Competitors in the 2009 United States F-Class Nationals were greeted by dry weather and mild temperatures for the event held at Camp Butner, North Carolina.  Situated in the pine forests north of Durham off I-85, Camp Butner is primarily a National Guard training site, but the host of the event, North State Shooting Club uses the 1000 yard range as its home turf.  It is a beautiful but very challenging range for all competitors with shooting berms at every 100 yards or so creating some challenging conditions with wind swirls and vertical lift.

Over 140 Shooters from across the United States, Canada, and Europe travelled to Camp Butner to compete in the 3-Day event consisting of both individual and team matches. Individuals shot three 15 shot strings for record per day (Day 1, 600 yards/Days 2 & 3 1000 yds each).  The team matches featured 4 – man shooting teams plus coaches and consisted of 20 rounds at both 600 and 1000 yards.

The challenging conditions with the constant wind shifts and occasional gusts did not seem to bother the top shooters.  Charles Ballard (1328-62X ) edged Jim Murphy (1327-59X) in the open class by one point to take the crown.  In the F-T/R Class, veteran Danny Biggs posted a score of 1288-38X to win top honors edging Jeff Rorer ‘s agg of 1284-34X. 

The team competition was held each day after individual matches were completed.  These were long days of shooting for those who took part in both the individual matches and the team matches.  Both in the 600 yard and 1000 yard open class team matches, the “Sierra Spindle Shooters”, (Shawn Ahrens, Brett Solomon, Jeff Traylor, and Jeff Cochrane) took the open crown with a 794-44X at 600 yards, and 791-30X at 1000 yards.

In the F-T/R  class “Team Sinclair”,(Brad Sauve, Jeff Rorer, Derek Rodgers, and Paul Phillips),  who are the reigning champs and National record holders,  raised the bar winning both the 600 and 1000 yard events while breaking their own records at both distances!  Shooting their .308’s off of Sinclair F-Class Bipods, they totaled 784-40X at 600, and 774-20X at 100 yards.  All of us at Sinclair are very proud of them. We look forward to more great results and wins from “Team Sinclair”!

 In addition to the top finishing shooters and teams, there were also other categories recognized.  Top Seniors were Danny Biggs in F-T/R and Jim Murphy in Open.  Top Women were Michelle Gallagher in F-T/R and Karin Liebetrau in Open.  Top Juniors were Mason Parker in F-T/R and Ruth Chiappinelli in Open.  Over $15,000 dollars in merchandise was awarded to all of the top shooters.  A real surprise to the Juniors was the awards of new stocks, actions, and barrels to start off a new rifle project!

The North State Shooting Club who hosted and ran the event did an excellent job and were extremely hospitable. This club hosts a mix of all disciplines of shooting events year round and is truly a class act.  Each evening, prior to the awards, North State Shooting Club sponsored home style North Carolina dinners that were a huge hit with the shooters.  Fried chicken, Pulled BBQ pork and the sides were all excellent, and were great after a long day of shooting. For more information on North State Shooting Club go to www.northstateshootingclub.com.

Two shooters from our sales staff made the trip to Camp Butner and competed in the Open Class.  Rod Green, a reloading technician, and Pete Petros, Call Center Supervisor, shot their first U.S. F-Class Nationals at this event.  Both finished in the middle the pack and had a great time while meeting fellow shooters, old and new friends, and putting faces on familiar voices (over the phone).  They set up a Sinclair product and information table along with Harbour Arms Precision (supplier of our new match rifle snap caps).  After shooting they were able to show some of our new products and a select few of our old favorites to those who wanted to learn more about precision reloading for accuracy.   

We look forward to being part of the next U.S. F-Class Nationals next March in Sacramento, California.  When more details emerge on the next event we will be one of the first to let you know here on the “Reloading Press”.  Until then good shooting!

Pete Petros
Sinclair, Intl.

 **F-Class competition is one of the fastest growing long range disciplines today.  Originating in Canada, it was first started as a “fun” class. The “fore father” of this class was Mr. George Farquharson.   He came up with the idea of F-Class to aid himself and other veteran shooters to continue competing with their fellow high power counterparts who shoot prone with iron sights and a sling.  F-Classers replaced the iron sights with a scope and replaced the sling with the option of using either a front bi-pod or a bench rest.  Farquharson and others convinced the Canadian NRA (DCRA) to approve the idea and it became official in the 1990’s.

This idea became very popular with all types and ages of shooters and quickly spread throughout Europe, South Africa, the Pacific and the United States.  As it grew in popularity in the U.S., the NRA officially accepted it and today F-Class has thousands of shooters worldwide. 

F-Class shooters shoot on targets that are half the size of the targets used by traditional high power shooters.  Both classes in F-Class use the same target.  The categories are F-T/R and F-Open Class.  F-T/R is shot either with the .223 Remington or the .308 Winchester cartridge off of a bi-pod and rear bag or monopod.  F-Open is open to any caliber cartridge up to .35 cal, and is shot off of a bench rest with a rear bag.  Both categories have separate rules regarding rifle total weights, rests, etc.  To read these rules, and find out more on NRA F-Class, you can find them on http://www.nrahq.org/compete/rules/rul_hpr_06.pdf.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 10:22 am and is filed under Sinclair News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.