Ellisras Firearms festival 2011 - feedback

[Willie Barnard]

After a hectic week, and an even more hectic weekend, we can now look back at Firearms festival 2011:

THANK YOU to each and everybody who made this festival a success. This a huge team effort - I still want to count exactly how many people give their time and effort unstintingly - probably about 70 people.


ProAmm grouping shoot: our flagship event again proved as popular as ever. 170 shooters shot a total of 512 targets, an average of three targets each. We had three groups better than the previous best group in the current 18 month's cycle of Pro Amm shoots.


Big Bore range: the frightening scenario of a hippo running past, a lion charging, and an elephant threatening you, had about 100 big bore hunters stresstesting their skills.

Magnum Arms : this dealer, the importer and agent for Krieghoff rifles and CZ. There was oppurtunity to test shoot these fantastic rifles in either double or pumpaction. This was Magnum Arms first involvement with the festival, but not the last.

Junior training: Our dedicated team of instructors from the Waterberg branch, spent the whole day coaching our hunters of tomorrow. We had a generous sponsorship of medals for all the youngsters, and this really added a sparkle to their experience.


Clay pigeon shooting: Withe our dedicated team of shotgunners, still with us after 13 years, this range was difficult with fast flying cross-clays, and a brisk tail wind in the afternoon. The best score out of 10 was a 9.

Handgun : A first for the festival - this was run by Gunsite's group: Camouflage 7.62, Sean Murphy and Grobbie. The range was superbly run, and many shooters returned for seconds and thirds. Thanks to Craig and team.


Active Hunting range: Our longstanding hunting instructor : Hanne Hurst (Weidmann, or is it Weidfrau) put the hunters through their steps,, and this proved to be a very popular event.


Black powder range: Mic and Sands of the "Flint and Musket " in Brits handled this range very capably. Here more than a tin of Sannadex went up in smoke, to thrill especially newcomers to this old technology. They also introduced "yours truly" to the joys of an old lady called "Brown Bess". She now resides in my safe!!
Also on this range were the Martini Henry shooters. This item has grown from 2 participants last year to 9 this year.

Boer and Brit shoot: The "Bullers Bastids" won their age-old feud with the "De Wets Donders" (this time), but they were beaten by the team : "Knapdaar". (This was in the traditional category, where iron sights are mandatory.)
The Manie Maritz team won the category for optical sights.

Paintball: my son Pietie entertained the youngsters on a paintball range, but this was serious stuff: a combat range where your enemies are falling plates. Proper gun safety was enforced on this range.

Sponsors: Our main sponsors are PMP and Tamboti Toyota. There were many others sponsoring prizes:FrankH and Craig of GunSite sponsoring Fallkniven prizes, Flint and Musket - a jakkalsjagter handmade knife, Magnum Arms - an awesome LED headlight, Arno of SWATG -shooting glasses and more.

SAGA : was represented by Chas Lotter. the stall brought to the attention that there is still somebody fighting for our rights. Thanks Chas - I hope you enjoyed the festival.

The future: Firearms 2012 is now in the planning phase. It will probably be on the 26th August 2012 - more info later.

[FrankH]

Congratulations Willie, sounds like it was a great success.

Im sure that not only was much fun safely had with firearms this week end, but it promoted and encouraged new members into the firearm fraternity.

[JS4]

Dear Dr. Willie...

I am SO flipping angry!

I am not angry at you... I am angry at myself for not being able to be there..!

I can for like to be SOOOOOOOO jealous of yous okes!

I pray that I may be afforded the opportunity to join you next year! *me on my knees, praying*

Glad you had a good festival! Keep it up... please!

[KLRanger]

Ahhh. See I was too hasty and posted this on the other thread so I'll just quote meself here.

What an awesome weekend!
Thank you Dr. Barnard for putting such an awesome event.
The sight, sound and smell of so many firearms going off throughout the day makes one feel all warm and fuzzy inside :).
It was also great to get to meet Grobbie, Camo and Sean. That Boer vs Brits shoot was edge of the seat stuff, but big ups to the bullers bastids for winning their match.
The handgun range was lekker fun. Thanks again Grobbie for letting me squeeze off a few with your Browning. Next time I wont be a tjop and I'll bring enough ammo.
I also got to shoot the BASA course, which was huge fun and quite a challenge. Thanks to the BASA crew aand to Stephen Palos for inviting me along and allowing me the use of your rifle.

As I said... It was awesome.
Lessons learnt:
take more ammo (doh)
get rifle... No, wait, now I need two.

Thanks all.
Travel safe and enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Regards,
Keith

It would really suck to have missed it, thats how cool it was. I'm definately going to try make next year's as well.

[mic]

Yip, was great.

We fired close to 120 rounds out of a single black powder rifle (Investarm Hawken .50cal) without cleaning it between shots.
Powder was 45grains of sannadex rifle grain behind a 177grain roundball.

[camouflage762]

Pheww...........................

What a great weekend.

Myself, Sean, Grobbie attended on behalf of Gunsite & Sports adventure shooting.

We were to run the handgun range and it proved to very busy day.

Our first responsibility was to ensure safety. To this end our range constructed in such a way that we could first assess handguns skills, from a table, dry. Grip, trigger & sighting were verified.
Some participants were more open to “suggestions” on how to improve either grip etc. Given the time constraints we were not going to be pedantic about it, as long as the shooter was safe.

Once this was done , a small course consisting of shooting from around/behind barricades was constructed. Targets were paper plates mounted on a backing and all stapled onto rubber conveyor belt target stands.

At first it was rather quiet with most of the shooting being done on the other ranges around us.

However that was soon to change. We had a few folk who had never fired a hand gun. Sean & Grobbie were generous in allowing such folk to use their own pistols and supplying a not few rounds of ammo as well.

At about 10h00 things really got busy as we tried to assess everyone and then set them on the barricade shoot.

Scoring was done with Time + points down.
The was about a 60/40 split between semi auto pistols & revolvers.
No major malfunctions were observed save for a stove pipe or two.

Pistols had to hit the paper plate twice, revolvers once (in order to save time)

Two RO’s would run the range, one with the timer, following the shooter and the other standing off to the side to check the “FINGER”. No unsafe behavior was experienced, although the shout of “VINGER” was made more than a few times.


IMO if any dealer had been there to display & perhaps a allowed the use of a demo pistol holsters etc , they could have sold a few.

The amount of interest & competition between the participants was encouraging.
As their were prizes up for grabs and a few ego’s to be soothed, some shooters came back five times, most tried the course twice.

I guest-i-mate we had between 40-45 shooters run through the cof.
It would appear as if there is a definite opportunity for a sport -shooting club in Ellisras either IDPA or IPSC.

By 16h00 we closed up the range & the call went out for “Bullers Barstid’s”
Flying the flag of the Natal Colony, we won our first match, a close run thing indeed, and the 3 cheers went up for her majesty The Queen, Elton John!

Grobbie shot so well that he broke his humility switch……

In the second match The Barstid’s 2^nd IV received a snot klap, although my K31, (7.5 Swiss) performed well….. oops humility switch broke….

The Boer Brit shoots generated a lot of interest & spectator value. There was a fair amount of joking & jibing. I really enjoyed it.

The atmosphere was really great; to be in amongst large groups of folk who enjoy firearms is really special.

Not a few times’ I was approached by complete strangers who wanted to look at the K31 its “straight pull action”.

As it was very hot during the day there was a marquee tent set up with water misters spraying water to keep us all cool. There was a jumping castle for the kids also being sprayed with water, and this attracted a lot of kids to

The whole day the was filled with the smell of braai fires and guns smoke! The administration was very good with Ro’s been kept in contact with two way radio’s and young lads on quad bikes kept us topped up with water, cool drinks, targets etc
What was also very special for me was that My Wife & kids accompanied me and we were able to do some .22lr shooting.

By now my throat was parched and it was time for cold beer and the prize giving.

By now a dusty red & purple sunset heralded the approaching evening,
This along with a cool evening breeze was a welcome relief from the heat of the day and was the perfect setting for a slap up dinner of Kudu potjie, wors and venison sosatties (Kebabs) with pap, followed by Malva pudding & ice cream!

The only tragedy to mar this most awsome day was when the rumours that the Lion had beaten the Sharks. However we chose to ignore this rumour as nothing would be allowed to the day!


Big shout out to Chas, Steven Paulos, Ratel375, KS Ranger, Sands, and Mic.
It was great to meet you guys!

I noticed amongst the Big Bore fellows a “nose bridge to close” to a scope!

A huge thanks to Dr Willie and his Wife for hosting this event.

Also to Marcel & all others who were involved in what was a very special & successful event.

Thanks to all the sponsors & the support of the owners of Gunsite.

God willing my family & I intend to make the trip in 2012.

I hope to see you there!

Regards
Camo

[Grobbie]

I never knew there was a switch in the first place!

Super weekend!

[KLRanger]

I noticed amongst the Big Bore fellows a “nose bridge to close” to a scope!

[Grobbie]

Come on KL, please give permmission for Camo to post just 1 pic!!!!

Big Thank you to Doc Willie and his team. Was a well organized event and lots lekker stuff to do......

[KLRanger]

I thought the photos would have broken the camera