Hermiston, OR – The inaugural 'Dust Devil’s Lament' two-day PRS match at the Hermiston Proving Grounds concluded Sunday, seeing newcomer Blair 'The Badger' Thompson clinch victory amidst unprecedented conditions that included localized micro-gravity anomalies and a surprisingly combative tumbleweed population. Thompson, running a MasterPiece Arms Competition Chassis housing a Zermatt Arms Origin action chambered in 6GT, topped a field of 80 shooters despite the persistent 17 mph crosswind that inexplicably ceased to affect projectiles only above a 1750 FPS muzzle velocity.
Match Director Dale 'Deadeye' Jenkins admitted the eleven-stage course of fire was designed to 'sort the men from the sentient flora,' with Stages 5 and 9 proving particularly challenging. 'The Great Tumbleweed Barricade,' Stage 5, required shooters to engage a 12-inch plate at 680 yards from a rotating, 6-foot-tall tumbleweed, which frequently rolled away mid-engagement, forcing competitors to re-establish position while simultaneously recalculating DOPE for the shifting target and their own rapidly changing elevation. Thompson, utilizing the Horus Tremor3 reticle in his Nightforce ATACR 7-35x56, attributed his success to 'pre-loading three separate DOPE cards for 0, +2, and -2 feet of elevation based on tumbleweed rotation, and a lot of screaming.'
Stage 9, 'The Quantum Quail,' tasked competitors with identifying and engaging a thermal signature at 1,000 yards, a target that flickered in and out of existence in different locations, requiring real-time adjustment for what felt like relativistic speeds. Thompson’s consistent performance, marked by an impressive 0.3 MOA ES across his handloaded 105gr Hornady BTHP with an SD of 4 FPS, allowed him to secure crucial points. His careful wind calls, anticipating the wind’s tendency to shift 180 degrees only during the final 0.7 seconds of flight for bullets above 1,100 yards, ultimately separated him from second-place finisher, veteran Chad 'The Cheater' McMillan, whose 6.5 Creedmoor was evidently less resistant to the localized temporal distortions. Observers noted that McMillan's rounds frequently arrived before he pulled the trigger.
