Well: A four year old dream is about to become reality. Our club's 200 yard range is finished and we are having our first rimfire BENCHREST metallic silhouette match on Saturday.

Not sure how may shooters will turn out for this. Some of our members think 200 yards is too far for the mouse guns. There are only three of us that have been planning this thing. Sure hope more than three show up for the match. We have about 20 local rimfire benchrest shooters, but they shoot at 25 ad 50 yards.

We came up with what we think is a solution to the 200 yard sight-in problem. We will loan a 200 yard rifle to anyone who can't get a 200 yard zero.

Would that be against any rule? This kind of game is not sanctioned by NRA or anyone else that we know of. We can make our own rules, but I am wondering if NRA has a rule on using two rifles in a match?

I'll let you know next Monday how this thing turns out.

Joe Haller
Sault Sainte Marie, MIchigan

Are the chickens at 140,pigs 160,turkeys 177?

I would think that here in the East and south East where range space is at a premium to say the least that something like a half scale silhouette is not shot by some of the clubs. Half scale silhouettes with a 22 hornet or a 22 magnum...chickens 100m pigs 150m turkeys 192m and rams at 250m it would simulate a bigbore rifle, be a bit cheaper too and gives us another oppertunity to get some more bling....huum

No:

One of my shooting friends in Ohio told me that his club found the Turkeys were too difficult at 150 yards. So, we are doing them at 125. We will have the pigs at 100 and the chicken at 60.

Why so close? My idea is . . . well . . . Sneeky.

I have been concerned that if we make it too difficult . . . the shooters will not come back for more. The rams at 200 are enough of a problem. We have several members who will not try it because they think they will not be able to hit at 200 yards.

If the chickens, pigs and turkeys are too easy, we can move them out further in our future matches. If the course is too difficult to start with, we may never see some of them come back for a second match.

The shooters will probably judge this new game on how they FEEL about how easy or difficult it is. My decision was based on physics: Double the distance, and the wind drift is multiplied by FOUR. A 10 MPH cross wind will drift the bullet about 4 inches at a 100 yard ram, and 16 inches at a 200 yard ram. If they come through with a good score on the near animals, they might not get their egos crushed on the rams.

That is what happened to us back in the 1970's with we tried sanctioned NRA rimfire standing matches to 100 meters. Too difficult for many. One time was enough for most of our members. Not worth running a match when you can't get more than 5 shooters out to play.

Like I said, if it's too easy, we can move the animals out. If it's too hard, the game will be dead on arrival.

My opinion, based on experience.

Joe

I would not think it would be to bad if you use the half scale hunters pistol silhouettes that a lot of clubs have laying around that shoot the hunters pistol matches...What do you all think.....Sounds like it would be like a nice midway point between high Power and Smallbore with just the right amount of boom to satisfy of course the reloading aspect of a 22 hornet would make it all the more interesting and anyone that has shot hunters pistol would agree that those animals fall just like the bigbore ones do.

So what are you saying the Rams aren't normally supposed to be at 200 yards? No wonder my scores are so low and I am not Master Class yet!! That explains it! I thought they looked awefully small!

lol....I guess its a lot like fishing....otherwise they would call it catching....Did a lot of fishing yesterday...it was fun anyways...Shooting.....hitting...still lots of fun anyways....I think I might tap Evelio for a 22 Hornet build. I can shoot halfscale and varmints and get one more bling...in my shooting arsenal.

Bling, bling, bling...come on malinios...you can shoot well enough so that you do not need bling.

Innocent

Mary, Mary, Mary....Lol.....Well its my version of 26 inch rims..lol. I have a hoopdie but no rims. I am gonna drive up to PA for their HP state match..Do you think you can make it. I hope to see gator and Carlos and everyone else up there.

Joe, This looks like fun. Unfortunately I am shooting at Dorr this saturday. Please post when you set another date for one of these long range matches. Steve

PS: We met a loooong time ago. But I bet you dont remember. S

Steve:

Ya got me on the name. I known a few Steve's but, cann't think of one under da bridge.

We are running long range rimfire metallic silhouette the second Saturday of each month, through October.

Hello Steve:

We also running rimfire bechrest matches at 25 & 50 yards, the next day: Sunday . . .
Come on UP for a 2 day Yooper Shoot'in weekend.

If ya feel lucky, we got a Casio just 5 miles North of the range. (Just this side of the Canadia border)

Ya got me on the name. I known a few Steve's but, cann't think of one under da bridge. Joe

Well Joe you have to think back about 32 years at Camp Graylings range #10. You might remember my dad more. He went by the nickname of Red.

Thanks for the invite however I dont think any of those dates work. If I can shake loose maybe we will come up. Steve

We held our first long range benchrest MS match last Saturday, here at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. I told you I would give a report on how it turned out. We had 11 entries, which was more than we expected for our first match.

Three of us worked on the match plan, and we knew there would be sight-in problems at 200 yards. So: As NRA does not have a set of rules for this type of match (yet): We made up our own rules. We had one of our rifles sighted-in on the turkeys and another at the rams. Then let everyone who wanted to: Use those rifles at the longer distances.

Two of our members did not shoot the whole course, and three others lost hits because they "could not count". (Shot animals our of order). We have three more matches scheduled for this summer, and hope we can attract more entries.

We had strong winds from 12 o'clock and some of the rams blew over on every relay. Anyone have a suggestion on how to fix this?

We may decide to change the distance for chickens and pigs, but not for this year.

The best shooting was done by Craig Nelson, who drove UP from Lower Michigan. He was using a CZ 452 America. All the rest of us were shooting unlimited class bench guns with tuners, McMillan stocks and 2 oz. triggers.

I think we need to continue with this rifle sharing idea, until we have a core group of shooters involved with some experience with the long range problems.

Comments on this long range match are welcome.

Joe Haller

Joe,
By the look at the scores of your top 5 shooters this doesn't look as hard as you thought, right. Sounds like you are considering moving the chickens and pigs out further. God luck with your matches.
ppkny