I received notification today that Scott Merchant passed away in sleep last night, and want to let the CBA world know, as many people ask me about him at matches.
He has not been an active CBA member for several years, but everyone that met him at the matches would agree he was certainly active when he was!
What seems like long ago, Scott asked me to cook burgers at a big CBA Military match. At the time, I was shooting only rimfire benchrest competitions, so I agreed. At that match, he introduced me to many new friends, and gave me a couple of Fouling Shots to look through when I showed interest in how these old surplus rifles could shoot such great groups and scores with wheel weights and proper handling. I became nearly instantly hooked, and started asking questions. When he invited me to his reloading basement, I marveled at the setup and process, dreaming quickly of how I may someday set up a room myself. Sitting in that very room now, many things come to mind.
Scott was initially, willing to make "just enough" bullets for me to load for a match. Never enough for a lot of practice though. Sometimes he wasn't able to cast enough to get himself ready for the match. When I was ready to take the plunge and begin casting, several hours in Scott's basement proved enough to get me started there. Many thousands of miles, primers, and wind shifts later, the central part of the US holds many shooters that I would say can point to a tip, casting loading, or shooting technique they learned from Scott.
I wish things had worked out so he could rejoin the match shooting ranks.. Will miss him, and would like to encourage others to add to this if they are so inclined, as I need to stop typing for a bit...
Michael
