Cowboy silhouette matches at OFGC Saturday

[jneihouse]

Old Fort Gun Club at Fort Smith, AR will be holding its regularly scheduled Cowboy silhouette match on Saturday. Matches are held the first Saturday of each month.

Smallbore and big bore (pistol ctgs only for the big bore) are held in conjunction with the hunters pistol match.

Sight in at 9:00 match is at 10:00

John

[Guest]

Litttle bit of info, feel free to PM or e-mail if you don't think it's public chit chat...

What type of scores are shot at the local SB Cowboy? I understand they get quiet high on the X/40 scale...

You mentioned shooting a 39? Is that the defacto standard? Do most people adjust between animals?

How many people shoot the SB Cowboy as opposed to other - Pistol, HP, etc... Can you shoot 2 matches, or is it generaly just one SB Cowboy?

I ask b/c we are getting more folks shooting the Cowboy and I plan on making some trips this year to make the match you mentioned...I hope to be able to twist some arms to bring over some more shooters...


Thanks for the info,

Chicken

[jneihouse]

In my experience (others can jump in here and share theirs, I'm not the definiative expert by any means) an EXPERIENCE smallbore or high power silhouette shooter adapts very well and will shoot a couple classes over his class in smallbore or high power. Master class shooters are awfully hard to beat with the right equipment in hand. We don't have but a couple of crossover shooters at OFGC that crossover and use equipment that will let them be competitive. We have several that opt to buy in at the lower end of equipment (marlin mod 60 or other tube fed semi aut) and in my opinion (and I'll get jumped on here by dedicated Mod 60 users ) limits your success due to the balance and the plain old lack of accuracy at the longer targets. The hot setup seems to be a Marlin 39A with a marbles tang sight or some variation of this setup. The Marbles sight lets you adjust for bullet drop at the different ranges and the 39A is amazingly accurate with most run of the mill ammo. Some shooters are using Federal lightenings for their higher velocity, but I use the same SK Jagd in my Marlin as I do in my Anschutz' and just note my zeros at the different animal. The 39A's trigger can be improved by a competent gunsmith or by someone as incompetant as me by changing out the springs. Worthwhile to not here is that the older 39As' have the tang drilled to accept the tang sight, the newer one's do not. You have to either drill and tap new holes or use the one hole that secures the buttstock. Using the one hole and drilling and tapping for the second will deface the serial number, which is illegal. All the 39A's (to the best of my knowledge) are drilled and tapped for the Lyman receiver sight, which is also a good alternative. The tang sight or the marbles offer the advantage of an aperature rear sight. My aging eyes cant focus well enough to shoot the typical leaf rear sight setup.

The hot big bore setup seems to be the Marlin lever actions, again with a tang or aperature sight. I like the .357 magnum (cheaper that the 45 colt or 44 mag to feed and still has plenty of power to avoid ringing a ram)

The way our matches are set up you can shoot two matches of any of the following combinaiton: Smallbore rifle, big bore rifle, smallbore hunter pistol, and big bore hunter pistol. We shoot on the first Saturday of each month, with 9:00 am sight in and 10:00 match time. James Slusher is the match director, a really nice guy. Come on up and shoot, the targets are HUGE and an absolute blast to kncok over.

[Jason]

Up here in WA, the dominant gun for the smallbore cowboy match is the Marlin 39 like he said. That gun is probably half or more of the guns on the line. The rest are made up of Winchester 9422s, a couple Brownings, and a Henry here and there. I'm the oddball and shoot a Marlin 57. I'm on my third try (gun should be here tomorrow) at finding an accurate one that will shoot like the 57M (same gun in 22mag) that I use for pistol cartridge cowboy silhouette. The Marlin 39A that I had (made in 2000) wasn't drilled and tapped for a receiver sight and I had to get that done to it. It shot very accurately and the trigger on it was phenomonal, but I just couldn't hold it steady. The 57 and 57M rifles that I'm using now have one-piece stocks that let me use the same split-finger hold that I use on my bolt guns, so I shoot them better. Here's a picture of a 57M that is almost identical to mine. Imagine it with a Williams FP receiver sight and a Lyman 17 front sight and that's my gun.



I average between 34 and 40 out of a 60-shot match with my bolt guns on the itty bitty targets, a solid AA shooter that occasionally gets lucky. In the cowboy match, I usually shoot 34-36 out of 40 and am bumping right up against master class. I actually have a lot more fun shooting the cowboy match, as it's not quite as serious as the scoped rifle match the targets are a lot easier to hit. I hope the 22lr version that I have coming will shoot better than the aluminum receiver versions I've tried so far. I might actually be able to get back up to the scores I shot with the 39.