Scores final.1632700185.docx
I’m home from the long and exciting weekend that was our Great Lakes Invitational from Southern Michigan Gun Club (SMGC). I’ve been accused of writing long match reports. Well, a short one wouldn’t do this match justice. This was the Match of the season for the Great Lakes region and it turned out to be the best, most highly contested Benchrest match that we have seen locally in a very long time.
Before I go into who shot this way or that way. We have some well earned “Thank Yous" to mention. Firstly The Club, Chris Martin the Pneumatics Director at SMGC spearheaded the movement to get this match going. He came to me Early this spring and we chatted about the idea, and there was little time to waste in getting everything ready in order to pull this match off. Eric Simmons (My Son) and my IT guy helped us with the design for the match logo, which was used in our advertising and our tee-shirts, and trophies. Michelle Becigneul, (my very forgiving Wife) basically spent many hours with me getting things such as targets and target frames and and awards worked through. Francis Becigneul,(my Father) who’s been shooting with us and running centerfire matches at Harrison has been printing target labels that we’ve been sticking to our targets to make it so much cleaner and easier for me and the shooters. For the catering we used Chris Martin, and his right hand man Mike Aspan. Mike Aspan drove from Chicago suburbs and spent his time helping us. The 2 of these guys basically fed an army of air rifle benchrest shooters this past weekend. Food was delicious, and perfectly timed with our activities. One of the Items was an awesome chocolate cake donated and cooked by the infamous Dave Lovio (Cake Dave). We had a few shooters, Donnie Reed, and Michael Gann come up from Ohio… These two work with Dennis Baker of Baker Airguns. Dennis has been very supportive of our Pneumatics program, and had sent 10 Gift Certificates with Donnie and Mike as awards to shooters in our program. We shooters need to remember this and be sure and patronize Dennis’ shop, “Baker Airguns”. Throughout the summer getting things ready Chris Martin came to me with some volunteers from the club as we needed to put together a target crew to ease some of my load through the day. Bill Mehl, and Terry Wood did a great job and took time out of their weekend to help me immensely by doing the leg work that I just couldn’t do. These guys probably could have been doing some shooting of their own, but they helped us. Also throughout the Summer any help we needed along the way, Mark King, John Ayers, and Greg Vaughan were right there to help. Thank You all above, we couldn’t have done this without you.
Now getting into the match results. We shot 4 classes of Rifle, HV, LV, Open, and Sporter. As shooters preregistered they were given the opportunity to choose to shoot 2 rifles, or 1 rifle twice. Most chose 2 rifles, which set them up for a 2 Gun Aggregate. The classes that we chose for the 2 gun were Sporter / Heavy, Light / Heavy, and Open / Heavy. Most of our shooters chose the Hv or the Open as their primary rifle, and therefore, Heavy / Open was our most contested class. We also had a fair number of shooters that only shot the Sporter.
In the sporter class we had Mark King, Albert Duster, Alan Moerdyk, and John Ayers. Albert Duster and Nancy drove from North Central Pennsylvania to come to our match. Mark King topped that Class, Al Duster coming in second, and Alan Moerdyk third. Some very good scores were posted by these guys, and you know they have been practicing.
Light Varmint class we had 2 shooters, Vern Bouws, and Michelle Becigneul. Man was Verns Air Arms working well and he did a great job steering it. Michelle came in second also with some very good scores.
Heavy Varmint class, we had the most shooters. Joe Chapman, Michelle Becigneul, Francis Becigneul, Ryan Parks, Tom Evans, Eric Simmons, Donnie Reed, Michael Gann, Greg Vaughan, John Ayers, Mike Hagerty, and Rod Parks. Greg Vaughan smoked everyone by shooting a 248 on all 3 of his targets, plus 2 more targets that were on his next Aggregate, his total for the day was 1485-54 out of 1500-150 possible. Second in HV was Eric Simmons, and third was Joe Chapman. We had, sun, puffy clouds, cool weather, and a rain last night which made for some tricky mirage. All the shooters did real well. Michael Hagerty drove from south central Illinois to compete with us again. And Donnie and Mike drove from Columbus Ohio Area. We had the Great Lakes Region covered
Open class we had “Cake Dave Lovio”, Joe Chapman, Francis B, Ryan Parks,Tom Evans, Donnie Reed, Michael Gann, Mike Hagerty, and Rod Parks. On Friday during practice, Cake Dave showed up with a rifle he got from Chris Martin. He was going to shoot the match with this rifle, and Francis and I talked with him and helped him “Tune” the rifle for the match. The rifle had been a very good shooting rifle, but for some reason was just not performing at it’s best. All of a sudden this thing just came alive again. Dave seemed satisfied how it was shooting. I guess so. He basically Ran away with the Open Class recording a 744-27, and a 737-25, totaling 1481-52 out of 1500. Only his 744 score was used in the class, and he lead the class. In second place was Joe Chapman with 740-31, then Michael Gann with 732-12, then Tom Evans with 731-26.
So those are the individual placings in the single gun aggregate. The 2 Gun Aggregate that was really contested was the HV/ Open. Joe Chapman, One of regular “hard to beat” guys won the “Great Lakes Invitational 2 Gun Aggregate’ with a combined score of 1474-54 Xs. Second was Eric Simmons with 1468-55 Xs, and Third was Tom Evans with 1462-45 Xs.
Below I’ll attach a word file with the full score sheet.
I’m tired and it’s time for bed. But I need to say, as much work as we put into this, It was definitely worth every hour, knowing that the competitors and the sponsors and the club got every hours worth out of this event.
