Shooters Take to the Sun at 2010 CMP Western Games

PHOENIX, ARIZONA – The 2010 CMP Western Games event held 16-19, October was highlighted by four sunny days under a Sonoran Desert sky, made even better with a series of clinics and rifle matches attended by some of the nation’s best shooters and others who simply enjoyed firing their favorite rifles in a competitive format.
 

The Ben Avery Shooting Facility north of Phoenix, Arizona is home to the CMP Western Games and Creedmoor Cup Matches. A public facility operated by the Arizona Department of Game and Fish (AZDGF), the facility is the largest public shooting complex in the U.S. and consists of 19 firearms and archery ranges covering 1,650 acres in the desert foothills.

As with all CMP events, camaraderie amongst the shooters made the seventh annual CMP Western Games matches and clinics a big hit as 458 event entries were registered at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility on the northern boundary of Phoenix. Temperatures reached the high 80s during the first two days and dropped a few degrees on days three and four, with no threat of rain.

Additionally, the Creedmoor Cup Matches followed the CMP event, from 20 through 24 October at Ben Avery, sponsored by Creedmoor Sports of Oceanside, California. The Creedmoor event included a day-long Highpower Rifle Shooting Clinic, sponsored by Team Bushmaster and conducted by Ken Roxburgh, plus four days of highpower competition.
 

All CMP Western Games matches, awards ceremonies and clinics were conducted at Ben Avery. Developed as the Black Canyon Shooting Range in 1957 and opened to the public by Maricopa County in 1960, the range’s name was changed in 1992 in honor of one of its founders. Four years later the county transferred control of the facility to AZDGF.

With emphasis on education and sportsmanship, the Western Games schedule included a Garand-Springfield-Vintage Military/new shooter rifle clinic conducted by Gary Anderson, Director of Civilian Marksmanship Emeritus, a Range Officials Certification Program and daily awards ceremonies where dozens of shooters were recognized.

Also on the first day of the Western Games, Chief Ballistician Dave Emary from Hornady Ammunition conducted two reloading clinics for 25 participants. Emary said those in attendance walked away with a better understanding of the reloading process. Special thanks also go to Hornady for making specially-configured high-quality .30-06 ammunition available to CMP, which was issued to competitors in the Garand and Springfield Matches.

At the conclusion of the Rimfire Sporter Match on Sunday, 17 October, the CMP held a barbecue dinner for all participants.

The Western Games kicked off with the shooters’ clinic on Saturday morning attended by more than 40 competitors, many of whom said they had never fired a match before. Some had recently purchased CMP rifles and others looked to enhance their shooting knowledge. The course offered two hours of classroom instruction and demonstrations on the safe handling of as-issued military rifles; safe range procedures; target shooting positions and techniques and shooters’ responsibilities as scorers and target pullers.

The classroom lecture and discussion period was followed by practical work where clinic students practiced loading and unloading their rifles and dry firing in the prone and standing positions.

The Western CMP Games program, like its Eastern Games cousin, offered shooters lots of options for how many events they chose to shoot. Some competitors elected to shoot a single GSM match while some came for the Rimfire Sporter Match or the CMP Special As-Issued M1 Garand EIC Match on Sunday, where introductory four-point legs were up for grabs. Several shooters took advantage of each match opportunity by shooting five different rifles in all six CMP Games Matches.

Prior to competition, all rifles were inspected for safety and rules compliance by CMP armorers.

Competition began on Saturday afternoon with the first of three GSM events. Each event used the 30-shot John C. Garand course, fired at 200 yards. Competitors could elect to fire a different rifle in each of the three matches or they could fire the same rifle, usually a Garand, two or three times on a re-entry basis. At the end of each day’s events, CMP Achievement Medals earned by shooting scores that equaled or exceeded established “cut scores” were awarded to all the competitors who earned them that day.

The first two sets of match winner awards were decided on the second day when the Special M1 Garand EIC Match was fired in the morning followed by the Rimfire Sporter Match later in the day. More than 76 percent of the entries (67 of 88) who fired the EIC match were eligible to earn “introductory” four-point legs because they had earned no previous EIC points. Greg Volker, 59, of Petaluma, California, topped the eligible EIC class, firing a 371-5X in the 400-point match and won a Bushmaster DCM-XR competition rifle donated by Bushmaster Firearms.

The Rimfire Sporter Match was fired on the Ben Avery smallbore range by 51 shooters squadded in two relays. Two targets were mounted at a time to allow the consecutive firing of slow and rapid-fire stages for each position and to reduce the time spent changing targets. Gusty winds occasionally blew unsecured targets from their frames but the weather did not significantly delay the match.

Shooters line up to receive squadding assignments for one of three Garand-Springfield-Vintage Military rifle events. There were four relays assigned for each GSM event.

The Rimfire Sporter discipline is still in its infancy to shooters in the west and they had their choice of firing in the T-Class for rifles with telescopic sights, the O-Class for rifles with classic open sights and a pair of shooters entered the new Tactical Rimfire Class with .22 caliber sporter rifles configured on an A4 Carbine or AR-15 service rifle type platforms.

Andy Whiteside, 22, of Tucson, Arizona, won the O-Class championship with an aggregate score of 562-10X and Lee McKinney, 64, of Rio Rico, Arizona, won the T-Class title by scoring a 582-20X. William Ellis, 45, of Slough, England, won the two-entry Tactical Rimfire Class with a score of 553-8X.

All T-Class entrants in the Rimfire Sporter Match had an opportunity to win a Savage Arms Mark I or II FVT .22 caliber target rifle donated by Savage Arms. A certificate for the rifle was awarded to John Whiteside, 52, of Tucson, Arizona, the shooter who fired the best center shot on the final rapid-fire standing stage.

Evan Hawksley, 15, of Palmdale, California, also won a Remington Model M597 semiautomatic .22 caliber rifle donated by Remington for the best O-Class standing rapid-fire center shot.

The third day of Western Games competition featured a second GSM Match in the morning and a 40-shot M1 Carbine Match in the afternoon. Edward Hotz, 56, of Costa Mesa, California won the Carbine match, firing a 362-5X.
 

Thanks to shade provided by a corrugated steel awning running the length of the pits, target pullers were able to work in relative comfort.

The CMP Western Games concluded on the fourth day of competition with the third and final GSM Match and a Vintage Sniper Rifle test match. Glendale “Don” Rutherford, 58, of Tallapoosa, Georgia, won two of three GSM matches and captured the three-gun aggregate championship with an overall score of 865-27X of a possible 900. Rutherford won an M1903A4 Replica sniper rifle donated by the Gibbs Rifle Company for winning the three-gun GSM Aggregate.

Each of the four days ended with a reception and opportunity to socialize with fellow competitors, a chance to check the gun and ammo sales selection at the CMP gun truck and the presentation of awards.

All scores fired by competitors in the 2010 Western CMP Games are posted at http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_matchResult.cgi?matchID=6118.

Photographs taken during the CMP Western Games and awards ceremonies are posted at http://cmp1.zenfolio.com/p211638274. 

The next regional CMP Games will be the CMP Eastern Games at Camp Butner, North Carolina on 7-15 May, 2011. The official program for those matches is slated for release in the next two to three months. The CMP Western Games will return to Ben Avery Shooting Facility in October 2011.

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