3rd Annual Rattlesnake Gulch Roundup

I belong to the Rattlesnake Gulch Rangers, a shooting club devoted to Cowboy Action Shooting. Our club shoots at the Rattlesnake Mountain Shooting Facility operated for the Benton County Park Board by the Tri-Cities Shooting Association.

We just held our 3rd annual Rattlesnake Gulch Roundup. This is a three day shooting event that is becoming very popular here in the Inland Empire. We had 91 shooters complete the match this year which is close to the maximum number of shooters we can handle.

While the match officially began on Friday, the staff went out on Thursday and set up our trailers and motor homes. Then all day Thursday shooters were trickling in and we had a pretty good crowd on hand by Thursday evening. Maybe we should start advertising this as a 4 day event! Our range has space for quite a few campers but it is a dry camp with no water and very limited electrical hookups (hogged by the staff of course:-)

Normally we have a campfire going but this year the air quality board has implemented a burn ban and no recreational fires of any sort are allowed. Hopefully we will be able to have a fire next year as it is a lot of fun to sit around the fire in the evening.

Friday is the first official day of the match and is devoted to registration and side matches. Side matches are shooting competitions that are more creative and do not need to follow the rules or format for the main match. Shooters simply wander up to each of the shooting bays where a side match is being held and sign up to shoot it when ever they wish on Friday. We had all the typical side matches such as long range rifle (single shot over .40 caliber, single shot under forty caliber, lever action over .40, lever action under forty and pistol caliber lever action) with targets out to 600 yards where we have a life size steel buffalo set up. We had speed shoots with pistol and rifle, a shotgun side match, and pocket pistol and derringer side matches. We also had a "trick shooting side match as well as a night shooting side match that was conducted both Friday night and Saturday night.

Our night shooting match consisted of 3 separately timed strings of fire. The shooter loaded up two pistols (5 shots each of course) and carried his shotgun along for use in the final string. A Range Officer (RO) was assigned to each shooter and stayed with him through all three strings. The shooter first entered the Mine Shaft which was very dark but lighted by a strobe light mounted in a hurricane lantern to simulate the muzzle flashes of his "opponents" in the mine shaft. The mine shaft has 5 steel knock down targets shaped like huge hurricane lanterns with a cable reset system that allows the RO to determine hits or misses by the position of the resetting cables in the entry to the mine shaft. After shooting one pistol in the mine shaft, the shooter proceeded under direction of his RO up to Rosa’s Canina where he would wait his turn if another shooter was there. When it was his turn the shooter would enter Rosa’s Canina and upon getting the start signal would shoot 5 Pepper Poppers. This stage was lit only by 2 kerosene lanterns. After shooting in Rosa’s the shooter would proceed up to the camp fire (simulated by order of the Air Quality Board) and would use his shotgun to knock down 5 U.S. Poppers with his shotgun. This stage was an eye opener for those who have concealed carry permits. It is not easy to shoot when you can barely see the targets and can’t see your sights at all! It was fun though and something different.

Just for fun we set a camera up on a tripod and attached a special electronic flash with a remote switch to trip the flash. We posed shooters with their pistol or shotgun ready to fire and then held the shutter open (it was night and very dark). With the shutter open, the flash was fired and as soon as the shooter saw the flash he would shoot his gun and then the shutter was closed. We got some neat photos and those who took part really enjoyed getting their picture taken. The photo above is your faithful correspondent who appears surprised to find himself in a fight...!

Saturday was the start of the main match which consisted of a total of 12 stages of fire. We divided into 7 posses and shot a 8 of the stages on Saturday. We had a caterer provide lunch and supper on Saturday. The folks we hire for this (Grillmaster) put on a real feed. Every one enjoyed it. Saturday evening we had live music but alas no fire. We also shot the night stage again for those who were not there for it on Friday. We had drawings for prizes at both lunch and dinner. This year we had prizes for every one including several nice guns including a Stevens Favorite, a 12 gauge side by side Double and a .44-40 lever action rifle.

Sunday we shot the last 4 of the main match stages. We set up each stage in four bays so that we could move every one through quickly and wrap up by noon (or 3 pm as it turned out) since many had long drives home. After the last stage was shot there was a top gun shoot off to occupy the shooters while scoring was being completed then we had an award ceremony and handed out awards and the remaining prizes including a 2005 U.S. Silver Dollar for each of the side match winners. These are very nice coins with one ounce of .999 fine silver and they have the feel like money should feel. Nice and heavy in your hand.

We wrapped up the match and every one had a good time with no complaints other than a few who complained our targets were too pretty to shoot at. This match was so much fun that the staff was sorry to see it come to an end and we can’t wait for next years match. Go to the Rattlesnake Gulch home page ( http://www.blogger.com/(http://www.owt.com/rsg/ ) for more info.