New Holland Rifle and Pistol Club runs a series of monthly matches they call “shoot and scoot” in the off-season. Work had caused me to miss the first couple and the February match was moved inside due to single digit temperatures. But I finally made it out to the last one this weekend.
It was a beautiful March day sunny and in the 50s.
We shot a reduced “SAFS course of fire” which is 10 rounds each stage, slow prone rapid prone, rapid sitting, off-hand. I brought the new Optics equipped A4 service rifle to give it a full work out.
I wasn’t super happy with my rapid prone or my off-hand, but when I got home and did the math, I beat my personal best by 3% which is a statistically significant difference from my scores last year. Of course there are a lot of things at play here so it’s not good science to say the rifle is the cause. I have been working with my SCATT trainer in the off-season and i have never shot a reduced match at this range. The lighting and conditions here are just perfect which contributed to a good score.
A little story about off-hand, My first 3 shots were in the white, a pair of 8s and a shameful 7. I took a little break, told my self to put them all in the center of the target shuffled my NPA and then some how didn’t leave the black again. Sometimes all it takes is reminding yourself to shoot the middle of the target.
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!
I packed up a couple garands and headed across the Susquehanna for my 7th trip to York Riflemen for their fall garand match.
A Nor’easter smacking into hurricane made the weather rainy and cold. Turn out was a little light but the York crew worked hard to put on a good match.
I put up some soggy prone scores then the bottom fell out of the pie when I got to off hand. When I got home I discovered my rear sight was not tight. I corrected that when I got home.
We brought some new shooters with us, one of them shot a borrowed 1917 and ended up doing well with it.
York is one of my favorite places to shoot, I will be back in April for sure!
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?
OK, it’s not that bad I just thought it would be a catchy title. Due to a conflict, I had to take a month off from the Garand Matches, but I was able to make my clubs NRA service rifle match this weekend. It was an absolutely beautiful day for shooting, high 70s sunny, with a light tail wind. It really is much nicer to shoot when the weather is comfortable.
I started off strong in off-hand, and was able to crack the 90s on the first 10 rounds. However, I had one too many 7s in the last 10. I am really starting to get comfortable with off-hand. I don’t mean to alarm anyone but it’s becoming my favorite string. I’m doing a better job calling my shots. I knew both of those two out of the black were trouble as soon as they left the barrel. For XTC I am working with my data book and documenting my call for each shot. Perhaps if I can call some of these before I pull the trigger I can keep more points.
I am happy with sitting. The light was changing during the string of fire. I’m blaming the vertical stringing in my otherwise nice group on that.
I still seem to be in a slump for prone. For rapid fire I was too low and pulled some rounds right. The former I am still going with the weird light at Kimberton, the latter I need to work on cutting out some of my slop in rapid.
Slow prone at Kimberton is challenge due to range conditions especially this time of year. For most of the string it was dark down range with a bright sun on the firing line. This makes seeing your shoots difficult and at least with my old eyes the halo on the front sight can get aggressive. I sooted my sight again before the stage and still had issue with the halo.
In the end I was about to squeak into the bottom end of expert class scores but not where I wanted to be to pull my scores up enough from last month’s 86% to get an expert card. There are 3 NRA matches left at KFGA and one at New Holland. I’m going to have to cram to get that last fraction of a percentage point in time to make expert by the end of the season.
