Tag Archives: practice

Practice and Changes to my Slow Fire Routine

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Took my Winchester Garand and 1917 Eddystone to the range after work today for some practice. I especially wanted to fire some more of my hand loads down range just to make sure they wouldn’t give me any trouble, they worked very well. I’m still amazed how well I can shoot this rifle compared to the my Springfield. I spend so much time worrying about stance, trigger control and other “soft skills” I guess the “hardware” can improve score sometimes too.

For the 1917 I am going to use HXP because I am still having trouble cycling hand loads in it and I don’t have the time or patience to figure it out before Perry so ill just use what I know works. I found with this rifle compared to a Garand even the slightest thing wrong and my shot goes wild. So it will be important to take my time and focus on the fundamentals with every shot.

For slow fire I have been keeping the rifle on my shoulder while reloading. To look at the scope I simply rock to the left to reload I use my right hand and tuck an round into the SLED then pull back on the handle and fall back into position. This seems to help me stay in position and be a little more constant. I’m not sure how this will play out in a pit match as I “short stock” my hand gets a little fatigued after awhile.

I’m getting awful excited about Perry in a few days, hopefully the weather holds.

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Two days of practice

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It was a beautiful weekend for shooting and with my wife away I did a cut corner job of mowing the lawn and spent most of it at the range. I brought out the 1917, M1 and my new(ish) A2.

I spent some time working on the elevation for both my 1917 and Garand for both the conversion to 6 o’clock hold and to figure out why I was so low at the York match. I got that all worked out then spent some time working on my prone position, which I am now feeling much more confident in.

I practiced prone with my A2 and raised the elevation a bit so I could use 6:00 hold with this rifle too. I am very happy with it’s performance so far. I tried my hand at shooting sitting which I have literally never tried before. After trying to imitate the “crossed ankles position” I settled into some sloppy variation of it that seems to work OK for me. This has given me the courage up to sign up for the next NRA highpower match and bring my A2 in a few weeks!

Kimberton has a nice new slab for shooting prone.

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Think I have enough stuff?

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Don’t tell Bloomberg about my assault clips.

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Spending some quality time at the range

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As mentioned in the last post my Model 1917 and I haven’t been getting along very well. To try and repair our relationship, I got up early and went out to the range with the 1917, a big box of HXP, and some SR-1s to do a little couples counseling.

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80 rounds later I think we have a better understanding. I stuck to prone and did several timed rapid strings which have been a problem for me.

It looks like a big part of my problem was simply having the elevation set too low. A couple clicks up to the 300 yard mark did the trick. I do seem to have a windage issue as you can see many of the shots are trending to the left. For now I am going to hold off with just a bit of black to the left of the front sight.

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I also feel better about working the bolt. I have been having trouble with the rear sight folding back and coming dangerously close to having the battle sight crushed by the bolt. I’m trying to get in the habit of watching my “workspace” and the rear sight while I work the bolt. Its hard to “feel”
When this is about to happen due to the force needed to close the cock on closing action .

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Sore shoulder aside It was a good day at the range hopefully it will translate to better performance in the next match.