Category: Shooting

Today was absolutely beautiful.  Not too hot, not a cloud in the sky; the kind of day you hate to be in the office.  But after work today I decided to head to the club to shoot some trap.  Scored 22, 17 and 21.  One thing I find about trap is that I tend to hit more birds when I’m in a squad that has a good rhythm.  When every person chambers the round, mounts, shouts for the bird, shoots, and it repeats at a regular pace.

I’ve noticed that nearly every person has a trademark method of calling for the bird.  Some guys shout a pretty conventional “pull”, others shout “hayup”, and I even think I’ve heard a “ooowop”.  Tonight the guy next to me tonight sounded off a “pull” like a drill sergeant.  Then you have the guys that barely mumble something that often fail to set off the sound activated clay bird thrower.  Those guys break the rhythm.

The difficulty for today is, every time I mounted my gun, I kept thinking about our friend the mall ninja.  I kept thinking about his mounting lesson “out back — out back”, and “Folks, don’t be within 10 feet of me with this, just don’t do it.”  Then I notice the guy next to me has a Remington, “this is a Remington, love it.”  Needless to say, I had to try very hard not to fall down giggling in on the trap range.  I definitely couldn’t wipe the smile off my face, and I hope people thought I was just having a good time.  I couldn’t get mall ninja out of my head, especially when the guy next to me has a Remington.  “Ready? Boom! Boom!’

God Bless.

Made a few revisions to the e-postal match below.  For one, I said there was a total of forty shots and forty points.  That was incorrect.  That might be true for an actual silhouette match, where there are two banks of animals, but I figured we’d stick to one target, which only has one bank, so twenty shots and twenty animals.  Done in four strings of five.

Secondly, at the suggestion of Mr. C, I added a masochist class, where you can shoot all 20 animals, and your score is however many shots it takes you to hit them all.  In this class, you can hit the animals twice, and it still counts.  Also, if there’s any interest in an air pistol class, I’d be happy to add that.  If I get one person interested in that, I’ll shoot that class with you.

This is the June edition of Mr. Completely’s E-Postal Matches.  Many thanks to Manfred for hosting last e-postal.   Due to some confusion on my part as to when the match ended, I didn’t manage to get to the range in time this month.

Metallic Silhouette has its origins among the followers of Pancho Villa, in early twentieth century Mexico, where live animals were originally placed at various distances.  Presumably that got a bit messy, so by the mid-twentieth century they had made the transition to metallic cutouts of the live animals, and Metallic Silhouette was born.  The first match took place in Mexico City in 1952.  The targets were Gallinas (Chickens) at 200 meters, Guajalotes (Turkeys) at 385 Meters, and Borregos (Rams) at 500 meters.  Later on, the Javelina (Pigs) would be added at 300 meters.  The National Rifle Assocation began sanctioning Silhouette competition in 1972.

Since we’re limited in target type and distance in our e-postal matches, our silhouette match has to be roughly approximated.

The target we will be using is here.

Rules are this:

Place the target at 10 yards or 25 feet, whichever is available at your range. If you want to compete in the rimfire rifle category, targets will be placed at 50 feet, or about 20 yards.

Take one carefully aimed shot at each animal on the sheet, for a total of 20 shots.

Silhouette is generally shot in strings of five.  Put the target out, load the magazine up, and take 5 carefully aimed shot at each of whatever animal you’re on, going from left to right.  Start with the string of five chickens, and work your way down to the rams.

But here’s the catch with this match.  In Metallic Silhouette, if you miss your shot, and hit another animal, you loose the animal you hit, and the animal you were aiming at, so it’s a double loss.  On paper, there’s no good way to simulate animals that have been knocked down, so we’ll make the rule this:

Any animal that has two hits on it counts as a miss.  Any animal that has one shot on the silhouette or touching it, counts as a hit.  Any miss not touching an animal is just a miss.  Each hit counts as one, for a maximum score of 20.

Shooting position for all classes is offhand standing, unsupported, one or two hands allowed.

CLASSES:

CLASS ONE: Rimfire – Iron Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS TWO: Rimfire – Optic Sight. Any rimfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS THREE: Centerfire – Iron Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.

CLASS FOUR: Centerfire – Optic Sight. Any centerfire handgun with no more than a 12″ barrel. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.

CLASS FIVE: Rimfire Rifle – Iron Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Optical sights such as red dots, lasers, or scopes are not allowed.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

CLASS SIX: Rimfire Rifle – Optic Sight. Any rimfire rifle. Red dots sights, lasers, or scopes can be used.  Target to be placed at 50 feet or ~20 yards.

BONUS CLASS: Masochist class.  Take as many shots as you need to hit all animals.  In this class, two shots on an animal still count as a hit.  Your score is the number of shots it takes to hit all of them.  No shotguns, please!  But if you want to enter a submachine gun, I’d be game for that :’)  I swear the ammunition manufacturers did not bribe me to create this class!

MULTIPLE ENTRIES: One entry will be taken per gun per class, though you may shoot the match as many times as you like, and submit your highest entry.  You can make multiple entries in a single class as long as you use a different gun.  You can use the same gun in two classes if you add or subtract optics.

Don’t worry if your score is low.  Silhouette is a difficult discipline, and scores aren’t supposed to be high unless you’re an expert shooter and have been doing silhouette for 20 years.  This match is meant to be difficult, and will be especially difficult for centerfire pistol shooters.  In fact, if you’re good, you will probably beat me, as I’m still a beginner.  There’s no embarrassment in scoring low, only in not submitting an entry!

Entries should be mailed to sebastian at snowflakesinhell dot com by midnight on the 30th of June, which is a Monday.   Results will be posted soon after.

UPDATE: I’ll also score anyone who wants to enter with an air pistol.  I shoot open sight with air pistol, so I’ll create a category for that if I get two shooters in the same category.

The ultimate clip loader for the Ruger Mk II and Mk III and the Buckmark.  The only problem I’d have is that my club has a five round limit on magazines.  A highly obnoxious rule, especially if you’re an M1 shooter, but it’s mostly a shotgun and silhouette club, and it’s 10 minutes from my house.

Mixing explosives, blowing things up, and precision shooting, all in one place?  I would love to go to Joe’s gun blogger day at Boomershoot, but it’ll hinge on the employment situation, which looking into April of 2009 might be a bit untenable if the company I work for runs out of money.

Accidents involving firearms on shooting ranges are rare, but The Arizona Rifleman has some tips just in case.  Most accidents don’t involve someone getting shot, but you might remember my friend Jason had his M950 blow up on him once.  It’s not common, but it does happen.  The worst injury I’ve ever gotten on the range was putting a staple through my finger tacking a target up to the cardboard target holder.

AP article on the ineffectiveness of the M855 round.

Dr. Martin Fackler, a former combat surgeon and a leading authority on bullet injuries, said the problem is the gun, not the bullet. The M4 rifle has a 14.5 inch barrel — too short to create the velocity needed for an M855 bullet to do maximum damage to the body.

My understanding is that the 5.56×45 needs to be doing over 2800 fps to do serious tissue damage, which it achieves being fired out of an M16, but not an M4.

Rules of war limit the type of ammunition conventional military units can shoot. The Hague Convention of 1899 bars hollow point bullets that expand in the body and cause injuries that someone is less likely to survive. The United States was not a party to that agreement. Yet, as most countries do, it adheres to the treaty, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

I would argue if our adversaries can behead people, we can use effective ammunition.  To me, this is the real problem.  With the right kind of ammo, I think the M4 would be much more effective than it is with M855.

“One of the things I’ve discovered in guns is that damned near everyone is an expert,” he says. “And they all have opinions.”

No doubt.

Joe Huffman seems to be talking with Todd Jarrett about blowing up a car at future Boomershoot events.  What a shame there are boneheads out there who hate good clean fun with explosives.

UPDATE: Joe sent them a letter.  Good show.

These pictures probably please me every bit as much as Dave Barry.

One of our IHMSA guys, who is pretty much a revolver shooter, likes to show up at our thursday indoor matches with an old S&W snubnose chambered in .22LR.  The barrel can’t be any longer than two or so inches, but he manages to shoot 20 credit card sized animals with it at 25 yards.  I scored a 25, but that was using a Ruger Mk.III with a 6 7/8 inch barrel riding below a red dot scope, and a custom Volquartsen trigger.  Pretty clearly I have room for improvement if I’m barely scoring higher than a guy shooting a snubby revolver with practically no sight radius.  But hey, I’m into the mid 20s.  A few weeks ago my goal was just to break 20.  Now I have my eye on breaking 30.  If I can score 25 outside consistently, my IHMSA classification will be AA.