Next Up -- The Palma Matches at Phoenix AZ.

Well, Next week is the big winter Palma matches at Ben Avery Range in Phoenix.
    Click Here for Palma Matches weather report.
   Those are always good matches, as there are huge amounts of competitors, and (normally) great weather. Now that the Firing lines at BA have been regraded and 1000yd line rebuilt to A+ standards, it's the place to shoot long range during the winter.  We have had great weather the past 5 years or so, but I do remember shooting in the cold rain about 2005.  This year I might work in the pits again.  Since I'm not really good at 1000 yd shooting, I think I'll pull targets for $$$.  It's a long day to pull for both the individual, and the Team match, but fun to watch the battle of the Top shooters from the Pits when the word is passed up and down about who has a good X count and is shooting clean.

Oliver Milanovic firing from 500 yds at Rio

 

  I usually get hired by the F-class shooters because they want 4 to 5 second pit service, and I can give them that service because they are shooting very small groups -- even from 1000 yds. There's no reaching all over the target when pulling for the top  F-ers like John Chilton or Steve Lockwood, and now German Salazar who is storming the FTR class this year.    
   I can pull targets next weekend and not feel guilty about not shooting as I had good shooting this weekend at the Rio Salado 500 yd match, coming in 2nd to Allen Elliot who only dropped 2 pts in the 3 twenty shot matches. I dropped 2pts. in the first match, cleaned the 2nd one for my first 200 score in a long while, and thought I could challenge Allen for the win in the last match but lost 6 pts in that match (4 to a mental error about which way to turn the elevation knob while shooting lower and lower for 3 shots and 4 lost points).  Well, 592 wasn't a great score compared to Allen's 598, but I was competitive and that makes for a good day at the match.
  I shot the space gun because its become obvious to me that I shoot the "space gun" better than the other 3 match rifles that I trade off on.  I can adjust my Anchutz rifle stock in every direction for good fit, but the space gun always feels more comfortable to shoot.  The space gun also shoots the .223 cartridge very well, out to 600 yds so recoil is low and good ammo is easy to make.  I like that -- easy ammo to make. .223 and 6BR cartridges are easy to make and the "standard"  match loads work in pretty much everyone's gun.  Keep it simple. The AR-15 platform must have been designed for someone just my size.  Even the A2 service rifle is the perfect configuration.

Well, this was a good weekend for shooting and I'm looking forward to the Palma Matches next weekend.
Hawkeye

Now This is a Bargain

From Ron Berg             
                               SHOOTERS             CHRISTMAS SALE

"Due to health and age I’ve decided to give up the shooting sports that I’ve enjoyed for many years and offering for sale my competition rifle and related reloading equipment,

Winchester Model (post)70 long action in 308 cal with a 1 in 11 Rock competition barrel (at the Sept match on the F Class target my avg was 96-97 per 10 shot string)

Included with the rifle are;  set of RCBS 308 dies also

10X40 Tasco Target Scope with sun shades

Front Rest and Rear Rests

The rifle also can be setup for OTC Iron Sight Competition it has an adj butt stock and forend stop (included are bases for front and rear sights and clip slot attachment) 

Included also are 34 loaded rds 168 hornady A-Max and

About 100 win cases

All this for $800.00

Contact me at my E-Mail address or by phone Home           1-715-845-7843 or cell 1-715-829-5160

1 spotting scope (champions choice) with stand   $100.00

2 RCBS Rock chucker loading presses                  $30.00 ea

1 RCBS Jr loading press w/lee priming attachment $30.00

1 REDDING Powder scale                                       $20.00

1 powder measure w/stand                                        $10.00

 Thanks

 Ron"

I first met Ron pulling targets on on the low end of Viale range at Camp Perry in about 1990. Since then I have shot a lot of matches with Ron at ranges such as Eau Claire, Northwestern Gun Club, Red Wing, and Harris MN, and enjoyed his company always.  Hawkeye

Out of town match -- AZ long Range Champs

 This in from Rick Curtis: 
Southwesternrifleshooting

"The Az Long Range Championship is now in the books, with both days being nearly identical in the conditions that challenged the shooters this year. Each day started with near zero wind and cloudy light conditions that quickly progressed to a fishtailing 6 oclock wind that at times exceeded 18 mph. 
   In the F Class divisions, David Gosnell absolutely whipped his fellow F-Open competitors like rented mules all weekend. Day 1 saw him finish with an
outstanding 589, a full 23 points ahead of second place Eric Cortina. Sunday saw Dave pour it on by agging a 591 to finish head and shoulders above the rest with a brilliant 1180. Congratulations David on securing a well earned place in Arizona F Class history! 
   Over in F-TR the bipod boys witnessed no less than an epic performance by first time Long Range F-er German Salazar. The G-man absolutely destroyed the competition, winning every single match but one, including an F overall win in match two. His day one 579 agg outdistanced second place winner Steve Lockwood by a considerable margin.
    Lockwood put in a valiant performance on day two to finish just behind Salazar in that agg but the damage was done and German emerged as the 2011
Az F-TR Champion.

    Finally over on the sling side of the line, which by the way was pretty evenly split between F and sling shooters this year, Arizona's own Phil Hayes put in a masterful performance all weekend. Hayes was running the Berger 115's in a new chamber configuration of his own design known as the 6X51 Hayes.
    Based on the 243 case Phil guesstimates he can effectively triple the barrel life over the parent case with his design. They say the proof is in the pudding, well Phil and his little cartridge crushed the competition, posting a 593 on Saturday and a nearly perfect 599 on Sunday to earn a decisive victory over the rest of the bondage boys and girls, laying claim to the title of State Champion! Congratulations to Phil, David and German on your respective division victories.

In closing I would like to give a big tip of the hat to Joe, Jack and Richard who setup and ran the pits each day, Fred Filkins on another great call of the line
and to Mid and Nancy Tompkins for all there hard work in the stat trailer. Next up is the Az State Highpower Championship this coming weekend that starts
off with a 3X600 on Friday. Great way to work off all those Thanksgiving calories. Then we hope to see many of you for the Az State Palma Championships Dec 2nd,3rd and 4th."

Thanks Rick. We'll see you this weekend at one of the prone matches. I got back in the sling again Sunday with an 80 OTC at Rio Salado.  Had a 197 at the 500, with the space gun, so I'm going to try it again Friday at the AZ 600 champ, or on Sat at Rio in the 500 yd match.  Darn, that .223 match rifle shoots good at Mid range!  Hawkeye

2011 Sm Bore outdoor Prone Final aggregate.

  From Chad Danielson:
   Jim,   Below are the final standings for the 2011 Season Smallbore Prone Aggregate Championship. Congratulations to Elk River Junior Shooter Eric Hazelton who won both the Junior Category Aggregate Championship, and the Overall Aggregate Championship with a total of 15,202 .  Behind Hazelton for 2^nd was Duluth Shooter Jim Biles who accumulated 12,663 points throughout the summer.  Brooklyn Park Junior Shooter Emily Quinner finished 3^rd for the season with 11,073 points.  Seven of the top ten finishers posted over 10,000 points for the season, but Hazelton set what will more likely be the mark to beat come next season with his 15,202 as he competed in all 8 of the tournaments making up the season, as the last scheduled tournament date of September 18^th, in Elk River was rained out.  

                         

1. Eric Hazelton (Jr.)   15,202 - 660
2. Jim Biles                   12,663 - 696
3. Emily Quiner (Jr.)    11,073 - 700
4. Steve Knutson           10,944 - 564
5. Chad Danielson         10,882 - 479
6. Nick Learn (Jr.)        10,789 - 413
7. Jim Evenson              10,669 - 501
8. Stacey Tamulinas        9,449 - 571
9. Lori Huseby (Jr.)        9,360 – 368
10. Julie Huseby              9,316 - 354

Mpls. Rifle Club Nov. 300 meter Match -- Results

From Brian Shiffman:   

"We had a wonderful day to have a match with indoor heat and electronic targets.  While it was not really cold the heat did take the chill out and made for comfortable shooting.  Very little wind to contend with.  We had a full house of 14 shooters; well, actually, we had more but the few additional people did not want to wait until the first relay was complete before shooting.  So, we did not have to have a second relay.  I would have been the only one shooting it!!  I made the executive decision that it was better to return back to the house for leaf clearing.

Among the group we had a couple of new shooters to our matches, and, a few interesting story lines:

Erhardt Bruderer took top honors in the 3-position class.

Kathy Nickell had never shot our matches and was using a borrowed AR 15.  I enquired about the specs and she knew them all.  Although the Nightforce scope went up to 22 power, she had it on 7 power and then proceeded to come in third place, behind Bob Eckstein and Johan Boden.  She was consistent throughout the match with two 195’s and a 194.

Bob and Johan tied with 590 for top spot but Bob bested Johan by one point on the third string to take first place.  Bob was shooting a Savage model 12 F/TR in 308 with a Nightforce scope and a front bipod that looks like a brace from a bridge.

Tom Loberg did not shoot his usual 308 but and a “new” one.  He and Johan had been battling month by month for top honors, both shooting factory Federal match 308; Tom using 168 grain bullets.  Well, his new rifle did not like that factory ammo.  Although he was also consistent from series to series, he finished in 6^th place.  After the match he shot a few Federal 175 grain match loads which seemed to group quite well.  I expect he’ll be using that load at the next match.  For those who would think the poor performance of the 168 grain ammo was due to a different barrel twist it turns out that both the old and new rifles were 1 in 12.  We have to look elsewhere.

A new shooter for us was Matt Hankes who won the prone position match with a score of 303.  How?  He was the only prone competitor.

We had 4 shooters shooting 3 positions.  Unfortunately, I failed to record the score of Ed Facundo so as soon as I get his score from the scoreboard at the range (or someone gets it to me) I’ll post it on the match results web page.  We also had two shooters shooting offhand.  Mike Marzitelli was shooting 222 Magnum while Robert Smith was using his AR 15.

I had loaded the 108 grain Berger BT for 6mm BR to try in a match for the first time.  I have been working up a load for this new to me bullet.  Since I did not shoot this match I’ll have to wait until the next match.  I had been shooting the 105 Berger VLD bullets with the length set into the lands by about .015”.  The 108 is not a VLD so it should not be loaded as far forward, usually these bullets are at their best with about .001 to .015 of jump before contacting the lands.  I have not played with seating depth, yet, choosing a “little” jump as a starting point and just playing with powder charge.

All in all it was a good shoot

 The results for the match (minus Ed Facundo’s score) can be found at:

 http://www.edfpages.com/mgfc/results.php?match=11

 Brian D. Shiffman  shiff004@umn.edu

 Click Here for complete Results

Shooting Tutorial

From: Kurt Borlaug - MN State Service rifle team coach and Capt.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0H08JTs1Lg

  "Gents, The USAR team has posted a bunch of videos filmed last summer at Perry. This one is of extreme value to us all. Pass it on to your buddies not listed here and talk it up. Follow links to more. There are some other good ones of 600 yard team shooting w/ Anderson coaching.
 Also, Tom heard today that the Nosler order is on the way and we should be expecting the drop at my place early next week. Maybe we can do some testing on those pills before the snow flies.
Later, Kurt"

Some thoughts on this:  

Gents
This is a good tutorial.  
The most important words in it are "shooting window".    No matter what the wind is doing over a long period of time, there will be a "average condition" where the wind goes back to after rising or falling.  This "average condition" should usually be your shooting window.  Wait for it!
   As we all know, there are two ways to play the wind.  David Tubbs is very successful at "chasing the spotter"-- He continues to shoot as fast as he can through small wind changes in order to minimize the number of changes that he faces. Other shooters wait out the changes and shoot only in their "window".  
  The two best shooters that I watch all the time use the window method.   Rick Curtis, and Nancy Tompkins are Window shooters.  I watch them weekly in Sm Bore matches, and they are the last ones done in each 20 shot match, and usually have the top scores.
Other shooters, like me, use a combination of both methods, because I have a hard time staying in position for the 22 min it might take to get all 22 shots off using the window method---and it takes better wind reading skills to use the window method. 
   Other things come into play---  
The wind does not rise and fall evenly.   It rises more quickly than it falls. The wind also changes direction as it rises and falls, and usually with a predictable pattern.  Wind gusts (big or small) are sinking cells of air.  These cells of air have rotation.  In the Northern hemisphere gusts of wind usually have a somewhat clockwise rotation.  That means that "usually"  a gust of wind will "veer" in the clockwise direction, (Click Here) and when the wind is dropping, the direction will change (backing) in the counter clockwise direction. So--if the wind is from 7:00 and it rises, you can usually notice that it is changing towards 9:00 and therefore may have even more effect on the bullet flight.  Think about this in a 6:00 fish-tailing condition.   When the winds goes to 7:00 (left wind), it will be at a higher velocity than a change to 5:00 where the wind is dropping. So the 7:00 wind will blow you twice as far out, as you would be by misreading a change to 5:00.  The corollary to this, is that a veering wind from 10:00 to 12:00 might be rising in velocity, it will also have less value as a head wind.  
   If you want to learn about the wind, study a book on sailboat racing. Sailors get "all" their power from the wind. The angles they sail relative to the wind and the course they want to follow are what makes the difference between the winners and losers.  Sailors are the masters of the wind.  They go to great lengths to understand the changes in the wind and write a lot about it in books on sailboat racing. 
    Yes, the wind is complicated, hard to understand and apply correctly.  This is the real reason to shoot only in your "shooting window:"
   As for the coach telling the shooter to "favor"  in prone slow fire with iron sights---  Come on!   What is the point of that?  Does the coach not know the value of the wind?  Are they in such a hurry that the shooter can't click?  I believe that shooters who are not Highmasters, should never be told to favor in prone slow fire. Generally, they don't have the skill to do that properly and it just shows that the coach is not sure about his wind call and wants to put the onus of that shot result on the back of the shooter.  Master and below shooters should always shoot every shot straight away, while using Iron sights.  The shooter worries only about elevation, while the coach handles the wind call. Can you imagine a Palma coach telling his shooter to "favor".  
   Once again it's good to point out that the best prone slowfire shooters are also Sm Bore shooters, or have a Sm bore shooting background.  If you want to learn to read the wind-- shoot Sm Bore.
Jim E