Category: Shooting

On his first day, Trump’s Interior Secretary overturned the last-minute Obama Administration ban on lead ammunition on public lands. This will not be the last you hear of the lead issue. It’s going to come back. If we’re going to ban lead as a core material for bullets, the feds have to repeal the armor piercing ammunition law. Most of the other alternate materials bullets can be made from would qualify it as “armor piercing” under the law. Typically hunters have used pure copper bullets in jurisdictions like California, which ban lead ammunition. Pure copper bullets aren’t considered armor piercing, but they are very expensive, and not an option for shooters who go through hundreds of rounds in a shooting session.

Good news for those of you who live in Delaware County: there’s a new range opening in Upland, Race Street Range. Delco desperately needs more places to shoot that are mostly available to the general public (as opposed to private clubs that are hard to get into if you don’t know someone). Currently, there are public ranges in Yeadon (Double Action) and Chadds Ford (Targetmaster). I’ve never been to Double Action, but Targetmaster isn’t a place I’d go anymore. One of my visits there, I saw a staff member part-way down range fixing a jammed target hanger while people on the far end were still using the range. When the staff don’t follow basic safety rules, that’s bad news. Maybe they’ve cleaned up their act since then, but that was enough for me. Upland is a good location. It’s close enough to the market without having too many soccer moms. Chadds Ford is practically soccer mom central, and I remember Targetmaster had a terrible time opening back in the late 80s/early 90s.

Having this new range succeed in Upland will be a huge boon for the shooting culture in Pennsylvania. When I lived back home, if I wanted to shoot I used to drive all the way up to Classic Pistol, closer to where I live now. There are half a million people who live in Delaware County, and now shooting will be more accessible for them. Of the suburban counties, only Bucks County and Chester County have a reasonable number of public ranges of the kind that service people just getting into the culture.

Shooting competitions from club to collegiate level are rarely segregated by gender, so why do the international shooting groups always insist the little ladies be put in a special category?

This is something I’ve wondered, but never really looked into. I’d love to see the actual arguments of the decision makers, but I’m not quite sure how many original records are really available from the International Olympic Committee or where they could even be found if they are accessible.

However, a few stories I found indicate that I’m definitely not the only one to take notice. And while it’s only a couple of anecdotal incidents that seem to make the news is, the trend does appear to be that when a woman wins over a man, various nations get together and demand that women be booted from the sport. They were largely mix gendered from 1968 until 1980 for most disciplines, though that lasted until 1992 for shotgun.

The WSJ highlighted gender segregation in the shooting sports back in 2012, and they pointed to 1976 in Montreal when Margaret Thompson Murdock tied with her male American teammate in smallbore. He requested a shoot-off, but they weren’t allowed under the rules of the time and the judges declared him the winner. She took silver, but she still holds the title of being the first woman to win a medal in shooting at the Olympics. After that, the article notes that it was primarily European teams who wanted women cut from the competition against men.

In 1992, a Chinese woman took the first ever gold medal in a mixed skeet competition. Not only did the IOC move to segregate the sport in reaction to this result, but they refused to offer skeet to women at all in the next Olympics. It is interesting that the two times that women actually do well and the first reaction of the international body is to kick them out of the boys’ club.

I have seen some people argue that women may have an advantage in shooting rifle standing because of their hips. I’m kind of mixed on my feelings there because, just like men, women don’t all have the same shape. But, I’m open to the argument since I’m far from an expert on that type of competition.

But those issues don’t apply in shotgun or pistol. In this updated article on the topic, the WSJ quotes Kim Rhode, “I’d love to compete against men.” They note that she regularly competes against men here in the US.

The International Shooting Sport Federation defends the segregation in the article by claiming that female participation has skyrocketed. But that kind of seems absurd. If it’s a mixed competition cut into two separate competitions, then of course female participation will increase – so will that of men! You have more spots to fill that must be filled by gender rather than strictly by scores. When they are allowed to compete together and only the top shooters are allowed to move on, then fewer members of both genders will be present.

Even if you want to say that they meant more women are participating at lower levels of competition than the Olympics, I would point out that it’s true across the board and not just for internationally sanctioned disciplines. Every shooting sport in the United States is seeing increased female involvement and it has nothing to do with some international bureaucrat deciding that little ladies need to be put into their own class to keep them from taking medals from the boys. There’s no reason these types of increases can’t happen in other countries.

Back when I was shooting silhouette, some of the longtime shooters would talk about how it wouldn’t take much for me to set a women’s long run record for air gun on at least one animal. Here I was just goofing off at club shoots only some of the time, and when I looked up the records, all it would have taken was one good day to get one. That actually made me feel a bit worse rather than better once I thought about it. They had to show incredible dedication to the sport to even imagine setting a record, but I could have put in only a little more practice to hold the women’s version of the title. It just seemed very unfair that a new female in the sport could achieve so much more than a male who started at the same level. But, hey, since it’s a domestic competition, at least the rules did allow the male and female to compete against one another in the first place. Women can beat men, and vice versa, in the meaningful competition.

USA Shooting has been pitching the story of Kim Rhode to mainstream media because she’s broken some pretty unique Olympic records during her years of competing. She’s the only American to win individual medals in five straight Olympics – only American at all, not just the only American shooter. Her presence in Rio also makes her the only American Olympian to compete on 5 continents. Beyond American records, she is the only woman to win three Olympic golds in shooting.

In addition to holding records, she’s overcome challenges that many Olympians would find it hard to overcome – like having her specialized sport discontinued and being forced to take up a new one. Her prized equipment was stolen at one point. Yet she makes news for keeping such an upbeat attitude about her sport and life’s many challenges.

With these kinds of records, this news story from May highlighted that the US Olympic team members have never recognized Kim Rhode with the honor of carrying the American flag during opening or closing ceremonies.

Instead, news came today that US swimmer Michael Phelps will carry the flag. He was chosen because he has won multiple medals in various swimming sports that are largely just swimming different distances in the same discipline. Oh, and the other headlines he has generated for the US Olympic team include an underage DUI arrest to which he pled guilty and being photographed with drug paraphernalia. And then there’s the second DUI arrest since he apparently didn’t learn the first time. As this article notes, after every single medal-winning games Phelps has competed in, he follows up with headline-making illegal activities.

Sure, let’s choose that guy because he holds an Olympic record to represent the United States in the ceremonies.

That said, I’m going to try and watch the Olympic shooting events if I can figure out how to stream it. (I think the NBC sports channel on Roku may have all the sports airing if I have read things correctly.) It’s a fairly minor show of support, but our Olympic shooters could probably use a little more support.

I’ve been wanting to build a custom AR for a couple of years now, but a distinct lack of disposable income has been a real drag on my plans. At this point I don’t know much about what the current goodies are. The rifle would be primarily used for target shooting, possibly in matches (if I decide to get back into that kind of shooting). I’m looking for recommendations on:

• Barrels. I dot know much about barrels and twist rates, etc. It’ll be a .223 AR, probably mostly shooting your standard 55gr XM193 at distances out to 200 yards 99% of the time.
• Triggers. I’ve looked at the Geissele triggers, but they are spendy. Worth it though? Geissele is a local company, so it would be nice to support them.
• Stocks. Magpul makes an adjustable stock I think might work.
• Uppers. I notice they have uppers that allow the charging handle to operate on the left side of the upper instead of the traditional straight pull back. I’d tend to lean against this since I prefer to stick with a more standard AR, but I’m wondering if anyone has any feedback on that style of upper.
• Parts Kits. I’d get the trigger separately, but is there any quality difference in the non-trigger parts? I would tend to imagine there wouldn’t be much difference.

I’ll probably build this slowly over time, when I can come up with some spare coin to grab a needed component. Any advice one can offer would be appreciated.

Local news outlets are reporting a gun club near Easton, Pennsylvania, is being investigated by the State Police to see if there is any merit to residents accusations that gunfire from the club is hitting their homes.

I haven’t been to the club, so I don’t really know what kind of backstops or baffling they have. From a Google Eyes view, it certainly looks like it’s possible rounds could be impacting residences.

Clubs get a lot of things like this blamed on them even when it’s not coming from the club directly. In some cases I’ve seen, the person hurling accusations at a club are not even downrange, or in one case was in the ballistic shadow of a mountain that stood between the club and the residence.

Hopefully if it does turn out the bullets are coming from the range, they have the resources to correct the problem. A lot of clubs live hand to mouth, and a determination that a range in unsafe can be enough to shut a club down for good.

I’d note that area has seen a lot of in-migration from New Jersey and New York, and there’s a contingent of residents that commute to New York City from that area, so you’ll have plenty of people in the area who don’t want to coexist with a gun club.