Joe Huffman looks at the issue, which is important in long range shooting. Joe writes ballistic software for fun and profit, so he’s the blogosphere resident expert on exterior ballistics.
Category: Shooting
April E-Postal – Deficit Shooting
JimmyB has the April E-Postal match up. Has to be in by the 27th at midnight. This is a really creative match. You start off 12 trillion dollars in the hole, and you try to reduce your deficit by hitting the small (-1) targets, without hitting any of the bigger deficit busting whoppers that surround it. Each hit on those is worth a trillion dollars in savings to your budget. Can you do better than Obama on the budget? Find out and shoot this month’s e-Postal match.
We Need More E-Postal Match Participants
Mr. Completely has the results of the March e-Postal match up. Mr. C smoked me by 7 points in the rimfire scoped category, so I took second there, but I took first in centerfire open sights. This clearly means we don’t have enough shooters. I hope you’ll consider shooting Mr. C’s April match. Congratulations to BillL for winning the match overall.
Congratulations to Blackfork
Blackfork got one of his photos used on the cover of USA Shooting Sports magazine.
UPDATE: You know, that’s a lot of rifles in that picture that we’re told have no sporting use.
Just Where Will It Stop?
A hunting blogger recently opened debate about supposed “high-fenced hunting” and preserve hunting. He has since added to it and I haven’t fully caught up. However, based on the opening of the post, I had to say something. My comments focus on the hunting community given the context. But, I think it easily translates into discussions we have about the shooting sports and gun ownership in general. So, without further delay, here it is:
If we, the hunting population start to define what hunting is, where will it stop?
In the spirit of Fark, THIS!
This right here, in my opinion is the biggest threat to hunting. Yes, there are huge legal and cultural threats, too. But, ultimately, when I see the community dividing over really stupid issues (the most divisive and common I see is related to access), that’s where I see the downfall of hunting.
Yes, I recognize that my use of the term “stupid issues” isn’t making the conversation any easier. I realize there are valuable opinions on many sides of any given issue. On the other hand, I want to grab many I have had to deal with by the shoulders and shake them violently while screaming, “Do you want your sport to die, you freakin’ idiot?” But, if it helps, I think the same thing about many sport shooters I encounter, too. :)
In PA, the latest debate was over expanding crossbow use. I kid you not, I met several guys who were more outraged over that decision than they would have been if the had cut all hunting seasons in half. Sebastian was talking to one outdoor writer here who was just laughing about the entire thing. He pointed out that these very same people and groups screamed as loudly about compound bows years ago – and now they would scream bloody murder if you tried to restrict compound bows. Meanwhile, as non-hunters who care about the issue, Sebastian & I are wondering why, if it has the possibility of opening up hunting to a slightly broader audience, bow hunters are seeking to shut it down.
Hunters have got to start getting on the same page if they hope to keep the sport alive for their kids and grandkids. That doesn’t mean that every hunter has to agree on every issue. It means that the first question asked should be whether the subject at hand (property access, apprentice hunting, license changes, rifle/bow/whathever use, preserves, etc.) has an opportunity to open up the sport to new or no longer active participants. If the answer is yes (and it will be most of the time), then the discussion should really just be a matter of weighing the costs and benefits. I think even changing how those issues are debated will get more hunters closer to the same page.
Sorry for such a long comment that doesn’t directly address the issue at hand. But, I think the point you made is particularly relevant to many of the debates in the community.
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Before any shooters jump on the bandwagon with the idea that we’re superior to hunting in that we don’t have these same divides, that’s simply not true. In fact, the perceived divide between shooting and hunting interests is a key example. I say perceived because I meet very few hunters who are willing or ready to throw shooters under the bus. But, I talk to an awful lot of shooters who make the accusation about hunters and therefore justify throwing hunting issues under the bus in the name of revenge. No movement is perfect, and we have divisions within the shooting community, just like they have divisions in the hunting community. It’s time to find ways to reshape some of our conversations about internal issues.
TSRA Mid-Range Championship
Blackfork has some photos of the event, as well as the winners of the NRA regional match, who are sporting rifles we’re repeatedly told have no sporting purpose.
Smoke ’em & Hope
Mr. Completely’s e-postal match this month was a bear. Difficult to shoot with a rimfire pistol, and even harder to shoot with a 1911. If you take the size of Mr. C’s stop plate, and project it out to the 42 feet it would be for the Steel Challenge course, it would only be two inches wide, as opposed to ten inches for the standard stop plate for the course.  But hey, it has to be a downloadable target, and if it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.
Scored 53 with rimfire scoped, and 83 with centerfire open sights.
Initially, when I started practicing rimfire, I was going in a sort of reverse Z motion. After scattering my shots all over the right side on the lower right target, I decided an upside down U was a better strategy, then going for the stop plate. Tended to overshoot the stop plate though.
For center fire pistol, I had a bugger of a time with the third target. In addition, I had to raise my point of aim, because as my speed increased, my point of impact dropped. It goes back to Todd Jarrett’s advice of “Aim 3/4s high” But I hit almost nothing of the third plate in the U. A different pattern might be better with the .45, but it’s too expensive to experiment.
UPDATE: Another trick with the smallbore gun, is I was holding it taco. Mr. Completely also uses this technique in Steel Challenge and pin shooting. Normally, it’s a silhouette hold, but it seems to work pretty well for action shooting too.
My Results for Winter Match
There’s still some daylight left in some parts of the country if you want to shoot the Winter rifle match. The last time I shot the AK-74 was at the Langhorne Practical Match in December. I have, over time, come to dislike the AK platform for shooting more and more. The biggest thing I struggle with is the sights. The Kalashnikov’s reputation for inaccuracy is overstated, but it’s not entirely undeserved. I’ve seen people who are well practiced with them shoot very well.
- Offhand Slow – 69/100 0X
- Sitting Rapid – 56/100 0X
- Prone Rapid – 67/100 0X
Total of 192/300 0X. Bah.
My sitting shots were all over. Prone were grouped decently, just not over the bullseye. Because it’s a winter match, I didn’t stay out to do any reshoots. I got what I got. For our spring match, I’m thinking of doing a 500 shot point service rifle match. Nothing fancy.
For now, I need to get to the range to shoot Mr. Completely’s e-postal match “Smoke ’em & Hope” so I can submit scores for that. I’ll be shooting my Para LDA 1911 .45 and Ruger Mk.III Hunter for this one.
Air Gun Pellet Stills
This shows various objects getting hit with a 500fps air gun pellet. Very cool.  I’ve set this one as my desktop background.
Do Some Shooting This Weekend
I’ve gotten several more scores for the Winter Rifle Match for our gun blogger postal match league. I will give everyone until this Monday to get any more scores they may have to me, and I’ll start scoring this week. If you want to go shoot the match this weekend, I’ll take those scores too.
Then we have Mr. Completely’s March e-postal match for the pistol shooters. That’s due this Monday by midnight, so that’s some shooting people can do over the weekend too. It’s really great fun, and it’s just for bragging rights. You don’t have to be an expert shooter to participate.