It has been far too long since I made it back to Kimberton, I missed the September match for the MD State Championship and missed High Power the day before due to some family obligations.
It felt good to be back on that short line on a beautiful fall day.
I punched a pair of 95s in the prone stages. I didn’t smoke my sight so I caught some glare on my front sight post which I rectified before off hand.
At the western games I had really struggled with off-hand which held me back. I took my time establishing NPA and off-hand came a little easier this time.
Off-hand wasn’t all fun and games. I left a whole 3 minutes on the clock which seemed odd to me. Well, I learned why During the brass and trash call! I left a round in the box…. Whoops.
I was still able to squeak past the bronze line. Perhaps in the future I’ll remember to shoot all 30 rounds.
The season is winding down with just a service rifle match at WBRP and a couple more garand matches before the shooting season is over and the handloading season begins!
Fall is rolling in here in PA, the leaves are falling like the temperature, and the High Power season is wrapping up. However it is warm and sunny at the Ben Avery Shooting Range in Phoenix!
The GTB shooting team checked our Garands with what was left of US Airways and flew out to Phoniex for five Garand Matches and a Carbine Match.
We rolled into Ben Avery on Friday, checked in, and much to our wives’ happiness, left before the sales event started.
Rack, Field, and Service Grade Garands
It was warm and sunny all weekend. I should clarify that it was “Phoenix warm” which is just shy of 100 degrees. It’s cliché to say but the “dry heat” was not so bad. Unlike back east, I didn’t have to constantly de-fog my glasses. We learned quickly to keep hydrated; dehydration creeps up quickly in the desert.
Ben Avery
Ben Avery is a great facility. It is easily the nicest shooting facility I’ve been to with the exception of the Talladega Marksmanship Park. They boldly claim they are the “largest publicly owned shooting range in the world”. It’s a massive 1700 acre facility with ranges for rifle, pistol, archery, and trap. It is owned and run by the AZ Game and Fish Department, which the folks there pointed out means it is not funded by tax dollars but instead funded by hunting license purchases and range fees. The Western Games were held mostly on the 1000 yard across the course (XTC) range, which has 100 firing points and pits with an over hang for shade and cantilever pits. The Carbine Match was held on one of the rifle ranges that has no pits. We were able to shoot under cover which was nice.
My performance pretty much the entire weekend was consistent. I don’t mean that in a good way. I seem to have forgotten how to establish NPA in off-hand and wobbled all over the place. I couldn’t call my shots and really had a rough time. At one point I had done so well in the prone stages I was more or less handed a gold medal and only needed an 85 in off-hand to make the cut for gold. But instead I went a head and shot in the mid 70s just squeaking by the bronze cut.
By Monday (and after some observations from my shooting buddy) I got it back together. I was on my way to scratch up a silver. But… in off-hand I decided to pop one at 6:00 just below the 5 ring after deciding I didn’t like the sight picture and took another breath. Well let’s just say remember to take your finger off the trigger when resetting. Painfully I missed the silver cut by four points so “all i would have needed to do” what put that bad shot in the scoring rings.
The carbine match killed me at Perry this summer. So I was searching for redemption in the desert. I learned my Winchester Carbine had of all problems, a loose barrel. This may have explained why sometimes it shot well and other times it was terrible. So I took my Saganaw instead. I also changed my shooting style by giving up the sling and trying to “hold it like a pistol”. By which I mean really hold it tight as opposed to kind of propping it in my shoulder like a proper rifle. In the end I missed out on a medal by two points but I feel like a got some redemption anyway as I drastically improved my score with this little gun. With a little practice and some hand loads, maybe I can bring home a carbine medal at Perry next year.
In the end I came home with four bronze medals and beat my personal best significantly with my carbine. My shooting buddy managed to make a silver. I suppose we will have to come back next year to dig for gold!
To tack on one last EIC match for the season I headed to Fort Hill Rifle and Pistol which is tucked the hills of western Maryland for the MD state Championship on Saturday and an EIC match on Sunday. Ft Hill is really a great club. Not a huge range but its run by a very dedicated group of folks who really made the match run smoothly.
600 yard line
MD State Championship
The MD state championship was a CMP 800 Agg. It was cool and overcast most of the day. which made for a nice day of shooting.
I had an up and down match but all in all it had some bright spots. Off hand started out about average in the first string, then I finished up with a bang and shot my best ever off-hand string a 96-2 . That’s good news the way I see it as now I know i “can” shoot well in off-hand I need to just not screw up so much.
Show me your warface!
Sitting was a hot mess, rushed the first string after bumbling the load. The second string went better but still a little weak. During the off-season I am going to spend some time practicing getting into position and firing with my 22 upper, my club as a nice warm, indoor 22 range that would be perfect for this.
Rapid prone had been causing me some trouble in the past few XTC matches. I was able to get it together this time and post a reasonable score. Big surprise the key is slowing down.
Back to 600 I added another layer of bad shooting followed by one of great shooting. I shot my lowest ever slow prone in the first string. Dropping 5s, and 7s all over the place. Then, something clicked and I shot my best ever slow prone at 600. As in off-hand from this match I’ll take this as progress as it just means I have a higher potential for improvement now.
Fort Hill EIC Match.
Pre dawn I jumped back in the truck and crossed the MD line to Fort Hill’s Warrior Mountain Range for a day of shooting. I was hoping to take the best of what I did the day before and reproduce the best strings. Well, things didn’t quite go as planned. The
Off Hand started out good and ended good but I popped a 5 in the middle of the string, I knew it was bad when it left, I wasn’t ready and squeezed it anyway. Frankly i am lucky i caught that 5 ring. That said the rest of the string was good. Still feeling ok about off-hand.
She ain’t got no alibi
Well, In sitting I finally was that guy, I called an alibi. First round wouldn’t feed and while tried my best to troubleshoot it the clock ran too long. After trying to replicate the issue at home with some dummy rounds I think the culprit was as simple as i didn’t seat the mag all the way. Either way I pulled that mag from rotation.
Rapid prone proved to be a bright spot a with a nice and neat 1/4/5. if I work on my pace a bit I am sure I can tighten that up.
Before I racked my rifle at the 300 yard line I cranked on the elevation, I needed to head back to 600, Or so I thought. Took my time squaring up the first shot, squared trigger, bam, right in the dirt. Check my sight everything seemed fine, I added 5 clicks, maybe the light is different, maybe it was a bad round. Second one, perfect 6:00 right below the 5 ring.
Took the rifle out of my shoulder and cranked the elevation all the way down, at one rotation it bottomed out. I had put 38 clicks on instead of 63. Well there went trying to make the cut for a silver achievement award. I went on to have a pretty good string, but there was no coming back from those two blanks. My rear sight now has a nice index mark so at a glance I can see if I am at the right elevation for 600.
In the end I made some stupid mistakes this weekend but I’ll take that as progress. I’m feeling more confident off-hand and at 600 so I’ll I need to do is not F up. Easy right?
In my excitement after shooting the NTI and P100 at Perry, I signed up for a series of late season XTC and EIC Matches. This weekend I scheduled an aggressive line up: a NRA 800 Agg at New Holland, a match behind enemy lines in NJ for a Governors 10 Match (P100 format), and a EIC match right after. These were also the first matches with my new White Oak A4 sporting a Geissele MK7, but more on that later.
New Holland 800 AGG
It was a beautiful almost fall day for the NRA match at New Holland . Off-hand went well. I don’t mean to jinx it but I’ve been hitting the low 90s pretty consistently now in with the black rifle. While this is no high master score, its a big improvement from where I was last year (70s).
Sitting went well. The first string I was a little low. Turned out my “come ups” were a little off from practice. Two more clicks fixed it for the second string. Well mostly fixed it. I let the rifle slip during one of the shots and shot a “96 the hard way”, 9 in the 10 and 1 in the 6 ring. Whoops.
Rapid Prone was better than it had been for me in the last 800 Agg. I need to focus on slowing down a bit. At the next match I am going to start using my timer.
Back on 600 again I creeped up a bit. I am weakest on the 600 yard berm and I need to work on that. In the Garand games matches I used to think I was pretty good in prone shooting but the 600 has been humbling.
In the Pit
NJ State Championships and EIC match at Cumberland Riflemen
At 3 am the next morning the alarm went off and I drug myself out of bed and headed behind enemy lines for a long day of shooting in NJ.
First was a Governors ten match which is a “presidents course” thirty rounds: 10 off-hand, 10 rapid prone, followed by 10 slow prone. It was a good chance to check my zeros. I ended up bringing my off-hand zero to the same 8 clicks as my sitting zero and brought my rapid prone zero up another click.
The wind was whipping to my 8:00 for the 600 yard stage. I ended up with two minutes of left wind by the end of the stage. Since I was using this as practice I didn’t take any wind on my first shot just to try to learn how to handle conditions like that.
EIC Match
The EIC match started immediately after the Governors match and things were running a little late so we skipped the brief break and got right to it. I was able to crack 90 in off-hand with a little luck. I dropped a couple of 8s and then spent some time surrounding the 10 before I found the middle.
Sitting went well. l I had a bit of a windage issue in the Governors match but corrected for it in the EIC. I slowed down a bit in rapid prone but still bounced a little. Back on the 600, the wind had stalled out. I did better, or at least good enough. I still need to work on the back 20.
In the end I made my goal which was to crack the 450 line, which is the cut for CMP’s EIC achievement pin. It was a great match and Cumberland Rifleman is a nice club. This was probably the most fun I have ever had in New Jersey. Next weekend I am off to Maryland’s State Championship and EIC match to get back at it! Just in time to avoid the Philadelphia area “popemageddon.”
The proposed rule changes being discussed for service rifle class next year have been posted on the CMP forum via an email response to an inquiry to Mark from CMP. Click here to read the thread
New rules package so far…. These are the changes thus far that are being discussed.
Service Rifle:
1) The only alibis that will be permitted are range alibis (no fault of the shooter).
2) Optics will be allowed on rifles that weigh 11.5 lbs., total with optic installed. Optics will only be allowed on the AR platform. The optic maximum magnification will be 4.5 power. There will not be a separate category for optical sighted ARs.
3) No weight limit on iron sighted, non-optical sighted ARs, i.e. you can shoot the current configured service rifle just as it is with no weight restrictions.
4) Only .223/5.56 NATO will be allowed for ARs, .308/7.62 NATO for M14 platforms, .308/7.62 NATO or .30/06 for M1 Garands.
5) M-4 type stocks will be allowed on the AR platforms.
If the rules pass the up-coming CMP Rules Committee meeting the new rules package will be implemented in the 2016 CMP Rules for Service Rifle and Service Pistol. Just a note a service rifle with no lead front or back weighs 10.9 pounds with carry handle installed. Remove the carry handle and install a 1-4.5 power scope and rings you get 11.25 lbs. With that said we set the weight limit with optics at 11.5 lbs. If you want to shoot with a scope you will not be able to lead the rifle. If you want to shoot with iron sights go as heavy as you like.
Best Regards,
Mark Johnson
Chief Operating Officer
Civilian Marksmanship Program
