AccurateShooter.com has something no other website has — an IT guy (and database guru) who can lay down tens and Xs at 1000 yards. This past week, Jay Christopherson (aka ‘JayChris’) has been competing at the Berger Southwest Nationals. During Saturday’s 1000-yard individual competition, Jay scored 388-12X. For the day, that topped a number of high masters, including a couple past F-Class National Champions. Not bad for a self-declared “computer geek” competing in his very first major match against national-level competition.
UPDATE:On Sunday, Jay did even better, finishing with a 392-14X for the day. Again, he out-shot many of the more experienced High Masters. Good on you Jay!
Congrats to Jay, who may be the world’s most accurate IT guy. We have to respect a man who can SHOOT and COMPUTE. To explain, Jay is the guy who keeps our servers humming, and who maintains the databases that drive our Forum, Daily Bulletin, and main website. AccurateShooter.com couldn’t run smoothly without Jay’s brain-power, coding skills, and dedication. He is truly the “genius behind the scenes” who makes it all possible. All of us are fortunate to have Jay on the team.
Jay reports: “After a rough start on Day One, I came back to take third place (2nd MA is a fancy way of saying third) in my class for Day Two 1000-yard matches, in windy conditions. Far as I can tell, I’m currently somewhere around 16th out of about 80 shooters overall (all classes), but won’t know for certain until they post the Aggregate results. I’m not likely to catch the leaders, but I think this was a decent showing so far for my first National-level match.”
How did Jay become such a good shooter? He revealed: “Actually, I’ve learned a ton of stuff from some of the smart guys on the Forum. But you also have to have good equipment, and good reloading techniques, and you have to put in the range time.”
Here is Jay (on right) with your Editor Paul McM (aka “Forum Boss”) on left.
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When the targets rose for the 1000-yard relay at the Berger Southwest Nationals on Thursday, there was a surprise in store for two talented young lady shooters, Riley J. and Samantha Huhtala. Both juniors were celebrating a birthday on Thursday, and match directors had something special cooked up for the two girls.
On each the two girls’ targets (#60 and #62), a dozen or so brightly-covered balloons were attached. As the two birthday girls looked downrange — at first they didn’t know what to think. Samantha Huhtala, who had just reached the ripe old age of 18, turned to a fellow shooter and said “what’s that stuff on my target”? He replied: “Oh that’s chromatic aberration Samantha”. But she knew better — she broke out into a big smile realizing that she had been given a very special birthday surprise.
This little diversion from an otherwise serious event was cooked up by Michelle Gallagher, Bryan Litz, and some other folks from Berger. By the way, the balloon birthday surprise may have brought good luck for Samantha (it certainly didn’t break her concentration). Sam finished as the high-scoring shooter (447-10X) for the 4-member Michigan F-TR team than may have established a new F-TR record for the 800/900/1000 yard Palma Course of Fire. The team total was 1764 – 63X. Match directors are now trying to confirm that Samantha and her Michigan team-mates have set a new team record. Stay tuned.
Balloon photo by Steve Fio.
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The 2013 Berger Southwest Long Range Nationals (at Ben Avery in AZ) have wrapped up, and some divisional results have arrived. (Stay tuned for more complete results — as they are made available.) Congratulations to Grizzly Industrial President Shiraz Balolia, who won the F-Open Division.
The F-Open competition was very close right down to the end, and the conditions were unforgiving. Shiraz finished with a 1226-55X score, one point ahead of F-Open runner-up Freddy Haltom (1225-60X), who had high X-count among Open-classers. We’re told that Shiraz was using a “shoulder-busting” .300 Win Short Mag in Phoenix. We’ve been promised photos of Balolia’s winning rig as soon as Shiraz gets back from Arizona.
The Top 10 F-Open shooters are listed in the chart above. Note, the 9th and 10th best Aggregate Scores were shot by two “Masters”, who out-shot dozens of “High Masters” to make the Top 10 overall. Steven Blair, who placed 8th Overall in F-Open, told us: “When conditions and competitors are as tough as they were in Phoenix, the winners deserve our accolades. It was no accident or luck that they finished as they did.” Forum member Kelbro agreed: “Except for the practice days, this was a challenging week. Double congrats to the top dogs. They earned it.”
In the F-TR division, John Hayhurst shot well throughout the Nationals to finish first with 1210-25X. Runner-up Lige Harris had 35 Xs, but ended six points down, finishing with 1204-35X. James Crofts, a past F-TR National Champion, finished third with 1203-24X. In F-TR Team Competition, the new Michigan F-TR team coached by Bryan Litz proved to be a powerhouse, securing an impressive team win. Shooters were: Al Barnhart (captain), Doug Boyer, Bill Litz (Bryan’s father), and Dale Sunderman. The second- and third-place teams were both USA F-TR Development squads. USA Team Blue grabbed second place, while USA Team Red took third. We’re told that USA Team blue set a new F-TR Palma record on Saturday. However, Team Michigan came back with a big win in Sunday’s 1000-yard team match, securing the Team Aggregate title.
In F-Open division, we’re told that Team UHaul finished first, with great shooting by Matt Davis, Herb Edwards, David Gosnell, and David Mann. Team Tex-Mex was second, with strong performances by Bryan Chatwell, Freddy Haltom, Ben Milam, and Cory Bizzel. Team Grizzly ended up third despite a cross-fire in one match. Team Grizzly is composed of F-Open winner Shiraz Bilolia, Emil Kovan, John Myers, and Tony Robertson.
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The complete, final results of the Berger SW Long Range Nationals (at the Ben Avery Range in Arizona) have been posted. You can download all the results from the links at the bottom of this story. In case you missed our previous match report, Trudie Fay was the overall winner in the sling category, Jim Murphy took F-Open Class, and James Croft won F-TR. In team competition, The sling winners were the US National Team composed of Trudie Fay, Bryan Litz, Justin Skaret and Peter Church. In F-Open, the winning team was Team Norma/Berger composed of Larry Bartholome, John Brewer, Danny Biggs, and Jim Murphy. The winning F-TR team was the Arizona State Rifle & Pistol Assn. squad, with Warren Dean, John Chilton, Steve Lockwood and German Salazar. Complete Results are linked below.
This Video by Jim Everson, was shot from the pits at the 2012 Berger SW Nationals:
Michelle Gallagher of Berger Bullets provided this post-match message:
I hope you all enjoyed yourselves at the match and got back home safely. We were so excited that you could all make it, and I’m glad the weather even cooperated!
Thank you to everyone that helped out during the week. There are just too many to list everyone, but the match would not have run as smoothly without you, and we deeply appreciate everything you did. We want to give a special thank-you to Kathy Buell, Jennifer Litz, and Melesia Cisneros for their help. They had no idea what they were getting into when they volunteered to help, but they were invaluable. Also, Matt Schwartzkopf with AZ Game & Fish put in countless hours getting the range ready. He did an amazing job, the range looked beautiful, and we were excited to have him shooting with us! We also want to send a big thank-you to all the companies who donated to the match. We are so thankful for your participation, and I know the shooters were as well.
We’ll be sending out the results CDs as soon as possible, but here are some results for now. I also have them up on the Berger website. We’ll also be posting some photos of the match soon.
The 2013 Berger Southwest Long Range Nationals (at Ben Avery in AZ) have wrapped up, and some divisional results have arrived. (Stay tuned for more complete results — as they are made available.) Congratulations to 
Sling Grand Agg.pdf
