Category: Shooting

Apparently they are going up.  Anywhere from 5% to 10% effective June 1st.  It’s getting tough for people to keep shooting.  A lot of the retired guys at the club might be out of the game once their current stocks dry up.

Well, I finally joined IHMSA.  My rating, pretty much across the board, will be A, except for Big Bore, where I’ll get a B rating.  The only pistol I have that can shoot big bore is my Smith & Wesson 629, which not only is a bitch with recoil, you can’t taco grip a revolver.  I think, at this point, I will stick to field pistol with the 629.

A rating sounds good, until you realize it’s like baseball.  A is the lowest category of any consequence.  From there you go to AA and AAA, and if you’re really good, go into the top International Class.  From the rules, it looks like as soon as you shoot into another class, you get a leg up, which earns you a ‘+’ classification.  If you shoot into that class again, you then enter that class.

My goal now is to enter into AA class before the end of this season.  We’ll have to see if I can do it.  So far I am very happy with the Volquartsen Trigger Kit I put into my Mk.III. I managed to shoot 19 this time, which is better than I have been able to do previously, and I lost a few animals raising my sights too high on the turkeys and rams.  Live and learn.  Air pistol was a disappointing 13.  But airgun is harder than it looks.  It looks like it should be easy, because the animals are so close, but trying to hit 1/10th scale animals at 10 to 18 yards is harder than you might think.

From West, By God:

I have to say, I was honestly expecting the 6.8 to feel significantly different from a .223. Other than the sound, there really isn’t that much difference. Well, that’s a lie. The difference you feel is just in your wallet instead of your shoulder.

This was in reference to Robb’s range report.  You’re not kidding about that!  I love the 6.8 cartridge, but you basically have to reload.

Go have a read of this.  Mr. C is a pin shooter, which is a bit different than the prevalent discipline at my club, which is Metallic Silhouette.  I think there are similarities though.  I find myself in a bit of the beginners scramble to find a setup that works well for me.  But I am still struggling a bit with the basics.  I think Mr. C is very correct on this, which I think is true for all pistol disciplines:

I also learned that the faster you try to shoot, the better your trigger control needs to be. 95% of the mechanics of pistol shooting is trigger control, and trigger control isn’t something that comes easily. Most of the top shooters shoot in excess of 20,000 rounds a year, and to get really good trigger control you need to not only practice a lot, but practice regularly. If I don’t practice for a week or so, I really notice the drop in trigger control. Fortunately, it returns fairly quickly!

Silhouette is a bit different, in that I am continuously told I need to slow down, rather than rush.  Silhouette is timed, but it’s not a race.  You have two minutes and five shots to knock down five animals.  Tonight I scored 23 out of 40 in indoor with my Ruger Mk.III, where we use 3/8th scale animals at 25 yards, scaled down (about credit card sized for pigs and rams) to simulate distance for when we shoot outdoors.  The top shooters score anywhere from 36 on a bad night to 40 (perfect score) on a good one.  Anything over 20 is a good night for me!  Most of the times I miss, it’s due to me thumbing the gun left with a poor trigger squeeze, or it’s due to breaking the trigger at the wrong moment.  At this point I can tell why I miss shots, but I’m still working on avoiding the mistakes.  Some things I’ve been observing:

• You can’t give a poor shooter good equipment and make them better.
• Good equipment will make a good shooter better.
• The very best shooters can outshoot good shooters even with poor equipment.

While most of the top silhouette shooters are shooting either Anschutz bolt action pistols, or TC single shot breech loading pistols, I’m sticking with my Ruger for now.  I want to make sure I’m shooting as best I can with inexpensive equipment before investing in something better.  I’m definitely experimenting to see what works well and what doesn’t, but I think one mistake beginners tend to make is thinking good equipment will make up for bad fundaemtnals.  It won’t.  The only thing that will make you better is getting out there and doing it, over and over, and learning what works and what doesn’t.  I’m still getting started.

Uncle beat me to it.  I will have to go one of these years, before peak oil drives us to start eating the family pets.

So today I picked up a Crossman 2300S so I could do IHMSA air pistol class.  Those are 1/10th scale animals, with chickens at 10 yards, pigs at 12.5, turkeys at 15 and rams at 18 yards.  I also got one of these for practice in the house.  I am disappointed that the animals look nothing like IHMSA standard animals, but are merely vague approximations.

But as for the airgun, the trigger is a little creepy for my tastes, but you can turn the pull down enough that it doesn’t much matter.  It shoots pretty well, regardless.  The plastic grips on it are pretty lame as well.  But still, 200 bucks and you have a gun you can shoot in a different class with and practice at home to boot.  I’m not complaining.  That’s not even mentioning the price of pellets and CO₂ compared to .22LR, or .44 Magnum.

I guess I can’t call this a range report, since I didn’t have to go to the range to zero the sights and try it out :) This will all be fun and games until someone loses an eye.

Boomershoot looks to be a snowy event this year, despite Al Gore.  I’m glad to hear that they are blowing up a low flush toilet in honor of Dave Barry.  Hail Joe, we who are about to poop salute you!

I am not a fan of most things Disney, but I don’t hate Disney this much:

Done by RedneckInNY with a bow at 20 yards.  Much better than I could ever do with a bow!  I’d be lucky to hit the wall.

Tonight my silhouette shooting was pretty good.  Shot a 37 in the first round, open sights, and got my remaining two pins, Pig and Turkey.  I shot 29 animals in a row before I dropped one.  Now I’m getting used to the Kimber Model 82 Government that I got from the CMP, I’m shooting pretty well with it.  Dropped to 34 on the second round, but it’s a heavy rifle, and I got tired.  Got some good advice from some of the guys who were watching me shoot, so I’ll have to work on some technique, and maybe I can start hitting high 30s consistently.

Silhouette tonight was so so.  I still can’t shoot pistol silhouette for crap.  But my number came up in shot of the week.  That’s where we write our name or membership number on a dollar bill, put it in the pot, and take chances that our dollar bill will be drawn.  If you hit shot of the week, you win.  If you miss, the money goes to the next week.  Last week someone missed. Mine had yet to come up, except for tonight.  The pot was 19 dollars.  The challenge is to shoot a 1/10th scale animal at 25 yards.  It’s about this size, depending on your screen resolution:

Roughly the size of a quarter, cut out into a chicken shape.  I hit it in the ass with open sights, much to my surprise, so I decided the 19 dollars would go toward beer money for the week.  That made up for shooting horribly in pistol.