Category Archives: NRA High Power

A Great Start To The 2015 Season: Kimberton and York Riflemen

Posted on by

This season started out with a marathon of matches. On Saturday, I headed to my home club at Kimberton. It was a beautiful cool sunny day for shooting.

First I shot a NRA High Power match  and beat my personal best! This should pull my 240 round average high enough to make sharpshooter classification. I had been struggling to move up in classification with our minimum 60 round matches. I was close last season but blew it with a bad first match due to lack of off season practice.

HPLAM

After High Power, I kept the ball moving and shot my personal best in the Garand Match too! I did uncharacteristically  good in off hand, practicing with my air gun has been paying off. This was the first match I shot with my newly rebuilt Winchester with a new stock and Criterion Barrel. It sure held up its end of the deal, I extremely happy with its performance.

20150505-135756-50276411.jpg

After a great Saturday of shooting,  Pre-dawn on Sunday I headed across the river to shoot at York Riflemen’s Spring Garand Match. York runs a great match and I have been looking forward to this match for some time.  I brought 3 new shooters with me and the folks at York did a great job showing them the ropes.

The conditions were good it was  bright and just a little cool and,  short of a 5 in off hand, I shot well. My shooting partner brought home his first bronze medal and all the new shooters had a great time.

After this match I am headed to Butner for the CMP Eastern Games!

 

20150429-071240-25960002.jpg

 

 

 

Last High Power Match of 2014

Posted on by

It was a beautiful fall day for a match. Sunny, mid 60’s slight breeze and the peak of leaf color.

And by sunny, I mean really sunny. The Kimberton Glare is particularly bad in the fall.DCIM111GOPRO

Off hand started out poorly when I discovered during my sighters that I left my “Dry Fire Plug” plug in the BCG. Whoops. I successfully opened up my rifle, removing the BCG and the plug, and reassembled my rifle without breaking position. But it cost me some time and stressed me out a bit.

In the off season I need to practice my sitting position because I slid around more than I wanted to. But otherwise I am happy with my performance. It has been a good season. My scores have improved and I feel pretty good about my positions. In the off season I’ll keep dry firing and get some range time. Next season I’d like to focus more on service rifle matches and start shooting some proper “across the course matches”.

 

September ’14 High Power and Garand Matches

Posted on by

Except for an afternoon with my 22 upper, I have not shot a match with my AR since Small Arms Firing School at Camp Perry back in July. So I made sure to dry fire a bit before this weekend’s match.

Saturday was NRA high power. It was beautiful outside. Sunny, low 70’s just a little breeze from time to time. I took my time in off hand and kept them all on target. I loosened up a bit in sitting. I should have taken more time to establish a good natural point of aim, which hurt me a bit. I made it up some in rapid prone. I really tried to leverage the clock and took my time in slow prone, which helped. I’m happy to say I did pretty well for once. Applying what I learned in Small Arms Firing school and a little luck paid off.

 

20140930-195720-71840453.jpg

Sunday was the Garand match another beautiful day, unseasonably warm for September. I didn’t have the same luck as I did on Saturday. I struggled in prone with a bad position and according to the video playback I could have kept a better cheek weld.

I am off to York Riflemen next week for their fall Garand match. I’m looking forward to and have kept my rifle next to my desk to get in as much dry firing as I can this week. If all goes well I’ll take my time in off hand and keep focused on a natural point of aim, trigger control and breathing.

20140930-200530-72330936.jpg

June ’14 JCG and Service Rifle: a Series of Missadventures

Posted on by

It’s the last month before Camp Perry I shot in both NRA Service Rifle and CMP JCG matches earlier in the month.

For service rifle on a whole I did well but I cross fired on myself in slow prone (9 in one target 11 in the other.) I didn’t pay good enough attention to the right time to switch targets, this was a little frustrating as I would have easily broke into the next classification.

20140701-204944.jpg

I did especially well in off hand in this match. I used my timer to maximize my time per shot which helped.

Sunday I shot in a JCG match, I brought a new shooter with me, he did exceptionally well. Unfortunately, my off hand success in service rifle didn’t translated to JCG and, I had a bad off hand string which pulled my over all down. There isn’t much time before Camp Perry so I intend to spend as much time as I can between now and then trying to tighten up off hand with my Garand.

20140701-205050.jpg

Memorial Day Service Rifle, Vintage and JCG Matches

Posted on by

I took the whole rifle family out to the range for Memorial Day weekend. NRA high power then CMP Vintage with my US 1917 wrapped up with a Garand match.

Both days were perfect for shooting, mid 70s and partly cloudy. Just a little wind gust from time to time but not enough to matter.

All 3 matches I struggled in off hand, more practice, more practice, more practice.

Additionally I’m having some issues with my support hand cramping, especially in slow prone, I’m going to try some different grips maybe loosen the sling a little.

20140528-194658.jpg

Since I’m been tracking my groups in my data books it appears I have been ignoring a bit of a bad zero with my A2. This weekend I’m going to take it to the bench and adjust the front sight post. I may move back from 6:00 hold to center mass.

I still have some work to do but I still have some time until Perry.

20140528-200543.jpg

My leisurely rapid prone with my 1917. Note I jerk the trigger a bit on the last two shots.