4/7/22 19:34 Joe and I arrived at our hotel in Hermiston, OR, and after meeting up with a couple of my tribe for a quick slice of pizza and a single bottle of beer, we crashed, exhausted from the 13.5-hour drive of 864 miles through three states. We would zero our rifles in the morning and then see if we could be of any assistance setting up for the competition. The weather guessers were calling for high winds all weekend which could make things interesting. 4/8/22 06:00 Joe Cabigas, Mark Miller, Bruce Baum, and I met in the hotel’s breakfast area. During a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy, sausage, eggs, waffles, and fruit juice, we discussed the upcoming event and formed what I would describe as a battle plan. It’s always good to have a plan when you’re going into battle. We arrived at the “sight in” range reasonably early. As we pulled up, I noticed a Dodge pickup was already sitting there idling, most likely waiting for someone else to arrive. I parked and walked over to the vehicle introducing myself to John Beloit (the newest member of my tribe). He was waiting for Kasey Jones to arrive and make the final tweaks to a brand new rifle so he could partake in the Best of The West ELR event in the morning. We all took turns shooting for the next hour, making last-minute-
Best of the West ELR ~by Chad Kinyon
-adjustments. We all had reasons for needing to shoot that morning, mine being I had just cleaned my rifle before leaving Vegas. I wanted to foul the barrel by sending 4-6 rounds down it and double-check bullet speeds by radar. It seems she likes to be just a little dirty but not filthy. Mark, Bruce, and Joe mostly wanted to check that their rifles were hitting where they wanted. Meanwhile, John was having difficulty even getting the bullets into a group. Kasey was giving some advice, and John was trying, but it wasn’t working. Finally, Kasey got down behind the rifle and took a few shots. “You have something loose, I don’t know what, but something,” he stated. We started looking the rifle over to find the culprit. As we gathered the tools needed to take the rifle apart, John proclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned, bet that the problem is right there.” As we gathered around, he pointed to the bipod mount on the forehand of the rifle. And there it was, a large crack in the stock right where the pic rail holding the bipod bolted to the stock. As John lifted it up, it simply fell off in his hand. That’s another reason I’ve never been a fan of fiberglass stocks. Short of a new stock, his shoot was over before it started. We all felt terrible for him, but there was little that we could do. Let’s face it, who carries an extra stock with them? If any of us had one, he would have certainly been welcome to it. Something most will find odd about the competition shooting community, nearly all of us want to see people do well and will loan equipment and give advice to help anyone to succeed. Ultimately, we areHome&Harvest
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July/Aug 2022
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