Edition 2016-3 Published by C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. Dan Simon Skip Long Range Match, page 3 Manufacturers of A WORLD FAMOUS SERIES of Classic Metallic Cartridge Rifles and Classic Sights P.O. Box 885, Big Timber, MT 59011 Phone: 406-932-4353 Fax: 406-932-4443 2016 www.csharpsarms.com * [email protected]2016
24
Embed
C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. · C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc. Dan Simon Skip Long Range Match, page 3 Manufacturers of A WORLD FAMOUS SERIES of Classic Metallic Cartridge Rifles and Classic
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Edition 2016-3 Published by C. Sharps Arms Co., Inc.
Dan Simon Skip
Long Range Match, page 3
Manufacturers of A WORLD FAMOUS SERIES of Classic Metallic Cartridge Rifles and Classic Sights
Welcome to a story under a brand new heading which is devoted to long range black powder shooting.
For this first appearance of these adventures, I’ll give you a rather appropriate story about Washington’s very
first Long Range Championships. We’ll try to cover the doin’s at this recent match in detail. And, in at least
one way, I’ve got a good background to write this story about Washington’s first long range match, because that
was also my first long range match. Believe me, I learned a lot and it was certainly an adventure.
This match was conducted by Ash Garman, a noted long range shooter who favors paper patched bullets
in his C. Sharps Arms .45/110, representing the Washington State Rifle & Pistol Association. Ash contacted
me well over a month in advance, saying he was managing this match and he expected me to be there. In
addition, he expected a fair number of other shooters to be there too but it really didn’t turn out that way. All
we can say now is that those who didn’t attend and shoot in
this match will never completely know what they have missed.
As it was, on the morning of registrations only six riflemen
signed up. Well, there’s really nothing wrong with that and it
does make it easier for me to tell you more in detail about the
shooting and the event. One detail will get mentioned over
and over and that is the wind. This match was held at the
Rattlesnake Mountain Shooting Facility near Benton City,
Washington, and that range is well known for its very windy
conditions. Ash even commented that there are a number of
known long range shooters who might not want to stake their
reputations against that wind. That is possible but if those
more experienced shooters had shown up the winds wouldn’t
have bothered them anymore than it bothered those of us who
were there.
And four of our shooters in this match were quite well
experienced. They’ll be mentioned when their times come.
Right now I want to introduce just one of the other shooters. His name is Gordon Gerken and this was his very
first BPTR match too. Gordon, some might say, was the complete opposite from me. He was an experience
high power long range shooter who had never tried black powder. I, on the other hand, had experience with
black powder but had never shot long range. We both
learned a lot, enough that we’re not so inexperienced
now, but we know we’ve got a lot more left to learn.
Gordon was rather well equipped too, he was
shooting a C. Sharps Arms Highwall in .45/90. The
loads he was using, and all of the others too, will be
shown in an equipment list before this story gets wrapped
up. The shooters’ scores for each individual target will
also be shown along with the total aggregate scores.
I’m going to talk about the shooting in this long
range match just like I’m talking to someone who has
never seen one of these matches. For some of you that
will seem redundant but if you have never seen a BPTR
long range match, then you might not be as lost as I was
when this one got started. And, just in case you are as
lost as I was, you’ll get a lot of help because no shoots
are as friendly as the black powder cartridge matches. Mike Nesbitt and Gordon Gerken, first time long rangers
The course of fire for one of these matches includes fifty shots fired for score plus an unlimited amount
of sighter shots. To be fairly well prepared for that, I took 120 rounds for my .44/90. That was enough ammo,
and I did use 82 rounds.
Ash and I got to the range fairly early on the day before the match was to actually start and we found
three other shooters waiting at the gate to get in. That day was spent doing some shooting at the targets from
each of the three distances; 800, 900, and 1000 yards. This was good doin’s and it gave me the chance to make
some notes on elevation settings for the rear sight.
During that sight-in period, I never did hit the 1000 yard target but that still gave me the chance to get a
good place to start from when the match was actually shot, the next day. Yes, I could have used more ammo
and eventually hit the 1000 yard target but that would not have served me any more purpose than what was
already done. For what needed doing, those close misses were just fine.
Things got more serious the next day. I was assigned to relay #1 at 800 yards. Notes were referred to in
order to set my rear sight, a couple of sighter shots were fired to make sure of things, and then I declared my
shooting would be for score. All went rather well, in my opinion. Not all of my shots hit the target but I did
finish my 800 yard shooting with a score of 56. That’s not enough to win but the boys did know I was trying.
Some observations; all of the shooters
at this match used the prone position with
cross-sticks except me. I prefer to use the
sitting position, with cross-sticks. For me the
sitting position is simply easier, much more
comfortable. It is the shooter’s option to use
“the next harder position.”
Also, NRA rules do not allow the use
of stools or chairs while shooting from the
sitting position. We do sometimes see
Match winner, Dan Steinmetz fires his .45/90 custom rolling block those “sitting stools” at other shoots.
When the relay begins, the range master calls out, “Ready on the right, ready on the left. Ready on the
firing line. When your target comes up, you have 30 minutes to fire unlimited sighter shots and 10 shots for
score.” Then, after just a couple of seconds pause, he calls for “Targets Up!” and the shooting begins.
Thirty minutes later a cease-fire was called. All of us got our shots off with no problems. In fact, we
actually finished early. That’s when score cards were reviewed and signed, becoming our official match
documents. With the firing line safe, all rifles were removed from the line as shooters in relay 2 began their
preparations.
There was also a rotation where shooters who had just completed the first relay went to the pits to pull
targets for the next relay of shooters. Duty in the pits is something I hadn’t done for about 50 years and some
changes were quickly noticed. Years
ago we used a paddle to “flag” the
score of the shot back to the shooters.
Now a black or white marker is used,
depending on whether the bullet went
through the black or the white on the
target. That indicates the location of
the hit. Also, an orange marker (or
two) is used to indicate the score of the
hit by the location where the marker is
placed. After the marker and the score
indicator are positioned, the target is
raised so the spotter on the firing line
and look through the scope and pass
the info on to the shooter. Those
markers remain on the target while the
next shot is fired.
That target, by the way, is 6’
square with a 44” diameter bullseye. The white marker shows the hit a 10 o’clock, the orange marker shows it’s a 9
Orange markers tell the score , at 3 o’clock is a 6, at 9 o’clock is a 7, lower left corner is an 8, bottom middle (as
shown) is a 9, and lower right corner is a 10. In the very same spot as a 6 (middle, right side) is where an X is
shown along with the marker in the center. After the next shot, these markers will be moved. Only one shot is
shown at a time.
And that 44” bullseye gets even smaller when the shooting line is taken back to 900 yards, as I found out
two relays later. A couple of sighting shots were fired to confirm the elevation setting and then I was shooting
for score. My number if misses increased but I also got an X! Now, getting that X was a treat but I really don’t
know how it happened. After all, if I knew how it happened I would have done it again… As it turned out, my
score at 900 yards was 35-1X and I claim that with no shame at all.
Right after that, we fell back to the 1000 yard line, to the same line from where I had not hit the target
during our sighting-in the day before. Better luck was with me this time, and I was trying a little harder,
because out of my 10 shots for score, the target was hit three times. That gave me a score of 20.
While I did wish my score was better, Ash Garman complimented me by relating how on his first 1000
yard target in a match he turned in a score of 7. If you’ve never done it before, shooting a new course of fire is
really a new ball game. Anyway, I was pleased to do as well as I did and my scores certainly leave room for
improvement while encouraging me to try again at the same time.
After the final relay
that Saturday, we
adjourned to a bar-be-
que at the club house put
on by the shooting club.
That was some doin’s
for sure. In addition to
the bar-be-que, a local
Sharps collector brought
several samples from his
collection and displayed
them in the club house
along with giving a
rather brief but complete
run-down on the history
of the Sharps Creedmoor
Just part of the group who dines at the Saturday afternoon bar-be-que models in addition to other
sporting and target rifles. That bar-be-que dinner and the look at the original Sharps rifles were well worth the
trip by themselves.
Scores were added up for
Saturday and Simon Smith, from
Portland, Oregon, was in the lead
by just one point and one X. But
Sunday proved to be another day.
We had a very stiff
tailwind that next morning, strong
enough to take the hat off of your
head. But it was coming from
straight behind us so our windage
adjustments could be set to zero or
close to it. Elevation settings
dropped a bit. And scores from all
of us were rather high as shown in
the listing at the end of this tale.
In my ammo were some Simon Smith aims on the 1000 yard line, I snapped this picture while spotting for him
.44/90s loaded with 520 grain bullets cast from a Paul Jones mold. I had only 16 of those loads and decided to
try them on our first 1000 yard target for the day. Four of them were used as sighter shots and then the next ten
rounds were fired for score. Those did very well and my score on that target was a delightful 51 out of the 100
points possible. That score put me in 3rd place for that target. Maybe I should use that bullet more often.
But before the next target could be fired at
the wind had changed again. It became what
Ash Garman calls a fishtailing-tailwind, one
that whips one way and then the other with no
particular rhythm, rhyme, or reason. Wind
flags are no help in a breeze like that and, of
course, we didn’t have wind flags behind us.
You’d fire and miss. Then the spotter would
say your shot went to the right, as an example.
So, you’d dial in some leftward windage before
shooting again but that shot would go even
farther to the right.
After getting tired of wasting sighter shots, I
told my spotter Mike Rector that I was going to
shoot for score. That didn’t help, my shots
were still missing the target. Finally on shot #7 Mike Rector watches while I send another one down range I got lucky and scored a 6. Shot #8 was luckier, giving me a
7. I really thought I’d score on shot #9 but was three feet to
the right. More left windage was added for shot #10 but that
still went three feet to the right. Just two hits for 16 points.
Dan Steinmetz was more patient than I. He fired
several sighter shots trying to figure the wind out. Finally he
had to shoot for score because he was running out of time.
And he did get some scoring hits, just enough that he scored
24 on this target. His father Skip did the best on this last
target, he fishtailed his shots onto the paper well enough to
score a 41. Everyone’s score on that target was lower than
the previous target.
Gordon Gerken, Mike Rector, Dan Steinmetz, Ash Garman, Skip Steinmetz, Mike Nesbitt, Simon Smith & Mark Blondin
Target scores from the two 1000’ers were quickly added to the scores from the day before and Dan
Steinmetz had become the first Washington State BPTR Long Range Champion by crawling ahead of Simon
Smith by 8 points. Dan’s name goes on the winner’s plaque, seen on the previous page. Another 8 points
behind Simon was Skip Steinmetz which shows how close this match was. Mark Blondin placed 4th, followed
by me and then Gordon. Plaques were awarded to the winners of each target plus the top three in the aggregate.
That’s how my first long range match went and it was certainly an adventure. This is a match I will
attend again and the next Washington State BPTR Long Range Championships are already on the calendar. In
2017 the long range match will be held over May 5-7 and that’s the weekend before Mother’s Day. It will be
just like this year’s with 800, 900, and 1000 yard targets on Saturday followed by two more 1000 yard targets to
be fired on Sunday. They’re also going to add a mid-range match (300 and 600 yards, not part of the long range
match) on Friday morning before the long range practice begins. For information please contact Ash Garman,