Category: Shooting

Last night I went and shot an air gun match at the club.  One thing I’ve discovered: I suck at air gun.  You remember the last e-postal match?   Those chickens are 1/10th scale animals, the same size used for NRA air gun competition.  I hit about 21 out of 60.  When I shoot IHMSA small bore, which are 3/8th scale, 21 is about what I typically get out of 40.

Air gun I think is harder because for one, I’m shooting with iron sights instead of a red dot.  For two, the Crossman 2300S is CO₂; powered, and I’m not quite so good at compensating for more pellet drop as the match goes on.  Hopefully I’ll get my score up to something respectable eventually.  Air gun is a great way to sharpen your skills without paying a lot of money.  The guns are cheap, pellets are cheap, and air is free (though CO₂ costs some money). It’s a great way to stay sharp through these days of high ammo prices, and you can even practice at home.

Speaking of competitive shooting, I will be releasing some details about the Gun Blog Rifle Leauge shortly.  Stay tuned.

It was pretty nice of Michael Bane to offer to take Bitter and I to the big gun blogger thing as his guests, since we helped organize the whole blog bash thing.  But I have to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into:

We’re also bringing along a couple of crash test dummies for the shows, the lovely Bitter Bitch and Sebastian…my thinking here is that I can inflict television on them while disturbing the class as little as possible. This, of course, won’t work, and any of you who’ve been around my shows when we’re filming know, but I thought it was a nice gesture.

This should be fun.  Bitter and I were actually pretty reluctant to take Michael’s offer, since we didn’t want to be unfair to the others who didn’t make it.  But we decided to ask a wise oracle what she thought, and she thought we should take the offer.  I’m still not a winner, but I’ll take crash test dummy as a consolation prize.

The next e-postal match is up.  Hosted by Sailorcurt.  I hope I will have time for this one.  Free in Idaho described last month’s match as an animal cracker shoot, which just makes me giggle every time I think about it.  This month it’s darts, which I think is pretty cool.

I have been off for the day of July 7th.  I decided to take a four day weekend.  That is why blogging has been light.  On Tuesday, I will be returning as best I can to full swing.  Look for more information on the Gun Blog Rifle League.  It think there’s a fair amount of interest, for both small bore and large bore.  I will be suggeting rules, but I will not be dictating them, so feel free to make suggestions.  I want to make this open to as many people as possible.

The gun blogosphere needs to do what it can to keep promoting marksmanship through these hard times of high ammo prices and high gas prices.  It sucks when your sport depends the commodity market, let me tell you.  But I think we blog folk can overcome.  We can show the dirty hippies that we are doing out part to help make our sport more green.  Corporate America can promote telecommuting while we promote telecompeting!

Stay tuned for more information.  I think we can make this work.

Looks like the e-mails have gone out to the winners of the ParaUSA contest.  Since I have not gotten an e-mail, it would appear that I didn’t make it.  Congratulations to all the bloggers who have made the grade!  I hope everybody has a lot of fun, and learns a lot.

UPDATE: Yeah, looks that way folks.  I am not among the winners based on what I’ve seen around the blogosphere.   Win some, lose some.  Congraulations to, so far:

1. SayUncle
2. Sharp as a Marble
3. Call Me Ahab
4. A Keyboard & a .45
5. View from North Central Idaho
6. View from the Porch
7. Maddened Fowl
8. GunTruth
9. Kevin Baker

We’re still waiting for two one more bloggers to announce they are in possession of the golden ticket.

Looks like I forgot to include LouG of Mad Gun Blog in the June E-Postal results.  I have revised the results accordingly.  Lou scored an 8 in Rimfire w/ Optics.

Recently my club has had to suspend its CMP matches for lack of participants.  I suspect the reason for this is that ammunition has gotten so expensive that a lot of folks simply can’t afford to shoot large bore rifle matches, much less practice.  This has made me consider that maybe, in the spirit of Mr. Completely’s e-postal matches, we might be able to do something for rifle shooters like the e-postal series has done for handgun shooters.

I’m wondering how much interest there might be in a gun blog rifle leauge.  Rules would be roughtly in line with CMP, except you could participate with any centerfire rifle capible of rapid fire.  I’d like to keep classes limited to open sights and optics.  I’d be willing to consider a small bore category if enough people were interested.  This is something that would be open to blogger as well as readers.

Obviously, the rifle league would require a 100 yard range to shoot.  Because ammo is so expensive these days, I think we’d all go broke doing a once a month match, so I’m thinking about doing one match per season, with fall, winter, spring, and summer matches.  If I were to organize and coordinate such a thing, how much interest would there be?  Rules would be spelled out, and you’d basically just scan or photograph a target and submit it, just like with the e-postal series.  The idea, basically, is to have a way to compete against each other, without having to burn $4 dollar a gallon gas to travel to matches, and without having to do monthly matches people might not be able to afford.   We’d be saving the planet, one bullet at a time.

[poll 7]

This month’s e-postal match was difficult, but it was roughly in line with the difficulty of the sport under real conditions.  I decided to load up forty rounds of .44 Special and shoot field pistol at the IHMSA match this morning with my Smith & Wesson 629 Classic.  Our of forty animals, I made contact with 12 of them.  Mostly chickens and pigs.  Using the factory open sights, it tends to be difficult.

Switching to small bore, this time with a Millet SP-1 red dot scope on my Ruger Mk.III 22/45 Hunter, I managed to score an 18.  Generally if I score anything over 20, I’m pretty happy.  Under 20, and I start to think I need more practice.  The hard thing about shooting outside, is you have ballistics to contend with, so you have to know where to dial your sight settings to in order to be on target.  Chickens and pigs for the most part are on the flat part of a bullet’s trajectory.  On turkeys, you’ll drop about 5 inches.  On rams, you’ll drop about 10 inches  At least for most hunks of lead heading out at about 1000 feet per second.

If you ever try IHMSA, here are some things I’ve learned so far.  Keep notes on your sight adjustments, and where you have to aim to make contact with the animal.  This is especially important if you’re shooting field pistol, using a production gun.  Sight adjustments will be coarse, and you might have to aim above or below certain animals, or more to its tail or head.  Have someone spot for you.  If you’re following through properly, on chickens and pigs, you should be able to see where you’re hitting/missing.  But on turkeys and rams, it’s far enough away you might have difficulty seeing with the naked eye, or with 1x or low magnification pistol scopes.  I don’t recommend making a huge investment in equipment.  Start out with cheap stuff.  When you get to the point you can shoot better than your equipment, upgrade.  Most of the time, your equipment can shoot better than you can.  If you shoot silhouette with a semi-auto, pace yourself.  Silhouette isn’t a race.  Between shots, lower the gun with your finger off the trigger, and breathe.  Get comfortable, raise the gun again, and take your next shot.  The temptation with a semi-auto is to treat it like a race.  This is one thing I’ve been trying to overcome.  As much as I would probably to better with a TC pistol, I’m determined to discipline myself with the Ruger, and shoot it to its limits.

We have the results for our June E-Postal Match, Silhuetas Metálicas.  Let me start off by apologizing to everyone for the extreme difficulty of this match!  I scored what I typically score during my IHMSA matches, which is about half the animals, so it was a good approximation of the sport to some degree.  Despite its difficulty, we have some shooters who would make pretty good silhouette shooters if they tried out an IHMSA match.

Class 1 – Rimfire, Iron Sights

Shooter	Score	Pistol
Sailorcurt	8	S&W 22A
David N	7	Ruger Single Six
Mr. Completely	6	High Standard 103 w/4.5” Barrel
Danno	41	Ruger 22/45
Merle	4	Ruger SSS .22 Mag
BillH	4	High Standard GB
Mr. Completely	3	Jennings J-22 .22LR2

¹ Shot at 11 yards
² An apt demonstration that Saturday Night Specials do have a sporting use, especially if you don’t mind running up really close to the target to “pop a cap” in the ass of the animal, which is about the only way you’ll increase the odds of hitting it. Still, I’d take a 3 shooting a SNS at 10 yards at those little things!

Class 2 – Rimfire with Optics

Shooter	Score	Pistol
Yuri	161	Ruger 22/45
Conservative UAW Guy	15	High Standard Supermatic Tournament
Mr. Completely	13	High Standard Supermatic Citation
Sailorcurt	11	S&W 22A
Sebastian	10	Ruger Mk.III Hunter 22/45
Merle	9	Ruger Mk.II
LouG	8	Magnum Research Picuda, .22LR w/ 3x Scope
USCitizen	3	S&W 22A
USCitizen	3	Ruger Mk.III

¹Shot at 7 yards.  Because Yuri shot at 7 yards, I would consdier him to be tied for first with Conservative UAW Guy

Class 3 – Centerfire Iron

Shooter	Score	Pistol
Danno	71	Taurus PT-92
BillH	4	S&W Model 39 (.38 Special)
Merle	3	Enfield No. 2

¹Shot at 11 yards.

Class 4 – Centerfire with Optics

Shooter	Score	Pistol
Merle	8	Dan Wesson 10” .357 Mag

Class 5 – Rimfire Rifle, Iron Sights

Shooter	Score	Rifle
David N	6	Marlin 39 Century Ltd.
Firehand	6	Martini Model 8

Class 6 – Rimfire Rifle with Optics

Shooter	Score	Rifle
Firehand	7	Remington 512 (4x Scope)
Merle	5	Marlin M39A
Danno	4	Ruger 10/22

Bonus Class – Masochist

Shooter	Score	Pistol
Mr. Completely	36	High Standard Supermatic Citation

Thanks to all who shot in this month’s match. I wish I could have shot in more classes, but time was limited because of Bitter’s moving in this month, and also, once I got to the range, I realized I had left the bolt to my rifle at home! Otherwise I would have shot Rimfire Rifle, Iron Sights with all you guys. Sailorcurt is hosting the next match. Good luck to all!

Every year, the Independence Institute, which Dave Kopel is Research Director of, throws an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Party (not in that order).  Here are the pictures from 2008, held this past Saturday, June 28th.  I will say, I am impressed by a second amendment scholar with such a wide collection of marksmanship badges.