Saturday, July 4, 2009

4-H shooter hits the mark

Team finishes fourth in one event at National competition

Nat Holland El Defensor Chieftain Reporter

Accuracy is important to Socorro's Elizabeth Barteau.

Barteau and teammates from Valencia County's Rocky Mountain Clover Club competed at the 4-H National Shooting Sports Invitational, held in Grand Island, Neb., June 24-28.

Barteau shoots a .22-caliber rifle in the small-bore rifle discipline, one of eight shooting disciplines at the Nationals.

"We had to win the state shoot to get there," said Barteau, noting that several other clubs from New Mexico also competed at Nationals in other disciplines.

About 25 other teams totaling around 100 shooters from around the country competed in the small-bore rifle competition, which is made up of three stages.

"The first is silhouettes," said Barteau. "You are shooting cast iron cutouts of animals."

Barteau scored 17 out of 40 possible points, which was good for the event, but said, "My sights were off on the last ones — the pigs."

The second stage is the National Rifle Association Three-Position where shooters record 20 shots in each of the prone, kneeling and standing positions. Barteau's team placed fourth in the NRA stage, their best finish.

The final Civilian Marksman Program Rimfire Sporter Rifle stage consists of alternating rounds of slow and rapid fire shooting at several different distances.

Barteau uses a different gun for each match. The NRA 3-position only allows the rifles to be loaded as a single-shot and the shooter must use iron sights — no scope. The two other divisions are intended for sporter rifles — light guns with a trigger pull of at least 2 pounds — and a scope is okay.

Barteau is left-handed, but the single-action gun she uses in the silhouette stage is for right-handed use and takes too long for her to reload in the rapid-fire CMP stage.

While sighting in her rifle on the "sighter bulls," targets that don't count for anything and are intended to help shooters zero in their sights, Barteau thought she missed and hit one of her official targets.

Normally if you hit a target while shooting at the "sighter bulls" while at competition its not an issue, she said, so she called an official over to point it out. Barteau was told the rules are different at Nationals and she couldn't redo the shot at that target.

Barteau's coach came over and told her he thought it was just a bug.

"With a minute left to go, it spread its wings and flew away," said Barteau, who was then able to take a real shot at the target.

Barteau got involved with 4-H at a young age and was aware of the shooting education available through the program.

"My dad was trying to teach me how to shoot a rifle — but I wanted to do it right so I decided to do the 4-H project," she said.

Barteau placed fourth individually in the first district competition she went to at the age of 9 or 10.

"I was so shocked I got a prize so I just kept doing it," she said.

Barteau, now 17, and plans to attend New Mexico Tech this fall.

"I thought this was going to be my last year (shooting) since I'm going to college," said Barteau. "I don't want to quit so I'm trying to look for more competitions outside of 4-H."

nholland@dchieftain.com

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