Category: Shooting

Missouri has a range protection law that protects gun clubs against the most common complaint used to shut them down: noise.  But a plantiff in a noise nuisance case in that state has found a way around that:

In the appeals court’s official opinion, Judge Lisa White Hardwick agreed that while the statute protects the gun club from lawsuits stemming from noise nuisance, it does not protect the club from nuisance lawsuits based on vibrations to the ground caused by gunfire.

Sounds waves in the air can sometimes cause things to vibrate, true.  But aren’t they part and parcel to noise?

“Sometimes the vibration from some of the shots just makes your chest just tremble,” Brown testified, “just like somebody busted you right in the chest … You’re thinking you’re hearing fire even in the quiet peace of the night life.”

What the hell are they shooting there?  Howitzers?  Nevertheless, I at least have more sympathy for these people than your typical plaintiffs against gun clubs, who buy houses next them and then complain about the noise.  The Brown’s house was there first, and the gun club came after.  But it’s disturbing that vibration, which is part and parcel to noise, is now being used to shut down clubs.

Perhaps the Browns would be willing to join us in a campaign for restoring the rights of gun owners to buy suppressors for their guns.  What’s illegal here is just considered good manners by the rest of the world.

Bitter and I spent the weekend dog watching for my aunt, which is about an hour away.  Got up early this morning to head to the IHMSA match, normally 15 minutes away from me, but from my aunt’s, an hour.  Weather was awful.  I managed to shoot one round of air pistol before the storm from hell came in and swamped us.

Needless to say, the match was canceled after that, and considering I had to fish for the animals through a few inches of water that had collected into puddles on the range, that was probably a good thing. I didn’t get to shoot smallbore before the rain out.

The storm that passed through seems to have caused some flooding in the area. There was some pretty impressive street flooding. The National Weather Service even had a tornado warning, but I haven’t heard whether anything touched down. Fun times.

Call Frank Lautenberg, because tonight, Bitter beat me.  Twice.  Last week she attended our Thursday silhouette league, and did pretty well.  This week she shot a AAA score of 24 air pistol, open sights.  I did not even manage to shoot a AAA score with Mata Gallina.  If you start shooting competitively, you’ll start getting very good at making excuses for shooting badly.  For tonight, here are the excuses I thought up.

• I let her win, because I like to encourage new shooters, you know.
• I gave her the gun that I did a trigger job on, whereas mine is still shooting right from the factory, and Crosman triggers right from the factory are pretty appalling.
• I wasn’t wearing my favorite shoes.  The shoes I was wearing have a springy air cushion in the heel, which pushes me forward onto my toes, and I don’t get a good stable balance.   Bitter was wearing platform shoes, so this excuse is particularly lame, which is why I’m proud to have thought of it.
• Red dot sights on Mata Gallina I got yesterday still aren’t quite where I would like them to be, whereas the sight settings on my open sight gun are about as good as I can get them.
• It was very hot and humid out, and Bitter being from Oklahoma has an unfair advantage.

I could probably think of a few more if I had enough time.  But the fact is she beat me, fair and square.  Naturally this means I need to transfer my pellet trap to the car so she can’t practice while I’m at work.

Over at Guns and Hunting.

A reader asked me to relay my experience with the 6.8 Special Purpose Cartridge, since I shot the high-power match at my club with the 6.8 upper.  I bought the upper a few years ago at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, because Uncle had brought it out on behalf of Ko-Tonics (who are no longer in business).

I shot a high-power match this weekend with it, since I had plenty of 6.8x43mm loaded up, and didn’t feel like loading up any 5.56.  We had a Garand match first.  Shot decently with that, with a 250 out of 300.  Shot awful with the 6.8 AR, but that was my fault, not the gun or the cartridge.  My impressions of 6.8:

• The recoil is heavier than 5.56x45mm, but it’s not nearly as much as a 7.62x51mm.  On the loads I use, it only has about two more grains of powder than the 5.56 loads I make with the same powder.
• Shooting a match out to 200 yards, like we do at my club, there’s no perceptible difference between 5.56x45mm and 6.8x43mm.  I think you’re probably at a disadvantage because of the heavier recoil of the 6.8x43mm.
• Shooting out to 400 yards, I can’t say I have much experience with the 6.8, but when I’ve had the opportunity to do it, the 6.8 seems to hit more reliably at that distance than 5.56x45mm.
• Past that distance, you’re really beyond what an intermediate cartridge is meant for without using specialized bullets and loads.  High-power shooters that shoot a full 600 yard match use special loads and bullets that are too long to even be loaded into a magazine properly, which is fine for slow-fire stages.
• The 6.8 SPC round would be effective at hunting medium sized game, if that’s what you’re interested in.  The bullet you use is identical to the .270 Winchester, although it’s not as powerful a round as would be used in deer hunting, but at distances you’d typically take a deer from, it would be effective.

I think 6.8SPC would make a good round for replacement of the 5.56×45, if the military ever decides to go the route of a larger caliber intermediate cartridge.  I’m more skeptical of its utility in high-power competition, because I’m not sure what advantage it offers over 5.56.  Keep in mind that my club only goes out to 200 yards, so others who might have more experience with longer range shooting might have a different impression.  I can’t speak to it’s performance vs. 5.56x45mm out past that distance, because I just don’t have much experience with it.

If you’re interesting in getting yourself a 6.8 SPC upper, or making yourself a complete 6.8 AR, Bison armory is a good supplier.

Took the Mata Gallina out to our Thursday league match tonight.  Just got the pellets a few hours before so I had no time to sight in. Only got a few chickens.  Bitter came with and snapped a pic of me shooting chickens with the taco grip typical for shooting Silhouette.

I had to do it on the fly on a windy rainy night.  Still need to work on it a bit.  Bitter ended up shooting a 14 in a 60 animal match, with open sights.  She really did quite good for a first time shooting air pistol.  It’s not an easy sport, and I gave her a gun with a half empty CO2 cartridge in an attempt to sabotage her, but it didn’t work too well!

I can see why Rowland prefers the .22.  For one, when the CO2 is dropping, the gun sounds and feels different.  For two, you can actually see a .22 pellet headed downrange under more lighting circumstances than you can see a .177 pellet, so you can do Kentucky windage better.  If it hadn’t been for being able to see the pellet, I wouldn’t have hit much of anything tonight.

After almost every air gun Silhouette match, we have long runs.  Long runs are where you try to score as many animals as you can in a row, up until the record.  If you shoot ten animals in a match, you can count those toward your long run.

At Today’s Air Gun Silhouette Match, we manged to set a record.  Rowland Smith, this past Thursday, managed to break the Senior record for most number of pigs with an open sight pistol.  Pigs are at 12 yards, and about the size of a walnut.  After setting the Senior record for pigs on Thursday, today he broke his own record by scoring 40 pigs in a row in the long runs.  That’s five away from the overall record, held by Dave Carpenter (45 pigs with open sights, no bullshit).

Rowland posing with “Lucky,” his custom shop Crosman .22 Air Pistol, with a Williams Peep Sight.  Rowland has had a record that was somehow lost in NRA paperwork.  Let us hope they do not lose this one.  They better not lose this one.

First, my apologies for taking so long to compile the results of the June match.  This was a tough one, designed to separate the men from the boys, and it worked pretty well.  I had Mr. Completely tied with .22 Scoped, and I knew I had to take one of the planes hidden in the wing area.  I put those there specifically to tempt.  I figured I was going to beat Mr. C, or I was going to go down in flames.  I took the shot, pulled it, and hit my own plane; down in flames.  Ended up with 18, rather than the 24 I would have gotten had I hit.  Mr. C played it safe, and that ended up being the winning strategy.  I did manage to tie Mr. C with an air pistol, but since I did not announce an air gun category ahead of time, and because the rimfire category is harder, Mr. C. is the overall match winner.

I have to admit a great deal of admiration for the folks who chose to take this on with a centerfire pistol.  This was definitely a rimfire match!  Really, without doing a taco hold, this match was going to be rough.  The planes being small and oddly shaped makes knowing the best place to aim difficult.

Overall Match Winner: Mr. Completely
Class I – Rimfire Iron Sights
Shooter	Pistol	Planes Hit	Ace Bonus	Penalty Hits	Total
Merle	Ruger 9 1/2 SSS Conversion	6	5	0	11
True Blue Sam	Ruger Super Single Six	6	5	1	6
Merle	Ruger Mk.II 6 7/8	6	5	2	6
Class Winner:	Merle
Class II – Rimfire Scoped
Shooter	Pistol	Planes Hit	Ace Bonus	Penalty Hits	Total
Mr. Completely	High Standard w. 4×12 Scope	13	10	0	23
Sebastian	Ruger Mk.III Hunter 22/45	13	10	1	18
Winston	Ruger Mk.III	11	10	10	11
Danno	Ruger 22/45	6	5	3	6
Class Winner:	Mr. Completely
Class III – Centerfire Iron Sights
Shooter	Pistol	Planes Hit	Ace Bonus	Penalty Hits	Total
Azreel	Para Ordinance 1911 .45ACP	6	5	3	6
Azreel	FN Five-Seven 5.7x23mm	5	5	1	5
Ian Argent	Glock 17L	5	5	4	5
Class Winner:	Azreel
Bonus Class – Air Pistol Iron Sights
Shooter	Pistol	Planes Hit	Ace Bonus	Penalty Hits	Total
Sebastian	Crosman 2300S .177 cal	13	10	0	23
Class Winner:	Sebastian (by default)

Thanks to everyone who participated! If there are any errors or corrections, let me know.

Sebastian has found the WordPress app for the iPhone to be less than useful. It regularly eats posts that can’t be recovered. So, rather than trying to live blog his shooting competitions, I convinced him to try tweeting his competitions 140 characters at a time.

So, if you’d like to follow along, check out his Twitter feed @SebastianSH. You can follow him on Twitter or add the RSS feed to your reader.