World Rimfire Challenge
In a nut shell I ended up 177 out of 216 that shot. 10th of 17 Distinguished Seniors (75+) and 14th of 23 Military/Veteran category. I managed to be within one second of the Match Director, for what that's worth.
The world Jr champion was on my squad and wow. Those kids reflex's are amazing. A question in the shooters' meeting was whether it was a pre-mature start if you fired while the buzzer was still going off. In RC there may be 5 to 7 targets on each stage. In Steel Challenge where stages are always 5 targets the gold standard is <2seconds a string. On one of 5 target stages at RC Jesse Grant was shooting <1second times!!! We let all the Jr's shoot first each stage, that way we older ones could confirm our shooting strategy against the experts.
Prizes were given out in order of scoring. First time I've hung around for an actual prize table walk. Ruger, Rossi, Hogue, TandomKross and others came through and there were I think 39 guns. Tons of other stuff. More stuff than entries. Hunter's HD Gold of course but I think their market is saturated, as several $150 and $200 coupons were left over. And then there were sponsors who don't really appeal to this market. These are .22lr shooters. Reloading gear and AR 15 parts just aren't in demand by this group. EGW does sell Holosun and Vortex red-dots but mainly they are a gunsmithing and reloading tools, so I'm the only one, I think, that took one of there many $50 coupons.
Just a note before you ask. They've limited RC to semi-autos only and there are only 2 divisions. Open (red dots and comps allowed) and Limited with iron sights and no comps. You shot half the stages with pistol and half with rifle, so it's a mandatory 2 gun match if you will. They alternated pistol/rifle each stage this year which everyone seemed to like. About 40% of the shooters shot both divisions. So you might have 10 people on your squad but that was 14 entries.
I was partially a duck out of water. Most of these people primarily or only shoot .22lr. Which means they're not in the market for tactical guns or reloading gear. Many of them do shoot Steel Challenge, but not the other pistol sports. The ones I asked owned a self defense handgun, but have never shot it in competition. I didn't feel like my equipment was unworthy. Quite the opposite, my 10/22 with Tac-Sol barrel and Burris Fast Fire got some admiration. And my 22/45 with Holosun Comp fit right in with many others. If you did an equipment poll of the winners, probably Tandemkross and Voquartsen. Customized Rugers were probably dominant though.
NOTES: Cavern Cove, AL is a great range especially for SASS. Large club there and the "town" had over 10 buildings with a few extra plain bays. All very flat and plenty of area to spread out behind the bays. Also mostly very short bays. The hill past the cowboy bays had 7 more conventional, long bays. We did 7 in cowboy town and 7 on the hill. Lots of room for vendors and food trucks. LOTS of RV parking many with power and water. This area is on the Tennessee River coming out of Chattanooga. It's very wide with lots of finger lakes and is exceedingly large "lake life" community with many marinas. Michael, Marshal, Kevin and I ate at two very good places. One was in a marina and the other on one of the finger lakes. <pic> Great time.
Disappointed more sponsors didn't have representation and booths. The range had a covered area they could use slightly away from the bays.
Glock was also a minor sponsor, which I'm sure RCSA was grateful, but nobody shooting steel shoots a floating barrel gun. It's all Ruger MKx, S&W SW22, Browning, Volquartson and maybe a few vintage fix barrel guns (or something custom based on Ruger or SW receiver).
BREAKDOWN: Total Entries 216 Junior entries 44
Total People 151 Juniors 27 18%
Junior count includes 2 youths (<14)
Minimum round count was 445. Given say a 10% makeup shots that ~100,000 rounds downrange.
Mostly CCI and Anquila. I saw a smattering of others, but not much.
Rimfire Challenge organization:-A little to be desired in marketing savvy. Ruger was the sponsor and their name/logo should have been more prominently displayed. Their web page still is touting the 2023 championship with little about the 2024. The matchbook had rambling articles by most of the BOD when what competitors want is schedule, rules and stages. Add in sponsor ads and that should be it. The matchbook was so big they couldn't post it on Practiscore, but had to email a link. (that's a clue)
-There were a number of unused cowboy bays and 3 people used the tables at them as "safe areas" and were DQ'd as a consequence, because they were not designated nor marked as such. Rather a DQ trap if you ask me. Not the first time World RC has been held here, they should have put out signs "NO GUNS IN THIS AREA" or something. At least made an announcement in the shooters meeting.
-A guy was selling 3D printed stuff, like sun screens for your red dot and magazine empty chamber indicators. Trouble was, he had to tell everyone, though while legal in USPSA, Steel Challenge, and IDPA, they are illegal in RC until January. Reason is their rules still say you must have an empty mag well when not shooting. To make matters weirder, ECIs are not required in RC, like they are in the other sports, because you always start and end with a bagged gun. RC is going to change their rules come Jan 2025. Seems odd they just don't have an ad-hoc BOD meeting and change the rule now. Anyway they were gracious enough to say that if you come to the line for your first stage with a mag block, no penalty, just don't put it back in till you leave the range. Get with the times RC.
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