From: Brian Shiffman
Sunday, August 8 was a good day to be shooting from inside an air conditioned location. In case you forgot, this past weekend and the first few days of the week have been typical Dog Days of Summer. Hot and humid with scarcely a breeze. It was too hot to fish; that's bad. But from our climate controlled facility there were six of us that managed to survive.
As part of the weather report, I cannot forget the mirage. For the two of us shooting F-class, it was a challenge. Neither of us are experienced in reading mirage and so for too many shots we were chasing the target center. Erhard provided some guidance which turned out to be quite helpful but the final analysis and aiming for the shot was up to the shooters. The mirage was not consistent in either duration or intensity. I did not know most of the time if the mirage was in play or not and if it was, how much in play it was. This lead to some adult language. In the end, Robert and I were only 1 point apart, but, nothing to write home about. The interesting thing was that we pretty consistent throughout the match from series to series.
I shot F-Class because my back was still not ready to take the stress and strain of Prone shooting. It was only after the fact that I realized that what I really should have done was shoot F-Class but with iron sights since I need so much practice with alignment and picture.
But, for consistency, it was hard to beat Mike Marzitelli who shot with us for score. He had one of 3 nice, old, rifles and was shooting it for the first time. He felt more comfortable (that needs explanation, later) shooting in that position rather than get situated with a rifle rest a la F-Class. He just was not comfortable using the front rest. So, with coat and sling, Mike was comfortable with position but not so with the environmental conditions created by his shooting coat.
Erhard was grousing about his 3-P score of 590. He thinks he left some on the table. I guess it is all relative. Irv Lerner shot a 442 while Tom O'Donnell shot a 451 in 3-P. Both Irv and Tom had some interesting rifles.
One thing we scope shooters came to appreciate was a good zero to start the match. When the match started there was little mirage and both Robert and I dialed in to good zeros without wind. When the mirage was taking effect, and recognized (big deal) it became a matter of holding off. Mirage was boiling (I was told; I can't recognize anything but a target in the shimmering haze) and that made the target look higher than it really was. Aim at the center and get a shot at 7 o'clock. Aim at 1 at the right amount of distance and get an x. Take it from us, if that works, don't move your sights. Bad things happen.
You can find the full results on the MRC 300 meter results web page by clicking this link:
The next MRC 300 meter match will be on Sunday, September 12.
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