Bridgeville hosted two matches at the beginning of July. The first weekend was the Maryland State Championships. Maryland Rifle Club, which has historically shot at Ft. Meade is temporarily without a range so Bridgeville hosted their Championship.

They had a good turn out and ran a 4 relay match I shot well, 773 overall and posted my personal best at 600 with a 199!

Other highlights include another shooter forgetting his 600 yard zero, skipping a bullet off the road which landed on my hat!

The next weekend was Bridgeville’s normal July match. The typical smooth two relay match, it was uncomfortably hot and humid that day. I posted a decent master score, but nothing real exciting to report. My shooting buddy posted his first XTC high master score to win the match which was much more exciting that my 760 something!

A lot of folks new to the M1 Garand look for a way to source ammo a box or two of ammo at their local shop on the way to the range. 

While I know not everyone can afford cases and cases of HXP, the M1 Garand is designed to shoot a very specific round. Exceeding the M2 ball pressure specification puts excessive stress on the op rod and can cause catastrophic failure.

Internet lore might tell you “just shoot anything 150 grain or less” or some nonsense about FPS, as opposed to powder burn rate, well…

The results of heavy hunting ammo shot through a reader’s garand. 

Your call.

I headed down to the hollar for Fort Hill’s season end championship match. The
CMP state championship match is a 800 point aggregate following CMP rules which means no sighters and starting from standing.

It was a beautiful day in western Maryland for a match. I was on relay one so I shot first. For a nice change, off hand went well. I was able to get into my “fast and angry” pace, I’m not sure why but that seems to really help my off hand. Good pit service helps me keep pace and in this case I managed to post a 180, not my best but factoring in a 6 I slung on the target when I wasn’t quite ready to do so I’ll take it.
Sitting went great for the first 2 rounds. Then my bolt didn’t lock back. I didn’t do a great job trouble shooting it and only got 3 out of the second mag before the target went down. For 3 fast shots they stayed in the middle, even when the middle was a twelve o’clock 6. 

The second string went well enough with a 95. The excuse I’m going with there is my between string routine was thrown off. 

It turned out the gas rings in my bolt were long past their prime. 

In the middle at 300 I dropped 7/200 most of those due to a bad wind call on the first string. 

Out back was a little odd. My 600 yard zero for this range gave me a six o’clock 9. I corrected for it and moved into the X. Then shot 3 was an eleven o’clock 7 more or less twice the correction I had just put on. Baffled, and with nothing to lose after saving 5 rounds at 200 I sent another which neatly went within a couple inches of the 7. Turned the knobs (and tapped on them) to the X and managed to stay more or less in the middle after that. 

Looking over my data book this doesn’t seem to be the first time this happened. While it easily could have been me I’m starting to doubt the performance of my Leupold VXR 1-4. 

I had planned on staying for the EIC the next day and making my last stand as I have already shot four of the five allowed EIC matches. But with my busted rifle I decided to limp home and try again in October.

Lesson leanred, Check your equipment before the match!