AAR: 5th Annual Marty Brown Memorial Invitational

by Bruce Williams / Friday, 17 December 2021 / Published in 2021 Marty Brown Memorial Invitational, After Action Report (AAR), Marty Brown Memorial, Shooting Sports

This year’s Marty Brown Memorial Invitational was again held at the military ranges at Camp Atterbury near Edinburgh, IN on November 6-7, 2021. Revere’s Riders is proud to hold the Marty Brown Memorial Invitational on the same ranges that the NRA uses for their National Matches and, perhaps more importantly, the same ranges used by the US Army and Indiana National Guard for their ongoing training.

Camp Atterbury is certainly a venue worth experiencing if you have never been there previously.

This year 17 marksmen were again greeted by fantastic weather for the first weekend in November. Mornings were cold with frost on the berms but temperatures warmed nicely as the day progressed. One could hardly order up better weather…

Unfortunately, we were not able to prepare our targets on Friday before the match due to a military unit having our range until midnight. We really couldn’t complain much as the unit training on the range was the legendary 101st Airborne. With 17+ persons helping, target prep actually went pretty quickly on Saturday morning. Once the targets were squared away, all shooters were allowed to verify zero at 25 yards. With that accomplished, shooters were split into two relays with one proceeding to the target pits and the other remaining on the range.

Each shooter relay progressed through the Revere’s Riders Rifle Qualification Test (“R3QT”) at known distances of 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards. 3-shot sighters were allowed on the first iteration of the R3QT progressing from 100 to 400 yards; a second R3QT was shot going back from 400 to 100 yards without sighters.

For a donation of $20 at each distance, skills contests were offered during the first R3QT as follows:

  • 100 yards — 30 seconds of calisthenics followed by 3 shots from standing in 30 seconds; closest to the target bullseye wins.
  • 200 yards — transition to seated with 3 shots in 25 seconds; again, closest to the target bullseye wins.
  • 300 yards — begin at the 400 yard berm, proceed to the 300 yard berm, and fire 3 shots from the prone position in 90 seconds; yet again, closest to the target bullseye wins.
  • 400 yards — 3 shots from prone in 120 seconds; for this contest, smallest group wins.

If there are more than 2 skills contest winners in either the morning or afternoon, there is a “shoot-off” to select the top two. The shoot-off utilizes 5 balloons placed on the target backers; 4 larger white balloons at the corners and 1 smaller teal balloon in the center. Finalists have 7 rounds and 30 seconds to burst as many balloons as possible. White balloons are worth 1 point and the teal balloon is worth 3 points. If there is even the slightest breeze, the balloons bounce around on the target backer adding to the degree of difficulty.

Once the morning relay completed their two R3QTs, it was time for lunch.

In the afternoon, the relays swapped duties with the relay manning the target pits in the morning shooting their R3QTs and the other relay manning the target pits. The afternoon relay again shot two R3QTs including the skills contests in the first R3QT as described above.

At the end of the day, the top two morning and top two afternoon skills contest winners face off to determine 1st thru 4th place in a final skills contest from the 500 yard berm. For this contest, shooters only receive one 3-shot sighter and the actual contest consists of 120 seconds to fire a single round. Closest to the target bullseye wins.

Saturday skills contest winners:

Sunday skills contest winners:

Total separation between the 1st place to 3rd place shots on Sunday was 1″ at 500 yards (or 0.2 MOA)!

5th Annual Marty Brown Memorial Invitational winner Darrell Hammer with Event Director Phil Brown

At the end of the day on Sunday, it was Darrell Hammer winning the overall Marty Brown Memorial Invitational trophy after putting up a score of 39-12V. The Marty Brown Memorial Invitational “Tactifail” trophy was awarded to Michael Flitcraft (each recipient of the “Tactifail” trophy is tasked with adding another useless piece of crap to the trophy for the following year’s recipient; bonus points if the useless piece of crap comes straight off the rifle the recipient used at the event).