A Springfield Day

We weren't squadded until the third relay for Infantry Trophy this morning- going off at about 8:30, so we walked up to the Big Bopper, an industrial grade breakfast dive at the end of the fish camp we are staying in. I had plain pancakes, a rare cup of coffee and then we walked back counting rabbits. Lotta rabbits around this place. Seems like they would take a hammering from all the big birds floating around but maybe the eagles and ospreys are fish specialists.
Infantry Trophy team shot very well. I had the swing on the left end, which meant I was shooting two targets. Six men, 384 rounds, eight targets, 50 seconds shooting time, 600 yards away. Then you advance on line, dressed to a flag in the middle to the 500 yard line and do it again, then the 300, then the 200 if you have any ammo left.
One guy didn't have a zero that worked, so he missed his target at 600. That ends the whole thing though you have to go ahead and shoot your ammo. One mistake and we turn to each other and start asking "where do you want to eat?"
Only some of us weren't eating. We got off the Infantry Trophy range and switched AR15s for 1903 Springfield bolt action 30-06s and headed over to the Springfield Match on Viale. Last year I was 12, Rick Crawford was second. We shot well. Probably 1300 folks shooting the match. This year: not so much. We got silver medals and an ugly T-shirt for participating. 273. My Springfield has an awful, creepy, long trigger. I was building a odd sight picture- six oclock low with lots of white and favoring to nine oclock. Hard to hold it together while I worked through the lousy second stage of the trigger. Shot a 97X3 prone. Worse in the rapid. Terrible standing. All at 200. Silver medal.
I watched a round of tracer burn through the nine ring while Justin was shooting prone. He's a high master classified shooter, and his shots were all over the target face. Bad ammo. With an occassional tracer thrown in. It was brilliant copper orange as it lit up and disappeared through the target into the lake.