hunter pistol silhouette, what's a popular cartridge?

[j1132s]

I just shot my first smallbore silhouette match and enjoyed it. I'd like to get into hunter's pistol silhouette and have some questions that I hope you can answer.

From the rules, it seems you can use any straight-walled cartridge up to 45 caliber plus some bottleneck cartridges. I'm wondering what're the popular cartridges used by successful shooters and what guns are used.

thanks.

[mordecai]

I'm big on .22 Hornet. The .357 Mag get a lot of use at our ranges too. Contenders are a pretty fair mainstay, but there are certainly a good number of revolvers on the line too.

[papabear]

Most of the guys shooting "COMPETITIVELY" in Chulouta, Fl are using the .22 Hornet.
Those of us who are just having fun, shoot various guns from a .22 magnum to .44, either TC or revolver.

Smallbore shooters vary from TC to semi autos. I personally shoot a SW 41 with red dot sight on it. Good enough for my skill level.

[j1132s]

Thanks for the responses guys.

To get into silhouette, I've bought the following guns in recent weeks:
S&W Model 41 and CZ452. I have room for 1 more hunter's pistol...

I used the Model 41 w/ iron sights for my first silhouette match last Sunday, got 31 points (AA classification). I made many mistakes, but I think once I get to know the pistol better, I might improve a bit. This weekend, I'll enter the smallbore rifle silhouette w/ my CZ.

There is also a hunter's pistol silhoutte match that I want to try. I got some suggestions from the club members already.

When I started this thread, I was hoping to hear something different than what the match folks suggested. But I guess, everybody is using very similar guns and cartridges everywhere.

My hope was to buy a pistol that I can also use in NRA conventional pistol, which I'd like to try; hence the M41 instead of a TC Contender.

Any ideas on how a .45ACP 1911 pistol will do on the line ?
If you've seen .45ACP used, how did the shooter/gun do ?

[j1132s]

<snip>
Smallbore shooters vary from TC to semi autos. I personally shoot a SW 41 with red dot sight on it. Good enough for my skill level.

Hi there,

I'm also shooting a S&W Model 41 in smallbore pistol silhouette; I'm using the factory iron sights on the gun. It is definitely not as well suited as a TC Contender for this game, but at least I don't have to reload it after each shot and can finish my 5-shot string easily in under 30 seconds

I think its major drawback is the impercise/lacking fine adjustments rear sight. Instead of making sight adjustments for corrections like the iron sight Contender shooters who has nice fine movement knobs, I find that I have to use holdover to correct for elevation/windage. But other than that, I think the M41 can hang w/ most of them.

I might shoot my nxt match w/ a scope, in which case, I dont' think I'll be much disadvantaged at all.

[papabear]

[quote="j1132s
I might shoot my nxt match w/ a scope, in which case, I dont' think I'll be much disadvantaged at all.[/quote]

The only down side to using the SW41 with a scope is that
1.The slide gets in the way of a "Taco Hold"
2. Be careful about the slide when you use a rifle scope, it might "brush" your cheek if you get too close to the scope

I used a pistol scope but got more comfortable with a red dot with hold over sighting. This is how I sighted with Wolf Match Extra
1. Chicken- base of animal
2. Pigs - Just under the belly
3. Turkey dead center
4. Rams slightly over the back

Worked well for me but my highest score was 29 /40.

But every month I look forward to a lot of fun shooting this match.

[hpsr1]

When the NRA rules committe allowed the 22 hornet it changed the game. Scores took a little jump just like when they went from 2 lb. min. to any safe trigger. If you poll the top 25 shooters at the NRA hunter pistol nationals you will find them shooting the 22 hornet, 32 mag & 22 mag. John Bly shot a number of perfect scores with a hornet, winning the nationals in 99. His load was universal clays with Speer 52 bthp bullets & br-4 primers. 1820 fps. This can almost be duplicated with the 22 mag & the so called ram killers. 1700+ fps. All you have to do is knock the target down, not kill it. Ram killers are only safe in a TC Contender. Do not use in any other type of gun. Buy the right stuff the first time & save yourself grief & money. I don't believe that any master shooter or any winner of the nationals in the last 15 years has not used a single shot pistol. Hope this helps. hpsr1 a 22 year silh. competitor.

[Jason]

I shot a Contender with a 20x to 24x scope with a taco hold for several matches, but it just wasn't very much fun to me so I stopped doing it. This past weekend, I was out at my in-laws and we were shooting pellet pistols. My father-in-law and I happen to have identical pistols with red dot sights on them and I had a ball shooting them. I figured out that I hold as steady with a standard two-handed pistol hold as I do in a taco hold and I enjoy it much more. I'm going to shoot our hunter pistol match Saturday with a red dot sight on the Contender. I know from scope use on that gun that it shoots the Federal Automatch ammo well and I need 8 1/2 minutes of adjustment from chickens to rams. That means I can sight in dead on for turkeys and use holdover for the others, just like Papabear said. I need to be hold four and a half minutes low on chickens (dot on bottom of foot, sitting on top of the base), two minutes low on pigs (bottom line of belly), and four minutes high on rams (dot sitting on the line on top of its back). If I like shooting the matches this way, I'm going to snag a 22 hornet barrel and set it up with the same red dot scope and mounts, so the feel of the gun will be the same thanks to using the same Frame and just getting a little more velocity to knock down the thicker pistol cartridge targets.