By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
“Rain-de-voo” is the annual muzzleloading event held by the Puget Sound Free Trappers, at the Capitol City Rifle and Pistol Club just south of Littlerock, Washington, and it got its name from usually being held in the rain, in mid-February.
This year was just a little different because when we started to do our shooting, we were in snow. Yes, that prompted the idea of holding it as a “Snow-de-voo” but the snow didn’t last long enough. And, other than the nickname and considerations for the weather, this event is much like other modern-day black powder mountain man rendezvous, which means it is a lot of fun.
One of the new things about this year’s Rain-de-voo was that pistols are now included in the aggregate before they were excluded. The sound reasoning for including it this year, and probably for the years to come, was that pistols were mentioned on the match flier as being included. Rather than making an “executive decision” to reverse it, the “booshway,” Tom Brown, simply decided to run with it and include the shooters’ pistol scores when adding the aggregates. Personally, I’m certainly in favor of including the pistol scores.
As usual, the people who work at putting this rendezvous together as well as keeping it going get to shoot the rifle trail first. This is not always an advantage and it is mainly done so those people can get to their duties and jobs while the other folks are shooting. Those first-shooters included me and I’d be a “trail guide” later in the day. So, at 10:00 o’clock on Friday morning, I gathered with the other staff members of this Rain-de-voo, prepared to do my best.
But shooting in the snow is always difficult on our trail-walk because the targets are all gongs, in various shapes and at unspecified distances, and those steel targets are all painted white. That made seeing the targets rather difficult for those first shooters. At the same time, those white targets did provide an excellent excuse for not doing too well. I’ll use that excuse very quickly and while I did have a lot of fun, shooting my .50 caliber Lancaster style rifle by Tennessee Valley Muzzleloading that I call “Trailblazer,” I did miss eight of the twenty-one targets, giving me a score of thirteen hits, for 130 points.
My tiebreaker, however, was a nine. That’s from the shot taken at the very small “target” which is printed right on the scorecard, shot at from about 12 yards.
The white blanket of snow did add a little interest to this event for those early shooters. Mike Moran thought he might try wearing his snowshoes on the trail. Actually, the snow was hardly deep enough to make the snowshoes worthwhile so after a short try, he took them off.
To add some details about my shooting, the load I used in my .50 caliber “Trailblazer” was 55 grains of GOEX 3Fg powder under a .490” round ball, wrapped in a .015” patch. That’s the load I use regularly for 50-yard targets and it seems to do fairly well at the various distances for the gongs on the trail-walk. My shot at the tiebreaker, being so close, was quickly reduced with my adjustable powder measure. In addition to that, our last target on the trail-walk is at a “golf ball” sized target at rather close range, and no more than 40 grains can be used for that shot. And I did hit the “golf ball”…
After shooting with the “crew,” I needed to talk with Dale Soost, an outstanding member of the Capitol City Bowmen. Those archers put on a “primitive archery trail” for our Rain-de-voo and I’m the archery liaison for the Puget Sound Free Trappers. That’s a good title but it doesn’t actually involve much more work. But it is my job to shoot the archery trail early and to either approve it or make recommendations for any changes. Dale puts together a very good trail, including ten targets, for the primitive archery match.
One of the rather unique things about Rain-de-voo is that shooters are given the option of either throwing knives and ‘hawks (tomahawks) as part of their aggregate or shooting the primitive archery trail. My knife and ‘hawk scores are usually very low, so I always choose the archery trail, where I generally do fairly well with my “war bow.”
My bow was made from a kit, a Modoc style bow. I’ve been very pleased with my bow, which I painted in Native American style. If you have an interest in a traditionally-styled bow, you might take a look at the offerings of Grayvn Traditional Archery. More about the bow & arrow shooting later.
Then it was time for my trail-guide duties. The groups of shooters on the trail are self-guided but we do maintain someone “on duty” to repair any targets that get shot down as well as to punch the scorecards for primitive attire. Shooters wearing primitive attire receive 10 points, which is equal to one more hit, for supporting the spirit of such doin’s by being in costume.
That was when I was able to watch other shooters and one of them certainly caught my eye. That was Brook Weger, a 12-year-old who was shooting at Rain-de-voo for her very first time. And she was shooting a custom-made .45 caliber half-stock percussion rifle that fit her very well. She was shooting with her father, Sepp Weger, but she was doing her own loading of the rifle and doing rather well.
It’s always a pleasure to see young people getting started in our shooting sports, black powder or otherwise. The future of our shooting is in the hands of those young people and we need to make every effort to encourage more young folks to become interested in recreational shooting, such as in organized team events or at muzzleloading rendezvous like this one. And Brook was not the only youngster at this event, there were a few others and those included a small band of Scouts that accepted our invitation.
Brook’s father told me about the load she was shooting in her .45, which included 45 grains of GOEX 3Fg powder under a .437-inch diameter round ball held in a pillow ticking patch. That rifle was built, I found out later, by Arlen Johnson. And another outstanding thing about young Brook and her shooting was that she was using some new home-made percussion caps.
I remembered when Sepp Weger complained a little bit about the current price of percussion caps and, being a real independent type, he did something about it. Sepp bought the cap-making kit from Sharp Shooter .22 Reloader. Their kits and tools for reloading .22 include bullet molds but our main interest right now is in the making of percussion caps. They make kits for cutting the caps our of aluminum beverage cans for either #10 or #11 caps and the #11s are the most common. Their tools and kits also include what it takes to make the priming compound for “arming” those aluminum percussion caps. While I haven’t used these home-made caps myself, I certainly did watch them being used and there were no problems that I could see. Maybe one of those cap-makers is in my future.
Of course, I can’t give Brook all of our attention. Her dad, Sepp, was doing some good shooting too, firing his flintlock .40 caliber Southern style rifle on the trail.
The next morning was when I needed to consider my own scores for this doin’s, and that was when I was joined by a few of the guys, including good partner Mike Moran, to shoot the archery trail. Dale Soost tagged along as our scorekeeper and I must thank him for not laughing out loud at my early attempts for taking shots with my bow. I hadn’t shot my bow for a full year and my beginning targets will testify to that. As we went on, however, I seemed to remember some things about archery and my shooting did improve. All of the archery targets are animal-like rather than just bullseyes. And Dale had positioned those targets to, perhaps, simulate hunting shots. There were ten targets, which were each shot at twice, for a 20-shot archery match, with hits in the “kil zone” scored at 10 points while “wounding shots” were scored at 5 points. That gave a 200-points possible for the course. The last target was a full-sized moose, big enough to be farther away than it looks. My two shots on the moose were both 10s and that was a grand way to finish with the bow. My final score was 95 points, actually a little better than what I expected, adding those needed points to my aggregate score.
Next for me was the pistol trail, with twelve more shots which would be added to the aggregate. For this, I teamed-up with Jerry Johnson. He’s a real good hand to shoot with and we most certainly enjoyed our shooting but neither of us did well enough to say much more about it. I will point out that Bob DeLisle was the top pistol shooter, hitting ten of the twelve targets. I had gotten seven of them.
One more shooting event at Rain-de-voo, which I didn’t participate in this year, was the Trade Gun Match. That has another twelve targets which are very challenging. The Trade Gun Match is for smoothbore flintlocks with no rear sights, like the Northwest gun, and it is not included in the aggregate. Perhaps I’ll shoot that match again next year.
That wraps up the shooting done at Rain-de-voo and now let me congratulate some of the best shooters. The “Top Mountain Man” was Allen Tresch and he shot everything. Allen was also the top flintlock shooter, with 200 points, and the top Trade Gun shooter, with 80 points. Our top percussion rifle shooter was Derek Sotelo with 190 points. The top junior shooter was Nicholas Schuburt with an aggregate score of 205 and he was followed by Maddox Johnson. The top archer was Paul Evans with a score of 140.
Bob DeLisle was the leading shooter in the men’s aggregate with 310 points. But he was tied by both Derek Sotelo and Mike Holeman. That’s where the tiebreaker comes into place and Bob’s was just too hard to beat. Then Jojo McWhinney was next with 305 points. I also had 305 points and Jojo’s tiebreaker had to be closer to center than mine, and mine was a 9. The list goes on to include all 42 shooters and all shooters were awarded a prize from the “prize blanket.”
The prize I picked was a wooden camp chair made by Will Ulry. That’s a prize which is hard to beat. And now that Rain-de-voo is over for another year, we can hope that the snows hold off for next year mainly so we can get a better view of the rifle targets on the trail. Shooting in the snow was great but better visibility will always improve shooting and scores.
