We had wonderful weather for our annual Maryland State Championship with very light breezes, temperatures in the 80s, and clear skies (although with our "shaded" lanes, that does not affect us much -- everything is pretty dark and a well-lit target makes one wonder what is wrong).
Attendance was down a bit with 24 shooters this year versus 30 last year. This has been typical of this year's matches with gas prices and other demands lowering attendance. One loss this year was that Werner Wicha — a very long time member of the club — moved to Florida.
Hans and Ray Apelles were present shooting their Crosman Discovery rifles with bright red Crosman Match stocks. Crosman is really trying to get serious about field target with this new rifle, improved quality control for their pellets, and support for the sport. Anyone thinking about getting into PCP or even FT for "cheap" should look at their rifles. The price is incredible and the performance is excellent.
Our awards this year were pellet boxes made by Bob Zimmerman. Bob donated the Junior Division award. The artwork was the same as shown here.
The 72-shot course difficulty was about 30T with some extra difficulty unintended by the match director picking targets for the kneeling lane incorrectly -- the lane was about 60T while a more normal difficulty would be about 20T (everyone hates kneeling!). There were 6 shots offhand, as well. Other than the kneeling lane, only the usual gripes: A gopher with a 3/8" hole (got to measure that some time -- it sure seems smaller!) was placed in a gopher hole (Doh!) that happened to be right in the middle of a lane at a reasonable distance. Regardless, several people complained that the target was malfunctioning but it kept going down with enough regularity to indicate it was working -- at least one of the hits was with a 10fpe rifle!
Steve Schulz was a surprising last place finisher. He decided to use his FWB instead of LDSS #2 and discovered that various things were not working correctly.
We had two ties: 1st place PCP and 3rd place in Hunter. The PCP tie between Joe McDaniel and Tinh Nguyen was decided by a shoot-off administered by Ray Apelles with Joe McDaniel winning. The other tie was decided by default -- Tim Avera had to leave early.
Here is a video of the awards ceremony made by Ray Apelles from the match.
| Name | Score |
| Joe McDaniel | 59 |
| Tinh Nguyen | 59 |
| Carl Johnson | 56 |
| Hans Apelles | 55 |
| Al Otter | 55 |
| Keng Hao Liu | 51 |
| Chuck Jordan | 49 |
| Lauri Apelles | 43 |
| Steve Schulz | 34 |
| Name | Score |
| Rex Gori | 51 |
| Paolo Amedeo | 46 |
| Tim Berlett | 13 |
| Name | Score |
| Henry Canoles | 54 |
| Ed Canoles | 46 |
| Ray Jordan | 37 |
| Tim Avera | 37 |
| Bill Gazdik | 29 |
| Shane Feller | 29 |
| Singson Tiu | 28 |
| Phil Dean | 24 |
| Bill Feller | 15 |
| Name | Score |
| Ray Apelles | 45 |
| Name | Score |
| Phil Karcher | 75 |
| Michelangelo Avera | 25 |