CMP One Shot Dedication Match: Talladega Marksmanship Park

Posted on June 5, 2015 by Finch

After a long morning of travel we rolled into CMP’s Talladega Marksmanship Park just after they wrapped up the dedication. It’s a very cool place, but more on that later.

They were having a “one shot dedication match” which was one shot with one of several CMP specials. Whoever is closest to the X for the day wins a CMP special.

We later learned this was an “RSVPed guest only” event we had accidentally crashed, Whoops.

Regardless of our party crashing, It was a nice chance to check out the new targets. The real challenge is, that the rifle has an unknown zero. I took a guess that it was 6:00 based on a drawing someone had left behind at the bench and clicked it left one based on the shot of the last shooter which was a in the 8 ring at 3:00.

Well my guess was wrong when it landed nice and neatly in the 8 ring, low and an inch too far left.

The CMP special won’t be coming home with me, but it was nice to try out the fancy new equipment!

208 Rounds and 5 matches for May.

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Finch

The Talladega Marksmaship Park Inaugural D-Day match is just next weekend. I set out to get as much trigger time as I could this weekend.

My local club allows as many re-entries as they have room for… And boy did I take advantage of that this weekend.

Fresh off the high of getting my sharpshooter card in the mail, I started out with My A2 and a NRA High Power Match this past Saturday. It was unseasonably hot and humid and the sun came in and out causing some glare issues for me to fight. Overall I did well. I was hoping to break 89% but I came just shy. My goal is to break into Expert class before the end of the season. I’ll need some practice and some luck.

After high power I shot in a vintage relay with my 1917. I’ve been neglecting to practice with this old rifle and it showed for sure. I had a saved round in rapid prone and a miss in off hand. I blame the saved round on my efforts to slow down with the Garand and take my time.

On Sunday morning I kept the party going and brought a pile of rifles with me. My Garand, M1 Carbine and brought the 1917 back for some redemption. The weather was about the same, hot and muggy.

I shot well with the Garand I lost a few points in off hand that I shouldn’t have rushed but I squeaked by the bronze cut off.

There was a no show for the second relay so I was able to jump in and shoot my M1 carbine. I am still working out some kinks in both the carbine itself and how I shoot it. This gave me some good experience with the platform.

To make for a long day I hung around for the third and final relay and tried for some redemption with my 1917. Dehydration and exhaustion aside I did much better. No saved rounds and no misses in off hand. This and a couple beers afterwards put a nice end to a long weekend of shooting.

I am going to continue to put as many rounds down range as I can afford in both time and money between now and Perry. The way I see it, the more trigger time I get the better prepared I will be.

The PU Mosin-Nagant Sniper

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Finch

The PU sniper has been celebrated and degraded, referred to the best and most deadly by several internet “top 10 lists.” It has starred in video games, movies, and TV shows. Now, I don’t know about best and most deadly, but GTB prefers the 1903A4. However, the Soviets had one of the best sniper programs in WW2. Rather than producing a special batch of rifles intended to be used as sniper rifles, 91/30s were pulled and tested for accuracy before leaving the factory. The most accurate ones were then set aside to be fitted with the PU scope. Generally the PU sniper has a better trigger and smoother action than the rearsenaled 91/30s common today.

The PU sniper scope, from which the PU sniper gets its name, was introduced in 1942 and had begun it’s life mainly on SVT-40 rifles. However, these rifles were found to be inaccurate and not desirable for use as a sniper rifle, due to the semi-automatic action. So the soviets began putting them on the 91/30 rifles.

This is a 1944 PU Sniper made at the Izhevsk Armory. It is equipped with a PU scope that was manufactured in 1943 from the Kazan Optical-Mechanical Factory (KOMZ). KOMZ made 4% of the total PU scope production for that year and only 7% of the total production.

Each rifle was zeroed to it’s own scope and mount at the factory. To prevent a mix up, the scope mounts had the serial number of the rifle electro-penciled on them, and the rifles had the serial number of the scope stamped on the left side of the barrel shank.

After the war, most of these rifles were refurbished as all 91/30s were, and many were fitted with different scopes or mounts. So you may see a variation of crossed out and new numbers stamped or electro-penciled for the scopes and mounts, just as most other rifles that had been refurbished in Mother Russia.

One neat thing about this rifle, and I tried to capture a decent picture showing it, is the brown paint on the fore-end. Most of them did not survive with this paint. It is said that some snipers did this to cut down on glare. Whether it was for the glare on the scope or from their opposition, I’m not sure, but a cool part of this rifles history that still survives, none the less.

We are nearing the end of the golden era for these original WWII snipers. If you having been thinking about picking up a PU sniper, I would suggest buying one soon, while they are still very affordable. We have all seen the price increases across all WWII Rifles.

When shopping for a PU sniper, always do your homework. As with anything else, there are many counterfeits. Some of which were mass produced in the late 90’s through the 2000’s by Century Arms International, using scopes made made in the Ukraine in the 90’s. These reproduction scopes are not hard to spot, after you’ve seen one. The screws in the turret will be flush with the turret on a reproduction and the originals are have a domed head that sticks slightly above the scope turrets.

Another tell tale sign for a reproduction or post war mount is machine marks. The original wartime mounts will have very rough machining marks, as seen in my photos. Reproduction and post war mounts are very smooth and look well produced, since there was a need to expedite production, due to a war. Another tell tale sign of a reproduction, as silly as it sounds, is that the leather lens cap passes through the scope mount, so it can’t fall off of the rifle. Originals will just be placed over the lenses and can be removed from the rifle altogether.

One last big thing to remember is that PU production began in 1942. It is very highly unlikely that you will see any original PU with an earlier production year than 1942. If so, its very likely a reproduction. So read up, and get out there and pick one up, before they sky rocket in price like the other original WW2 snipers.

Content provided by a guest author.

Eastern Games “Pearl Harbor Six Digit” Service Grade: Initial Review and Range Report

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Finch

As I mentioned in the last post, I picked up a nice 6 digit Springfield at the sales event at the CMP Eastern Games.

I picked it from two six digits that I pulled off the table due to it’s nice barrel numbers on it’s 60s barrel, and a RIA stamped stock. Luckily a friend of mine who was “only going to buy a Garand if I find something nice” was just beside me at the table and was able to give the other six digit a good home.

I suspected it was a RIA rebuild based on the stock, however, after finishing my paper work and taking it down I learned it was a springfield rebuild (SA-64), which is still great, I really like 60s rebuilds. I have another Springfield rebuild, a Winchester Field grade, which has served me well as my match rifle over the past couple years.

This rifle has an interesting assortment of parts: a milled trigger guard in a Springfield tigger group, the RIA stock I first noticed, a late IHC bolt and Front sight, and a 60s era springfield op rod.

Since IHCs were post war and struggled a bit fulfilling their contract I am speculating Springfield armory was transferred some IHCs surplus parts after the contract expired. While I have no research to back this up that makes sense to me why so many IHC parts ended up in this rebuild.

Something particularly special to me about this rifle is that it falls in the serial range for Garands built in December 1941, the same month as Pearl Harbor, and the US declaring war on the Japanese and Germany. Based on some rough math this rifle was assembled in it’s original configuration just a week or so after Pearl Harbor. While no one will ever know what, if any, service this rifle saw, it was assembled during a very emotional time for a lot of people.

Now to what really matters, the range report.

Frankly I didn’t buy this rifle to be a shooter, which is a little out of character for me. As mentioned above I was looking for a six digit and I liked that it was a 60s rebuild. I took it out to the range get a rough zero and do a function test and I was pleasantly surprised. The CMP tag says ME = 1+ TE =2 which are pretty solid numbers. My gauge says it’s just under 2 which coincides with CMPs description.

After some haphazard chasing a single round to get a zero, it grouped very nicely with surplus HXP ammo.

The trigger guard could use a peen job to tighten up the lugs and the stock needs some linseed oil, but this rifle turned out to be an “out of the box games match rifle” which was a very pleasant surprise. After Camp Perry I will take her to a local match and see what she can do.

Road Trip to the 2015 CMP Eastern Games

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Finch

The Garand Thumb Blog Shooting Team loaded a truck full of M1 Garands and 30-06 and hauled down to the CMP Eastern Games at Camp Butner, NC.

We shot three Garand Matches over the weekend, two on Saturday back to back, and one on Sunday . The conditions were absolutely perfect, bright and sunny in the low 70’s We could not have asked for better weather.

The three of us did very well. I brought a home my first ever medals: a bronze and a silver! My shooting partner earned two bronze medals and a sliver while, the new shooter we brought with us significantly improved his scores.

As far as my performance, I was able to pull off a 98/1 in slow prone in my second match, Garand Reentry, which made me very happy! I struggled with off hand this weekend to the point that even after that 98/1, my off hand fell apart and put me dangerously close to being out of contention. In the end, I had a great weekend beating my personal best twice and brought home two medals, just missing a third by 3 points.

I want to give some credit to the new shooter that came with us. He shot three matches in a row and consistently shot better each time. On Saturday he picked up a new Service Grade Garand that he had bought from the CMP trailer. After a brief check of the vital parts in the hotel room and a guess at the elevation, he used his 5 sighters to zero his rifle. He then went on to post his best score yet! We were quite proud of him in the pits for not having any misses in rapid prone, which had made working in the pits on his firing point last weekend a little scary .

CMP hosts a “Competitor Only Sales Event” on the Friday of check in. I had read reports on the CMP forum of some “surprises” over the past few years and was excited to see what they had for us. While there were no Carbines, Bolts, or Winchesters, CMP brought a nice selection of service grades.

There were indeed some surprises among the service grades. There were at least five nice six- digit Springfields. The three of us each took one home. One is a pre-war, mine is a December 1941, and the third an October 1942 with a original barrel and a lead dipped heal. The first two are 1960’s Springfield Rebuilds with nice shooter barrels.

These matches were a ton of fun, the whole event had a nice laid back atmosphere and the Camp Butner Range was great to shoot at. Being able to park so close made everything a little easier and I really liked the switch operated pits. Beats the upper body work out the target carriers at Camp Perry give you, especially on back to back matches.