8th Annual War Rifle Match & Egg Shoot December 12, 2020

The 8th Annual War Rifle Match was an absolute success today!  The Lea Valley Range was completely full of competitors shooting mostly vintage war rifles from all over the world.  The match director learned quite a bit thru the knowledge of shooter Sacripanti and his Google encyclopedia on which rifles were actually war rifles, different from what the match director believed!  There were also a the usual compliment of AR15 rifles, plus one Galil, and one SteyrAUG rifle.  A very cool assortment.

I’m always pretty amazed how a competent rifleman can shoot well, at tiny targets, with iron sights on guns intended for use in war.  Other, older rifles were; 2 Springfield bolt actions, an M1 Garrand, two-30 carbines, something that Jim Burgess brought and shot lead bullets in,  as well as what Joe Iacabucci brought; all of whom shot pretty good scores, I thought.   

Today’s match was won with a 21×40, a personal best with an AR15 by the match director.  Close behind were Hartwell (Stoney) Stoneham with a 17×40, Will Sacripanti shooting a 16×40, and Lesley Ivanjack with a 13×40, shooting a borrowed AR15.  Today’s War Rifle match was the best attended of all except the very first one.  We had 5, completely full relays.   

Now the Egg Shoot.  Another success!!  Like the War Rifle match, the target is at 200 yards.  Walt Ivanjack makes kind of a cradle for a raw egg, and it hangs down from the far right crosspiece.  Any firearm that the Club allows on a range is allowed to be used to shoot at the egg. We began with $64, because that was left from last year!  The egg was aimed at, but not shot after the first relay, approximately 35 times.  

Finally, after numerous tries by nearly every competitor, Will Sacripanti attempted to claim the egg by shooting the string directly above the egg.  Sometimes the match director has to make sad decisions for competitors.  The match director opined that the string wasn’t the target, and even though it was a fine shot, the target is still the egg, not the string, so the cash, remained in the pot.  

Competitors returned to the War Rifle match and completed it.  Then it was back to the egg shoot again.  Again, money came out of competitor’s pockets and into the dutch oven.  Much money was placed in the pot while the best shooters continued to miss that egg.  Finally, late in the day, Joe Iacabucci shot, and vaporized the egg with his Tikka silhouette rifle in caliber 6.5×55, while the match director was counting the money.  Joe took home $166.00 today for that vaporized egg! Congratulations Joe!  

By Roger Estes – Match Director