Tag: recreational shooting

I’m going to spend a few hours loading 300 rounds of .45LC and prepping .308 brass while listening to the last couple of episodes of Vicious Circle.

Carry on.

UPDATE:  Plan failure.  Other stuff got done instead.  Maybe after work this week….

If you’ve never been to a pin shoot, here’s some short videos of the action taken at the last match:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

My competitor had an equipment malfunction, but that was a good run for me, six shots, six hits.

Here’s a clean run by another competitor:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

And a not quite clean run:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

And here’s a .22 rimfire run. The targets are pin tops on the back edge of the table:

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf

He just beat me.

If you haven’t tried bowling pin shooting, give it a try.  It’s a LOT of fun. 

What a beautiful day for a match!  And what a change from two months ago.  Including me, there were a total of ten shooters and twenty-four handguns.  For once, .22 is not the most popular class with seven entries, compared to Major caliber pistol with eight.  Minor caliber pistol only had four entries, and Revolver class had five.  I’d planned on bringing my Smith Model 25 Mountain Gun, but discovered last night that I only had 26 loaded rounds.  I was sure I had a box of 100 somewhere, but no.

We got started a little late, about 8:20, and finished right about noon.  No one overall winner this time – Travis Higgins won .22, Cliff Reed won Revolver, John Higgins won Minor Caliber, I won Major, and I beat John for bragging rights in the last match, Major against Minor.  There was some very close competition, a few malfunctions, a bunch of reloads, a couple of ties, and a lot of fun.

The next match is November 13.  Start time will again be about 8:15.  Hope to see you there!

Usual place, the Tucson Rifle Club action range.

Time: 8:00 AM sign-up, first rounds downrange about 8:15

Handguns only

.22 rimfire, centerfire revolver (.38 caliber minimum), semi-autos (9mm minimum, unless you’ve got a S&W Model 52)

You’re welcome to shoot your revolver against the semi-auto crowd, but we think it’s more fun to shoot wheelgun-vs.-wheelgun.

Cost: $10 for the first gun, $5 for any additional guns. Bring about 100 rounds for each. You probably won’t need ’em all unless you’re really good at missing fast, but 50 probably won’t be enough.

Hope to see you there!

Well, this was the lightest turnout since I started running this match, only four shooters showed up.  A year ago there were fourteen shooters besides myself.  Hmmm….

Still, the five of us had a great time!  This was the first month for a specific revolver class, and there were four of us with revolvers:  Don M. came with a Ruger Super Redhawk with “bunny-fart” loads (though a couple of them sounded suspiciously loud), I brought my S&W Model 25 Mountain Gun in .45LC, Travis Higgins brought a beautiful 6″ Colt Python (shooting .38s), and Cliff Reed brought a Taurus 65 (also shooting .38s).  Four of us also had automatics, two 1911’s, a Browning Hi Power, and a Sig 229, and four of us brought .22’s – three Mk IIs and one MkIII.

Since there were so few of us, we competed in pairs until one shooter was eliminated, then finished the match with the top three contenders vying for the overall win.  Travis won the inaugural revolver competition, and I took .22 and the auto classes. Travis had to beat me four times to win with his Python, and did so with relative ease.  I need more wheel-gun practice.  (Or a lighter .45LC load.  That thing THUMPS.)

There will be no match in September – I will be at the sixth annual Gun Blogger Rendezvous in Reno, Nevada that weekend.  The next match will be in the fall – hopefully a cooler and less humid October 9.  We will have a revolver class again – that was fun!

Hope to see you there!

Joe Huffman runs Boomershoot, an annual long-range shooting event held every spring in upper Idaho.  At Boomershoot, the goal is to hit small (4″ square and 8″ square) targets with rifles at long range.  How long?  The closest targets are more than 300 yards away, the farthest are 700 yards.  Joe does this to promote the skill of long-range shooting.  I’ve been to the shoot (2009).  Trust me, hitting a 4″ square boomer at 640 yards is very rewarding.  Two in a row is an almost indescribable ego-boost.

It looks like long-range shooting is gaining popularity.  As some wag once said, “A golf course is a waste of good rifle ranges.”  Now there is Rifle Golf.

A round of “rifle golf” works like this: Accompanied by a guide, you drive a six-mile loop on a dirt road on a sheep ranch. Along the way, you stop at four different shooting stations. The stations have tables and chairs for benchrest shooting. At the first station, your first target to shoot at is a black wooden silhouette of a moose, at 442 yards away. At the place where a hunter would place an ideal shot on the moose (at the center of the heart/lungs area), there is a hanging half-circle white metal plate, about 11 inches in diameter. If you hit the plate on the first shot, that’s scored as an “eagle” (2 under par). If you get the plate on the second shot, that’s a birdie (1 under par). If you miss the first two shots at the distant target, you take your third shot at something closer; on “hole” 1, that’s a deer at 285 yards.

RTWT. It actually sounds like a LOT of fun.

But it would be more fun if the targets exploded.

Just sayin’.

And hey!  There’s video!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLxHaGdlrTY]

Turnout today was, to put it mildly, light.  That’s too bad, because while the humidity was up, the temperature just wasn’t that bad.  Five people showed up to join me, and between us we had thirteen guns – six of them .22 pistols.

Last month’s centerfire winner John Higgins took it all this month, going undefeated with his Mk II and his 9mm Witness.  Cliff Reed was the Major caliber winner with his Norinco 1911, but he couldn’t outshoot John, and lost the final match, two to one.

At the urging of the few who did attend, next month we’ll have a separate revolver class – .38 Special (or .357’s shooting .38’s) will be Minor caliber.  .357 and larger will be considered Major.  I’ll be bringing my Model 25 Mountain Gun in .45 Long Colt.  Hopefully there will be at least three other shooters with wheelguns.

The next match is August 14.  Signup at about 8:00 AM, first rounds downrange by 8:20.  See you there!

Berm work at the Tucson Rifle Club action range is still ongoing, but the short bays are available for matches.  We’re still on! Registration begins at 8:00 AM. Sign in at the range office, but if all you’re going to do is shoot the match, you don’t need to pay the daily use range fee – it’s part of the match entry fee for non-members. $10 for the first gun, $5 each for additional guns. First round downrange (hopefully) by about 8:45.

We’re still shooting Major (.40S&W and above), Minor (9mm and below – minimum .38 Special), and .22 rimfire as separate classes, in a double-double-elimination contest.  Hollowpoint and flat-point bullets work better at carrying pins off the tables than round-nose or FMJ bullets do, regardless of caliber.  Line up three abreast, whoever wins two rounds takes that set.  Lose two sets, you’re eliminated from that class.

You’ll be paired off against other shooters for head-to-head competition, again, first person to win twice wins the set. Whoever’s left at the end of the match with no more than one loss is the winner for that class. Bring enough ammo! (I recommend 100 rounds.)  Most tables take well over five shots. Even if you lose the round, you can keep shooting until you’ve cleared your table if you want to. Consider it practice for the next round.

The last match of the day will be a best two-out-of-three competition between the top Major and Minor shooters (unless, of course, it’s the same person). Your only prize: the accolades of your peers.

Everyone who hangs around until the end of the shoot will be put in for a drawing. $1 of each entry goes into a pot. A drawing from the names of those present will be taken, and the winner gets the whole pot.

See you Sunday, July 10!