Shooters News -- The Week Ahead - Oct 12th

Shooters News for the MN area  -- Oct 11th 

The Week Ahead -

Unfortunately, guys and gals, I am forced to report that there are no rifle matches, that I know of, coming up this weekend. It looks like the Rifle Match season is actually finally over for the year with the exception for the monthly 300 meter matches at Mpls. Rifle Club.  Arrrg!!   Here it is a beautiful fall weekend coming up and no rifle matches go to.  There is (I'm told) a Practical Pistol match at GRRC for those who just can't, stand to think of spending a Saturday without pulling some triggers.   
 

Last Weekend 

300 meter match at Mpls Rifle Club

This in from Brian Shiffman:

"What a glorious day for a match.  Bright sky, little wind and comfortable temperature; just a great day. 

 So, what happened??  Without the weather we had to get creative with excuses for less than stellar performances.  For me, I had not shot such a low score since the second prone match I shot back in March.  I can't blame anything except me.  The last two 20 shot strings had shots all over from 6's to 10's.  Each of the 20 shot string average, as shown by the little + sign on the target screen, was dead center X, meaning that on average I had all X's.  Ha.

   I heard other complaints of poor shooting/scores with just mumbling and grumbling.

   The highlight for me was to watch young Eric Halzelton shoot offhand with his .223 bolt rifle.  The concentration in his eyes, his consistent position, good follow through and cool head was great to watch.  He's going to be one fine shooter..

   This was the first match in which there were NO 3-position shooters.  We had Prone, Offhand and F-Class shooters.  It was good to see Ali Reda and Robert Young at the 300 meter range, again.  One "New to me" shooter was Mike Anderson who had not shot a match for about 8 years.  Well, he must have been shooting somewhere.  He was shooting an AR-15 with stock battle sights in Prone class and ended with a 529.  As you look at his score you will notice that he shot a 172 followed by a 174 and finishing up with a 183.  He shoots Black Hills blue box ammo and the last group was fired with a heavier weight bullet, 77gr I believe, while the first two were with 60-something gr.  Heavier is better.

    Steve Morehead was shooting a new Remington rifle in .243 with a Barska scope.  It's a left hand model.  Up to this time he had been shooting a 30-96 hunting rifle that would shoot inconsistently once the barrel had about 10 shots through it.  Heat problems.  The new Remington has a heavier, target, barrel and held steady.

    Poor Robert Smith; for a guy that usually shoots 595+ his 582 was awful; but he still won F-Class.  Inconsistent ammo.  Second loading of the Lapua brass, same load that has produced in the upper 590s.  Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.  One was offered by a fellow shooter was that the area was sprinkled with pixie dust to throw us all off.  (Note: the free pistol match held on Saturday also had exceptionally fine weather and the scores were down for all shooters.)

    The house was infested with box elder bugs.  The white walls were covered with them.  They came into the building sometime early last week; we did not have any for Workday or the following Sunday match.  I cannot remember so many of the things in the building.  One year it was the biting variety of lady bugs; this year it is box elder bugs.

    The full results of the October match can be found at http://www.edfpages.com/mgfc/results.php?match=10 .  If you click on any of the months at the top of the table you will see the results of prior club matches.  We did not have a club match in Feb or April because those days were given over to other match events.

   The next match will be November 14.  Hope to see you then."

 Brian D. Shiffman    shiff004@umn.edu   

 Service Rifle 
Offical Leg Match Results from the Sept. 25th GRRC Leg match

Official Results are now posted at the CMP web page

    Over all Results:  Click Here 

    Non Distinguished Results  --  Click Here 

The Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals went to Phill Klanderude, Dean Gilliette, and Larry Weidel in that order. 

The coveted Leg Points went to Phill Klanderude, Dean Gillette, Tim Thole, and Tim Boyle. As reported earlier, and worth mentioning again--- This 10 point Leg that Phill K. earned has put him over the top and he has now earned his Distinguished Rifleman's Badge.  Congratulations to Phill.       

Notes: 

Mark Havlik adds to the AR-15 Service Rifle discussion on the need for a hooded Rear sight:

From Mark: 

To add to your discussion on AR Service Rifle sights, I would agree a 
hooded aperture isn't a necessity. However, a hooded aperture does 
allow you the flexibility to change aperture sizes (.038, .042 or .
046") without an annoying POI change. For example, my rifle started 
life as a DPMS DCM model. It came with a flip type rear sight that I 
don't remember the sizes of, but one was small and the other smaller. 
The problem was flipping from one size to another would result in a 6 
moa POI change.
   As to front sights, I started with a .072" wide post. As my eyes have 
gotten older I started running into horizontal stringing. I've since 
switched to a narrower .052" Post and now I'm fighting vertical 
stringing. (LOL)
   Like you, I have my vision correction in my Knobloch shooting 
glasses. I increased my magnification this year from .5 to .75 as I 
was having trouble straining my eye to focus on the front sight." 
Mark Havlik 

Thanks Mark.   I'm not sure how one changes the aperture sizes in a hooded rear sight as I don't have one, but even without one, I can change my aperture size just by screwing out the threaded-in aperture and screwing in a different sized one.  I have a rear sight (1/2 min adjustment) made by Albert Turner who also makes some of the best leather Service Rifle slings.      

From Larry Weidel

 Is any one interested in some 30-40 Krags blank cartridges? 

Later,  Larry    weidell@aol.com 
That's All Folks

Hawkeye