Four shooters qualify for NRA National Junior Championship
Three Flathead Valley marksmen will represent Montana for a second straight year at the NRA National Junior Air Gun Championship and Training Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, later this month.
Nathanael Probert, 18, and Carmen Luke, 17, from the Whitefish Junior Rifle Club and Leland Fabel, 16, from the Flathead 4-H Shooting Sports will be returning to the national competition, June 25-29.
Making his first trip will be Shaughn Carda, 17, also from the Flathead 4-H Shooting Sports program.
Shooters from Bozeman, Shelby and Great Falls have also qualified for Montana's junior teams, sponsored by the Montana Rifle and Pistol Association. All team members qualified by finishing in the top five overall in the state for each rifle class at NRA Junior Air Rifle Sectionals fired in Whitefish and Bozeman last February.
Probert and Luke will be firing on the precision air rifle team, and Carda and Fabel will be shooting on the sporter air rifle team. Precision and sporter air rifles have different specifications, but both classes of rifle fire a lead pellet that is propelled by compressed air or CO2.
The course of fire in Des Moines will be two 60-shot matches, each match being 20-shots prone, 20-shots standing and 20-shots kneeling. Shooters will fire the .177 caliber air rifles indoor at a distance of 10 meters. Each shot has a possible value of 10 points and to get a 10, the shooter must hit a dot that is the size of the head of a pin in the middle of a 3-centimeter diameter black circle. All rifles use only iron sights, no scope sights.
The junior shooters will be accompanied by coaches Velma Luke from the Whitefish Junior Rifle Club, and Dale Probert from the Whitefish Junior Rifle Club and Flathead 4-H Shooting Sports.
This year's competition will be the fourth trip in the last five years for the Lukes.
The Whitefish Junior Rifle Club and the Flathead 4-H Shooting Sports programs will accept new junior shooters in the fall. For more information, contact Velma Luke, 862-0045 or the Flathead County Extension Office, 758-5553.