Well the third Copicut Rifle Association “Egg Shoot” of 1999 has come and gone. Yet again the weather cooperated and we had a great turnout and a wonderfull time! This time a few of us got together on the Saturday preceding the shoot and had a practice session. A couple of fellows had new guns that they were still trying to find the magic load. The shoot on Sunday had 26 shooters in attendance. As usual, Joe from New England Sportsman in Fairhaven Massachusetts showed up with all the food for a great cook out. All proceeds from the sale of hamburgers and hotdogs were donated to GOAL (The Massachusetts Pro Gun Organization). I would like to publicly thank Joe for all the help and time he puts into these shoots. If you’re in the need of anything gun or fishing related, give New England Sportsman a try. He has a real nice store on Rt 6 in Fairhaven Massachusetts and he always has a great selection of new and used firearms.Well enough for the commercials! On to the shoot…As I stated previously, the weather was ideal for some scrambling action! Very little wind, 70 degrees, slight cloud cover. The eggs were in trouble! I bought 15 dozen eggs and after the first relay I was wondering if that was going to be enough!Most of the shooters know by now that you should shoot 300 yds first, before any wind comes up. Three hundred yards is still the test of man (woman) and gun. An egg at 300yds is mighty small. Ken Daly of Plymouth, Mass was the winner in “Custom Rifle” class with 4 eggs hit. Remember, it is the most eggs hit with ten shots that wins. Two other shooters hit 3 for 10 in the custom class. I told you 300yds was difficult!In the Factory Class at 300 yds we had a sudden death shootoff. Both Bob Newman and Jonathan Wong went 3 for 10. It’s interesting to note that they were both shooting Remington 40X rifles in 308 in identical Choate sniper stocks. But the shootoff was to go to Bob when he hit an egg and Jonathan couldn’t counter. I believe this was Jonathans first shoot with his new 40X. Up till now he had been competing with an AR-10 in 308. “Welcome to the super accurate world of the Paul Mauser bolt action Jon!” He’ll be back, and I wouldn’t want to be competing in the factory class 300 against him. He wants it bad!Two hundred yards is still where most of us play. We only had two pistol shooters this time. Usually we have four or five but this event was also the date for a silouette shoot and a few of the other shooters also shoot that sport and couldn’t make both. Roger Buonanno of Arlington Massachusetts shot his beautiful custom Benchrest pistol. It’s an XP action in 223 set into a Bruno / McMillian BR rear grip stock. The only other pistol shooter was yours truely. Roger set up and shot 5 for 5. To be honest, I didn’t even bother. I’m shooting a new XP in 22BR that I recently built for a prairie dog shoot. It uses a rear grip McMillian “Sporter” type stock with a PacNor barrel and a Jewell trigger. Although it was devistating on the PDs out to 350 yds, I haven’t got the loads down to “Minute of Egg” yet. The best I did at the Saturday practice session was two 4 for 5. Not good enough to beat Roger. But you just wait till October!Two hundred yard custom rifle ended up in a four way sudden death shoot off. These guns are getting real good. Guess I’m going to need to find smaller eggs to keep it interesting. But the spectators love the shoot offs, so I guess it is a good thing! When it was all said and done, Bill Gaudaitis from Needham, Mass. was the winner. Bill shot a really nice BR style rifle with a trued 700 action in 6BR. I think it is interesting to note that the 6BR is really becomming the caliber of choice at these shoots. I believe we had six or seven rifles chambered for this cartridge. Scott Botelho of Somerset, Mass. shot my BR rifle into the shoot off. This is interesting because this was the first time Scott had ever shot this rifle and I believe it was the first time he had ever shot a rifle with a 2oz trigger. He took three sighter shots before the relay and then proceeded to go 5 for 5! But the pressure got to him in the shoot off and he missed the first egg. OUCH! When he left he was mumbling something about selling his 45 plate gun and building an egg gun…Two hundred yard factory rifle was won by Brian Wilson of East Harwich, Mass. If you remember in the last update I said that Brian had told me that the next Egg Shoot “Was Mine!”. Well he lived up to it. He went out and bought a new Remington 700VSSF in 6mmRemington and went 5 for 5. No one else shot a perfect in factory.I would like to thank Chris Zahn for driving all the way down from Lewiston Maine to shoot with us. Five hours is a long way to do some shooting. But I think he got the bug. He’ll be back!I need you feed back on this issue. We had no 100yd iron sight shooters show up this time. Last shoot we only had three. I’m thinking about doing away with the iron sight competition and in its place adding 100 yds 22RF scoped rifles. Everybody has a good shooting 22RF in the stable. Personally I love shooting RF. Let me know if any of you are interested in this event, and if I get enough responce I’ll add it.Following is an equipment list in no particular order:Brian Wilson…..700VSSF….6mmRem….Burris 8-32
Bill Gaudaitis….700….6BR….Weaver 36X
Roger Buonanno….XP-100….223….B&L 36X
Bob Newman….40X….308….Leu 6.5-20
Ken Daly….Sako 591 (L.O.D.)….308….Leu 6.5-20
Pay Piche….Savage 112/Shilien….223….Leu 8-25
Chris Zahn…Savage 12…223…Leu 6.5-20
Joe Brandon…Ruger M77 Varminter….223….Simmons 6-24
Nelson Brum….DPMS AR-15….223….Weaver V-16
Tom Meyers….700(rebarrel)….22-250….Burris 8-32
George Harrison….700/Shilien….6br….Leupold 36X
Jonathan Wong….40X….308….Leu 8.5-25
Barry Bowman….Savage 110/Shilien….6BR….? 10-40
Anthony Almeida….40X Custom Shop….308….Leu 6.5-20