Abby Casey in 1980’s regalia shooting in the Big Bore Competition.
Competition season has a way of sneaking up on you. This year, there were a few issues that were out of my control that lead to a shortened practice season. A shortened practice season leads to rushed practice, but my overall sense was that I had things more or less sorted out in advance of the Rocky Mountain Airgun Challenge.
Do you know your dope? UX Team Member Ckye Thomas’s Scope Cap Dope.
Where I had improved since last year was I had attained some data for the longer shots that the Precision Marksman course required. What I had forgotten to account for was the extreme distances needed to succeed in the Pro classification. The precision course can be shot with either slugs or pellets and those in airguns up to .30 caliber. For RMAC, I had decided to bring only one gun to compete in all of the events I shoot: Precision, Speed, and Bench. That one gun was the .25 caliber Umarex Zelos.
The author planting down on a HOT tire during the Precision.
In the days before I shipped out my gear to the event, I shot pellets at various distances out to 165 yards– with pellets. I had not bought any slugs as I forgot that one could use them in the precision competition. When I shot 175 yards, the date for the 33.95 grain pellets I was using just went weird. 165 was the limit… that is for pellets, anyway.
In prepping for the 100 yard Benchrest competition, I had sent plenty of pellets downrange that I felt confident shooting the .25 Zelos for a bullseye competition. Speed, well honestly, I was going to let speed deal with itself. I just did not have time to work out on that competition. The chips would fall where they would.
Of course, when you go from roughly 800 feet of elevation to around 5,000 feet, there will be a change in whatever dope you come up with. Nevermind that I also got my hands on a couple tins of .25 caliber slugs right before I left. This was about to get weird and in more ways than one.
Abby Casey was squaded up with team member Mark Davis for the Speed Competition. Don’t worry, she kicked his tail.
Traditionally, team Umarex heads out to the desert to check zero and gather some on-the-scene dope for the actual conditions we will be shooting in. I’m glad we did, as I was able to gather some insight on how the slugs would perform in the Zelos. That said, I only went out to 150 yards with the slugs. This becomes important soon.
This year, the Benchrest competition preceded all of the other competitions. I reset my turrets and went to work on card one. My Zelos was topped with an Arken EPL 6-24X50 scope. Last year I shot with Arken’s SH 4-16X50 optic on the Gauntlet SL30 and turned in some mediocre cards. This year, my eyes were much less stained with the greater magnification on the EPL optic. Card one was encouraging. I shot a 202 in some fairly persistent winds. I really felt like I could tighten those scores up the following day on card two. By all accounts, there was no reason why I should not have done better as during the shooting on Friday the winds were much more favorable. But like the Arkansas Razorback baseball team, I managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by shooting only 174.
I wasn’t alone in having a bad card. There was some of that going around, even with much better shooters than me.
The author decked out as Magnum P.I.’s Thomas Magnum at his turn on the bench for Card One.
What with the lighthearted mood surrounding this 1980’s themed competition, I was anxiously looking forward to both the Precision and Speed competitions that would be held Friday afternoon and Saturday. Utah Airguns always goes over-the-top for these two events and this year they did not disappoint. The 1980’s were everywhere! Each stage of both of these competitions were 100% 1980’s nostalgia. From Q-Bert, Mario Brothers, Pac-Man, A-Team, Donkey Kong, Miami-Vice, Monster Trucks, and many, many others we all had a great time shooting these two events.
In a shocking development, I managed to hit the first target I shot at, an 8” plate hung out at 240 yards. The hits after that first stage were few and far between, but the challenge was exciting. Most targets that were inside of 80 yards were no larger than 2 inches and proportionately scaled down to a ¼ inch by 30 yards. This is a precision shooting competition after all.
The Speed course pitted two shooters from the same squad against each other. This changed for every target in the course, so you didn’t shoot against the same shooter each time. I had a few close matches, but never won one outright. Once again, as far as excitement goes, a Speed match is hard to beat.
It wasn’t the greatest card, but “Magnum Airgunner” did break the 200 mark with the .25 caliber Zelos in 10-15 mph wind.
Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the banquet held on Sunday due to a prior engagement. This was a real bummer. The RMAC banquet is quite something to behold. Not just for the fun and food, but to see what the crew from Utah Airguns does with the money that is poured into the auction and raffles. Last year a sizable donation was made to an outdoors camp for disabled kids in the Utah area. It really was a drag to miss out on this touching portion of the event.
Click here to see results from 2025's Rocky Mountain Airgun Challenge.
Next on the competition front is Pyramyd Air’s Pyramyd Cup. This one will be held in September, 1,500 miles away from the dusty Utah Rockies. Let’s go!