BLACK POWDER: QUADCLUB MATCH ‘SIMPLY A LOT OF FUN’

BLACK POWDER

Members of the Evergreen Troublemakers team pose for a moment during an annual multi-club muzzleloading competition held in Washington state.

4-CLUB MATCH 'SIMPLY A LOT OF FUN'

Annual muzzleloading competition a chance to win unique trophy, enjoy black powder camaraderie.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT

The Quad-Club Match is an annual muzzleloading competition between four western Washington clubs: the Paul Bunyan Plainsmen, the Lynch Creek Longhunters, the Bremerton Brigade, and my club, the Evergreen Muzzleloaders.

The structure of the Quad-Club Match is as follows. Each of the four clubs sends a team of at least five shooters, and each club must bring a paper target of their choice. The only stipulation about those targets is that they have scoring rings or areas so that shooters can get a maximum of 50 points (plus X’s) with five shots.

With those parameters, it is easy to see where a lot of variety can be expected. So let me review each target that we used in this edition of the match. 25 yards. That reduces the walking and perhaps the necessity to change powder charges, but it doesn’t reduce the level of skill needed at all. For one thing, all shooting is done o and and there are no technicalities such as rifle caliber or weight or perfections in the load that can really overcome the human element of shooting while standing on your hind legs.

The target that the Evergreen Muzzleloaders brought to this match is one you’ve seen before in this magazine,

Author Mike Nesbitt’s .50-caliber Kunz-style rifle was his choice during the match. in pictures from my previous stories. This is simply a small bull’s-eye target with a black bull’s-eye measuring just 2½ inches in diameter. The X, 10 and 9 rings are within the black and we commonly print this on yellow or even orange paper, which sometimes enhances our ability to see it. It is similar to some other bull’s-eye targets and really does not fit into the novelty target class, but we like it anyway.

Let me add, this was the target that I did my best on during the match, getting a score of 46 with my five shots. Yes, all five shots scored and I can’t say that about a couple of the other targets.

The spider target was supplied by the Paul Bunyan Plainsmen and it is somewhat unusual because it has two areas of scoring rings. The spider’s head is the “10” area, while the abdomen has a possible high score of 8. This is an interesting target, for sure. I found this target di cult to aim at and perhaps that is reflective of my “not quite like new” eyesight. While looking over the rifle’s sights at this target, the two scoring areas became indistinct. That did add to the challenge and I’m really not complaining.

My own score at this target was only 28 points with my five shots; one of those shots was a miss. That was my lowest scoring target. Scores across the board were lower on this target in general.

The third target, discussed in the order that I shot them, was the bigfoot from the Lynch Creek Longhunters. This was our largest target of the day but that didn’t make it any easier. The scoring areas were “here and there,” almost like a luck target. That’s no problem; that’s just the way it was.

My shooting on this target gave me a pretty nice group, but not centered where I wish it might have been. I hit toward the lower left of the large 9 ring, getting two 9s and three 5s, for a score of 33. Across the scoreboard, scores ran from a high of 45 all the way to zero, so I can’t complain at all about my score.

For the fourth target, from Bremerton Brigade, we had an outline of a woodchuck with various scoring areas within it. If I was to complain about any of the targets, it would be this one; it was very hard to see, even at 25 yards. However, no complaints are really given because it was just as hard to see for all shooters and no one had any particular advantage. It was like simply aiming at the center of the paper.

My last shot at this target, which was my last shot in the match, was outstanding enough to be remembered. I was aiming and squeezing the set trigger on my .50-caliber Kunz-style rifle, when I realized that I was aiming almost at the left edge of the paper. “Not there!” I said to myself and had just started to move the sights toward the center, when the rifle fired. I was lucky that the shot was not a complete miss; it barely “crawled inside” the left edge of the woodchuck and scored a 7. My total score on that target was 32 and I did have one missed shot.

TEAMS WITH MORE than five shooters have a slight advantage, simply in having more scores to pick from, but only five of each target is scored per team. In other words, if a team has more than five shooters, they will receive credit only for their top five scores on each target. That gives each team a total possible of 1,000 points for the match, counting all four of the targets brought by the various clubs.

If a team does not have five shooters, then some volunteers might “change sides” to bring the low-manned team up to the required number. Or, if one team only has four shooters, just counting the top four scoring targets from each club would make things equal. However it is done, each team is equal in number for the competition.

The winning club gets to take a totem pole trophy back to their own clubhouse, and add a small brass plaque to the base of the trophy indicating their club’s name and the year of their win. The following year, the trophy is brought back to the match, where it is awarded to the next winning club’s team.

The Lynch Creek Longhunters celebrate their win.

At this particular go-around, the trophy was won again by the Lynch Creek Longhunters, with a score of 749-9X points out of the possible 1,000. The win was a very close one. There were only two points between them and the second place team, the Paul Bunyan Plainsmen. After those two teams, the points did spread out a bit, but as you can see, the competition for the Quad-Club trophy is rather tight. In other words, the shooters and the teams were really doing their best.

While the Quad-Club trophy goes to the winning team’s club until they must defend it again, each shooter is awarded with something from the prize table based on individual scores. There were 27 shooters at this event and I placed in the number 12 spot. The prize I picked was a set of four beeswax candles, also a worthy prize.

If I haven’t made it clear, this edition of the Quad-Club Match was some doin’s! My club didn’t win the trophy but we certainly did try. And yet winning the trophy really isn’t the reason for going and joining in this friendly competition. The real reason is to rub shoulders with like-minded shooters, to share the friendship, and to help each other with shooting, whether that be technical assistance like loading or aligning flints or just in personal hold, stance and technique. In addition to all of that, there is the hot lunch, which adds to the comfort for these doin’s.

The Quad-Club Match is worthy of being attended again, maybe with more shooters next time. I’m already counting on it. In other words, the Quad-Club Match is simply a lot of fun – too much fun to miss. 

The Quad-Club trophy which is shot for each year.

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