Mission Accomplished At The Lapua Monarch Cup Final!

Viva La Mexico!

“Standin’ on a hill in the mountain of dreams, tellin’ myself it’s not as hard as it seems…” — Led Zeppelin

When the 2022 shooting season started, there was ONE goal: win the Lapua Monarch Cup. Two matches, two countries, all the best silhouette shooters in the world — one champion standing in the end. It looked incredibly difficult; it ended up being a LOT more difficult than it looked!

The U.S. National Championship in Ridgway, PA was the most pressure-packed match I’ve ever shot. I could feel it in the air - we had a big field of great shooters with both national championships and the initial Monarch Cup on the line. Every shot mattered and it seemed that every shot was harder than the one before. After the dust settled in Ridgway I’d won the Smallbore Hunter and Grand Aggregate National Championships, five shots ahead of Laura Goetsch and few more ahead of the next shooter.

BUT, the Monarch Cup standings don’t care how many shots ahead you are, they only care about where you finish in the match. After Ridgway, the Monarch Cup top 10 looked like this:

1. Dustin Flint - 20 points

2. Laura Goetsch - 19

3. John Mullins - 18

4. Cathy Winstead-Severin - 17

5. Edgar Rueda - 16

6. Gabriel Villarreal - 15

7. Erich Mietenkorte - 14 (tie)

8. Susan Peery - 14 (tie)

9. Kenny M. Haupricht - 12 (tie)

10. Enrique Kuess - 12 (tie)

11. Jake Stine - 12 (tie)

So, just as I had ONE goal at the beginning of the season, I had ONE goal heading to Mexico last week: hang on to the Monarch Cup lead!

(This is where I need to take a quick aside for all you young shooters and up-and-comers. Understand that the GOAL here was to hold on to the Monarch Cup lead; but the MENTALITY is always to WIN. I went to Mexico to win, just like all the other top shooters, but the most important goal was to come home as the North American Champion.)

So we went to Mexico…

Let me start by saying that I’ve been to Saltillo twice and those are the two greatest shooting experiences of my life. This place is a silhouette shooter’s paradise. It’s a country club with a shooting range instead of a golf course. The range is phenomenal - it’s got a bar/restaurant; it’s incredibly comfortable with tables and hundreds of places to sit and hang out; the bathrooms are awesome; you shoot from enclosed booths. Whatever you imagine it to be, it’s better! There is also a HOTEL on the range - a NICE hotel. We ate three (actually probably five) delicious meals a day at one of the hotel kitchens (there are indoor and outdoor kitchens). Everything you could want is available - go check out the pictures on Facebook!

Upon arriving in Monterey at about 1:00 AM Thursday morning, our good friends Pepe Valdes (the owner of the range) and Justin Marsh met Jerry and me at the airport and drove us to Saltillo. We got to sleep around 3:00 and slept late Thursday morning. Thursday was for resting, getting rifles set up, doing a little shooting, hanging out with others of the about 30 Americans that made the trip, and a lot of relaxing.

There was a warm-up match on Friday afternoon, which was helpful. Last time I shot in Saltillo I didn’t shoot great. It’s hard to shoot well there if you’re not used to it, particularly if it’s your first visit. It’s a BUSY place to shoot. There is a lot going on; lots of people hanging around; lots of Spanish which I don’t understand; lots to see and hear and take in. Add that to shooting black targets, some altitude, possibly shooting a borrowed rifle, etc. and you’ve got a challenging atmosphere VERY different from any range I’ve ever been to in the United States. Anyway, I shot well and won the warm-up match with a 37/40. Jerry got the conditions dialed in and figured out and we were ready to roll. Friday night we had a big party at the range with a delicious Mexican dinner and the festivities were officially kicked off.

The Copa Lapua Monarca 2022 was 120-shots (three 40-shot matches) starting Saturday morning. We started on rams and I struggled through shakier-than-normal match start jitters and hit 8 rams. Even though I set up the trigger nearly perfect on my awesome borrowed rifle (thanks Gabriel) I still managed to screw up a touch-off on both a chicken AND a pig and ended up with nine of each. I finished with eight turkeys to start with a 34/40. Not how we wanted to start, but okay - gotta hit chickens and pigs! Edgar Rueda shot an awesome 39/40; Nancy Leal and Eduardo Sanchez both shot 38/40 and Jake Stine shot a 37/40 on his first trip to Saltillo.

We started on chickens in the afternoon match and I again found a way to screw up the trigger break and miss a chicken. While I was hitting all ten pigs (FINALLY a 10-in-a-row) the wind started to pick up. The wind kept picking up but Jerry did what he always does and showed why he’s the best spotter in the world. On the turkeys, the wind would gust and stop, gust and stop, gust and stop. I had to break the shot in about an inch square in the low breast or it was a miss. Anything higher and the wind would pick up the bullet and push it over the tail. Anything lower and it would miss under the tail. The one time I broke just off the breast, the wind stopped and I missed off the breast. I broke one too high and missed it. Eight turkeys.

By the time we got to rams the wind was blowing so hard it was pushing the bullet almost the entire width of the ram. On the first three rams Jerry told me to break it on the ram’s nose and all three went down, but the wind died down on the third one and it hit in the head; so Jerry changed the call to the edge of the chest (or just off the edge of the chest) put the bullet hitting the target on the rump. I touched off too high on the fifth ram and missed over the back. The wind blew like crazy on the last five but I hit the call on all five of those and hit them all to finish with a 36/40.

Nancy shot another 38/40. I was second with the 36. Edgar Shot a 35/40 and Jake shot a 33/40. That’s when it became real clear that Edgar and Jake were a serious problem!

With one more match to go Sunday morning, Nancy was was in the lead with Edgar behind her. Jake and I were tied. Edgar was four shots ahead of me so it was going to be really hard to catch him. The key was to stay close and limit the number of shooters between him and me - I was only four points ahead of him in the Monarch Cup standings. (Nancy didn’t have any Monarch Cup points from Ridgway.) I needed Nancy to shoot well and make sure Edgar didn’t catch her; and it would be nice for me to beat Jake to stay right behind Edgar. The best thing to do was roll out a great score and end it right there - nope!

I started on pigs and drilled all 10 of them - good start. It didn’t last long. I hit four of the first five turkeys. On the second bank of five turkeys, I had to keep the shot on the breast but I couldn’t keep it low enough and kept breaking high in the breast and the bullet was pushed over the tail and missed the target. I did that THREE times and only got two of five. Six turkeys - NOT GOOD!

I had several lots of ammo and all weekend I had been trying to determine which lot my borrowed rifle liked for the rams. It shot everything well out to turkeys but got finicky on the rams. When we shot the rams on Sunday, I broke a shot perfectly on call in the front shoulder but it missed just over the back. It’s important for your rifle to like the lot of ammo you’re shooting!! I missed a second ram to get 8 of 10.

I REALLY needed to close out with ten chickens. I drilled the first four but choked and missed number five. Jerry was not happy with me! I cleaned the last five but Jerry and I both knew that missing that chicken was going to hurt! I finished with a 33/40 and a 103/120 in the aggregate.

The next 45 minutes were the most tense of my shooting career. We all sat in front of the scoreboard waiting for scores to come in and for them to be tabulated to see how many shooters, if any, had moved between Edgar and me. Nancy shot well so she won. Edgar was solidly in second place. Jake shot a 34/40 to finish with a 104/120, so he was between Edgar and me. If two more shooters shot well enough to move ahead of me, Edgar would tie me in Monarch Cup points. So we waited, and watched, and counted. Edgar’s brother Pedro won the last match with a 37/40 to move to 102/120 - still one shot behind me. Whew! As the minutes wound down and the scores were tabulated, it finally became clear that I had finished fourth, two spots behind Edgar, and I was safe.

Mission accomplished! Lapua Monarch Cup North American Champion!

After lots of hugs and handshakes and congratulations (silhouette shooters are an INCREDIBLE group of very supportive competitors) and some shootoffs, we had a fantastic award ceremony. It was very emotional for me. The dream of the Monarch Cup happening took a lot of work and was delayed two years by Covid. To see it come to fruition and for it to have such an amazing inaugural season was a dream come true. To be the first-ever North American champion is still almost too much to process, and impossible to describe. I am humbled and so very thankful for everyone that made it possible.

Sunday night was another great night with a great meal and lots of fun. On Monday we all woke up, ate breakfast, hugged everyone, talked about matches coming up (or matches next year for those whose seasons were ending), headed to the airport and flew back to the United States. Now I’m looking out of my office window at a beautiful day in Louisiana that looks a lot like the beautiful days in Saltillo - and I can’t wait to go back.

Epilogue

Not every one of these newsletter entries will be a match report - in fact, that will likely be rare. I want to show you the wide world of silhouette shooting and help you to enjoy it more. I want to answer your questions and have you answer my questions. Here is a question from a friend and fellow shooter (and match director!):

What do you think of adopting a system in silhouette similar to what benchrest does... that is making certain matches around the country "points" matches such that a minimum number of points are required to go to the national or international... the idea is to spur attendance at various local matches?

I don’t believe that we should create any barrier to attending any match. So I don’t think a qualification system is a good idea to attend a championship. If silhouette gets so popular that more people want to attend a match than the match has room for, then we have a different situation (and a very good problem!) However, I do like the idea of a series of matches that lead to a championship or to certain prizes, similar to the Monarch Cup. The key is that all the matches need to be in roughly the same geographic region and need to be spaced out in a way that makes it as easy as possible for folks to attend. The matches also need to stand on their own so that shooters that can only make one of them are not dissuaded from attending. Before my time, there was a series called the “Southern Trifecta” that apparently did this well. Three matches in Winnsboro, LA, Jacksonville, FL and Benton, AR. Each match had great prizes on their own and all the scores were added so that the aggregate winner of each class got a nice vest (I think) made by Chris Winstead.