Phoenix 11, close of Winter Range

Last day of Winter Range.  The day started with the Top Gun Shootoff, the top 16 men and women of the match get together and shoot a series of one-on-one elimination matches until there is one left, the Top Gun.  It has an award for the winner but has no bearing on the main match results.  It is still fun because this is head to head for 28 shots with an overlapping pair of falling plates to determine the winner.  Sometimes the final shots are so close that the falling plates will hit each other as they fall.  That didn't happen today but some were pretty close.

After that was the awards ceremony that took a couple hours.  I didn't expect anything and got just that.  After the ceremony the MA & NH folks and Half-A-Hand Henri gathered at our camper for some munchies before heading off for our different ways home.

So ends Winter Range 2020.  Lots of talk about next year; it'll be the 30th Winter Range and they will begin planning it next week!

There were 660 actual participants, from as far as Finland and Australia.  Of those 37 shot the match clean, meaning no misses or procedural errors.  120 volunteers worked on the side events plus a core of 41 AZ Rangers who work hard for a week or more to set up and tear down.  125 shot in the Wild Bunch match.

For the cowboys back home who will recognize some of the winners here is  a list of New Englanders who placed and the category:

Yankee 7th Frontier Cartridge

Lou Graham 3rd Ladies Frontier Cartridge Gunfighter (LFCGF)

Half-A-Hand Henri 1st LFCGF

Dead Head 7th FCGF

Six Gun Schwaby 2nd Duelist (SD)

Matchlock 10th Sr Duelist 

Hawkeye Kid 2nd SD

Grazer 1st SD

Hawley McCoy 7th Ladies Sr

Renegade Roper 1st Ladies Wrangler

Left to Right: Mad Cat With a Gun (Norway) & Renegade Roper (NY)

L>R: Texas Tiger (TX) & Whirlwind Wendy (CA)

Note the two blue targets; they overlap when they fall so you know which fell first

Inside the main tent during awards

One of the big horse trailers here.  Horses in the back & living quarters in front.  This was not the biggest one we saw!  These were not for the mounted shooting, I don't know what event was running today.

This video is from the Men's final.  The guy who wins it is Whistling Will from BC Canada.  He also was the top overall winner of Winter Range.  His speed is incredible!