Category Archives: NRA High Power

208 Rounds and 5 matches for May.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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!

 

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Last High Power Match of 2014

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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

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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.

 

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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