Good Morning Everyone!!

First, our thanks to Carl Nordgren and John Gould for a good daycamp on Saturday at Mt Itasca, and for the whole crew of adults that suffered through the invasion of mosquitos in the HQ building while going over the Organizing Committee and Rules of Biathlon for the Officials class!! I think it was a really good camp!! More to come in Elk River in June!

We are putting the final touches onto the annual schedule for winter, but I am enclosing what I know at this point. We are double checking with CXC so as to avoid  as many of the JNQ races as possible—but there will be some overlap—simply not enough weekends in the winter!! We will also try to avoid the larger statewide high school events—but likely there will be some conflict with smaller local meets. Most of our winter races are scheduled for Sundays to help avoid conflicts. If you work hard all weekend, be sure you take a good but active recovery day on Mondays!!

Coming up quickly is the  annual 4 day June camp at Mt Itasca to build on the skills you have started to work on! The Invitation and sign up sheets are attached! This is a great chance to get back into the mode of Biathlon training, and to build on the skills you were exposed to at the recent daycamps!! As you will be finished with high school sports by then, this camp will also be more physical and intended to enhance your skills both on rollerskis and on the range!! Please sign up early, if you plan to attend, as we need to know numbers for food planning, coaching staff needs and etc!!

At the recent daycamps, I noted a  few rifles that looked to be less than well maintained!! I am enclosing our standard rifle cleaning instructions, and if you have a MN Biathlon rifle [or your own] you need to be cleaning the rifle basically each time you use it. Forget the stories you heard about people who clean once a month [or year] whether the rifle needs it or not!! There should be no rust anywhere on the rifle, the bore should be clean and shiny, and the bolt free of carbon. The areas in the receiver that accept the extractors on the bolt should be cleaned with a dental pick, and the chamber where the bullet goes to be fired, should be cleaned out!! When you handle the rifle, in the summer particularly, the acid in your sweat will cause the barrel and other parts to lose the protective bluing—wipe all exterior parts down after use with a light layer of good rifle oil containing a preservative—not motor oil!! 

The rifles we are leasing out, and the ones most of you buy used, are definitely not new! But they will all shoot a dime sized or smaller group at 50 meters, if well maintained. But I have seen some where the chamber was so gummed up the bullet would not slide in completely without jamming on the bolt. We are shooting a lot of rounds and if you don’t clean properly, that will happen!! 

For most of our rifles, CCI ammo—for whatever reason—does not chamber easily. It must be slightly larger in diameter than the old Federal 711b that was fine—and made by the same company. The Norma Tac 22 seems good for training ammo—or SK or Lapua.

Enjoy the Journey—we are underway!!
Bill Meyer, Coach
MNBiathlon