2006

NRA/Pyramyd Air

National Junior Air Gun

Team Championship

&

Training Summit

 

Date: July 5 - 9, 2006

Location: The Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center, Redmond, OR

Eligibility: The event is by invitation. There are 4-person air rifle teams and 3-person air pistol teams. Invitees include every NRA State Association, The American Legion, Natl. Guard Bureau, every military organization (Jr. ROTC, etc.), Royal Rangers, VFW, USA Shooting, and more.

Age Categories: Sub-Junior (up to age 14), Intermediate Junior (15 to 17), and Junior (18 to 20)

 

Our coaches are Rob Cozens (blue shirt) and Fred Burr. Rob's wife Mary Ann is also in the picture.

 

Wednesday, Day 1 (click on any thumbnail picture to enlarge)

We arrive after driving 370 miles past Mount Hood, the Columbia River, and some very pretty Oregon scenery. Bob goes to the parents meeting with Rob Cozens. Rob and Fred Burr are the coaches for the Washington State Team, which includes Ryan Jordan, Jessica Jordan, and a young man named Tim Mar (father Dale). The parents meeting is very impressive. The emphasis, it is stressed over and over, is "athletes first, winning second." A premium is placed on the experience of the youth, encouragement, building self esteem, safety, and camaraderie.  It is very impressive to see the NRA in action. From the match director to the range officers, everyone is professional, expert, a fine communicator, and dedicated to the sport and to the juniors coming up through the ranks. 

 

Here's the campsite...

 

Here's the scenery...

 

Thursday, Day 2  (click on any thumbnail picture to enlarge)

Ryan and Jessie check in their air pistols at 7:15am. The pistols are weighted, then placed in a wooden box. They must both fit in the box and allow the lid of the box to close. Hand grips that are too fat or too long, or barrels that are too long, will not be allowed to be used in the match. Finally, the pistols are charged and the trigger pressure is checked. If the pistol can lift the weight (which is balanced on the trigger) without discharging, the trigger is OK. Our pistols do just fine in all categories (I even tested my pistol, and it passed too).

The Weighing ScaleStacks and Stacks of Targets...

 

Our first relay is at noon. The coach of the MIT team is the range officer. Each competitor shoots one shot per target. Ryan shot one of the best scores of his life, and certainly the best in competition, shooting a 336 out of 400. This is an 84 average (out of 100). Jessie shot a 255 out of 400 for a 6.375 average. This is about her average (she's only been shooting for two months, but has expert coaches in Steve Becka, Vic Alvarez, and Scott Lorentz). Tim shot a 318, which is exactly what he told Ryan his average was before the match. Here's the breakdown of where Ryan and Jessie's scores fit with the rest of the competition.

 

 

 

 

Jessie, Ryan, and Tim are all shooting for the Washington State Pistol and Rifle Association and represented the only team from Washington State. Here's how the competition ended up after the first day (they shoot another identical relay on Saturday and the combined scores are used for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. The Massachusetts team, all four of them (an alternate is allowed) had matching warm up pants and jackets, with the name "Massachusetts Air Pistol Team" on back. The Pennsylvania team was their state champion team. The Michigan team only had one shooter (he shot a 334).

 

 

 

There is also an air rifle competition going on at the same time. Some kids are in both rifle and air pistol teams...

 

At 5pm we went to our scheduled "Fun Shoot" where the adults get to shoot with the Juniors. Each adult was paired with one Junior. Bob and Ryan were a pair, and Fred Burr (our coach) and Jessie were a pair. We did NOT get to use our own guns, rather, everyone had to use the provided IZH's (like I own) or a Tau-7 Jr. (like Jessie's been using). We had to work on getting the sights adjusted (we shoot sub 6-O'clock) and we only had about 20 minutes to get our five shots on the recorded target. I used up all four of my sighter targets, as did Ryan, getting our sights adjusted. Here's the results:

Name

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

Total

Bob

7

8

8

8

10

41

Ryan

8

8

8

9

9

42

Jessie

2

6

6

8

8

30

 

Fred Burr said he never couldn't get the sights adjusted and didn't want to think about his score... :-)

 

Note: At the awards banquet on the last day, Ryan and my combined scores of 83 was sufficient for third place out of over 50 teams. Of course, there were a couple of teams that "didn't count" as they were with a coach and a junior, but aside from those, we took third overall and won a $40 gift certificate and a swinging pellet target (which has been put to use).

 

Friday, Day 3  (click on any thumbnail picture to enlarge)

Today was a full day of training. This very well organized event continues to impress me. These presenters are beyond expert. They are well experienced, know their stuff inside and out, and are committed to seeing youth succeed in the shooting sports. Here's what was covered today (each class 50 minutes). Ryan, Jessie, and Bob sat in on all of them. Notebooks were provided.

 

We started at 9am and ended at 5pm with one hour for lunch. Bob talked with the coach at MIT (Will Hart) about a few questions he had specific to shooting. Bob also asked why, in the coach's mind, an otherwise educated group of people would be so down on the NRA, when the NRA promotes responsibility, discipline, achievement, fun, safety, citizenship, family values, respect, and all of the things any parent would want their children to be exposed to, as well as any adult. T

 

Tomorrow (Saturday) it's back to shooting! We're up at 12-noon. It looks like Ryan has already won a small bronze medal. He shot very good in his first match. If he shoots that good again, he'll qualify for a small silver medal. Wow! Even if he doesn't do well Saturday he and Jessie are having a great time. My eyes are open to what a person can aspire to in this sport, both junior and adult.

 

Here's a few more pictures. Note that most of what goes on in these competitions is focused on rifles. Note the picture of where the rifle instruction sessions were held and then where the pistol sessions were held. In the rifle area there was probably 200 people. In the pistol sessions there were about 40! Pistol is new to the national competitions but is gathering a full head of steam!

 

Rifle session room size plus occupancy rating for the room (why are there three? who knows!)

(This was a break period which is why there's so many empty seats.)

 

Pistol sessions room size plus occupancy rating for the room (why two ratings? who knows!)

(We're on break, that's why everyone is standing and milling around.)

 

I went over to the scoreboard and noted our two teams from Washington, the rifle team and the pistol team. Here are the actual posted scores.

 

At the lunch hour I went to a job site for my work (HySecurity) and while at the site I took these snaps of the beautiful mountains!

 

Tonight was the famous "Barter Bar" where kids from all around the country swap things with other kids specific to their state or club (belt buckles, key chains, hats, shirts, stickers, patches, pins, license plates, you name it). The bartering materials are provide by the clubs and no one is allowed to trade any money for any item - just bartering things! Here's a few pictures of the action...

 

Saturday, Day 4  (click on any thumbnail picture to enlarge)

Today was a very good shooting day for Ryan and Jessie. Ryan shot a 342 (his best score ever, and better than Thursday's score of 337 - his previous best ever) and Jessie shot a 286 (among her best scores, and an improvement of 31 points over Thursday). Both kids felt more at ease today. Ryan seems to thrive on competition (a chip off the old block!).

 

There was door prize drawings, and Ryan won a military flashlight with an NRA symbol engraving. Pretty nice!

 

The Washington State rifle team took second place in a very large field of competitors. With almost 5000 points scored per team, the first place team won by four points. Tim Mar is on the rifle team and also the pistol team. He was pretty tired for the pistol match since he shot earlier in the morning in the rifle match.  Here's how the top three scored:

 

Our coach Rob Cozens emphasized to us that scoring is a very important part of the competition. At our club as well as at this National event the competitors do their own scoring. Rob says that it is vital to check all of your scores, challenge as appropriate, and confirm that the total is correct. You can lose by one point, so make sure you get credit for all of the points you shoot!

 

 

Ryan also won two medals. A small bronze and a small silver. Here's the criteria:

 

AWARD Matches 60 Shots 40 Shots
Large Gold 5 558 372
Large Silver 5 534 362
Large Bronze 5 528 352
Small Gold 3 510 340
Small Silver 2 492 328
Small Bronze 1 474 316

Since Ryan shot a 336 followed up with a 342 he earned both medals. Here's a pic of them...

To cap off the evening we had a BBQ with Rob and Maryann Cozens and Fred Burr! Hot dogs and hamburgers. The four kids (Ryan, Jessie, Melissa, Amanda) were invited over to the campsite from Oregon for some s'mores and a lot of chat. Last I looked they had been over there for two hours. It's now pitch black and there still over there laughing it up!

 

Sunday, Day 5  (click on any thumbnail picture to enlarge)

Very nice and well organized awards ceremony. Lasted from 10:30 to 11:45am. As stated above, Ryan and I won third place in the fun shoot with an overall score of 83. Lots of nice medals awarded to many juniors (anyone under 20). We then had a nice catered lunch, that included not only Ryan and me and coaches, but Amanda and Melissa came too. We left at 1:30 and got home around 8:30 that evening. Saw some more magnificent scenery and then saw Rebecca and Andrea, who had come home from England while we were at the Nationals. Lots of gift giving and stories were told all around!