Bullseye and/or CMP... First Steps?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Saluki91

Saluki91

Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2021
Messages
345
Location
The Land of Tall Corn
I recently came to shooting after years of fighting a back injury finally took me away from golf. If I would have known then what I know now, I would have walked away from golf the day I hurt myself. This is so much fun! I really regret the years I missed shooting while I was trying to force my body to play golf to a standard that was no longer obtainable.

The only thing I miss about golf is the competitive element. I can scratch that itch with Skeet, Annie Oakley, and Sporting Clays, but I want to try my hand at Bullseye and/or CMP Serivce Pistol (my back won't let me play the John Wickish run-n-gun games). That leads me to my questions:

1 - I have a Colt 70 Series Gold Cup National Match for .45, center fire, and CMP service pistol. Assuming I begin with iron sight only, is this is an adequate gun to get me started? Do I need anything to make it match ready - barrel, springs, etc.?

2 - On the .22 side, I think the most appropriate .22 pistol I own is a High Standard Victor. Again - assuming I begin with iron sights, is this a good choice, or do I need to go shopping? Another option might be a Colt Ace that matches the .45 mentioned above. The trigger on the Colt is quite heavy when compared to the High Standard, and it also requires high velocity ammo... still worth considering?

3 - At what point do optic-ready pistols become necessary?

4 - Back to CMP Service Pistol... My beloved Walther PPQ is on the approved list, but it isn't a match model, and only has a 4" barrel. Is this worth consideration for use in CMP, or do I need to discuss an upgrade/addition with the Easter Bunny?

Here is a very sincere "Thank you!" for any guidance you can offer!
 
I would find a local range that shoots Bullseye and go there. Watch a match and see how things are. Getting a group of people you get along with makes it much more enjoyable. Some clubs may not be a good fit for you.

I would not spend any money till I shot a few matches and knew I was into it. Also, I tend to shoot against myself more than others. This keeps me from getting into a spending war with others.

The optics depend a lot on your eyes and skills. I would stay away from them as long as possible. Adds cost and complications. Plus, I simply prefer the simplicity of irons. Get several matches under you belt before you ponder going down that road.
 
Your Gold Cup and Victor are classic pistols. A great place to start.

I agree, find a club nearby that shoots weekly matches and start shooting and see where that leads you. You might want to keep a couple of guns with irons if you want to try and go distinguished. But a nice Red Dot makes life a lot easier.
 
Stay with the guns you have now. They are both very good for what you want to do. Buy lots of ammo with the money you are saving while not buying a new gun.

Go to a few matches and watch what others are using and doing.

Optics are great. My scores vastly improved when I went to the dot many many years ago. If your eyesight is very good stay with the iron sights. If you get tired while shooting try someone's gun with a red dot and see if you like it. When you decide to get an optic buy a good one. Buy once Cry once.

If you want to change your .22 think about getting a .22 conversion unit for your current Colt. It's a lot less expensive than a new gun plus you will have the same trigger pull and feel of the gun which will help you in the long run.
 
Saluki91 said:
Colt 70 Series Gold Cup National Match for .45, center
Click to expand...
Saluki91 said:
a High Standard Victor
Click to expand...
Saluki91 said:
The trigger on the Colt is quite heavy when compared to the High Standard,
Click to expand...

For Precision Pistol/Bullseye- First step- Read the rule book a few times. Buy the correct targets to sight in on & practice with. With irons, i still hold at 6 O'clock.

Both great guns. The minimum trigger weights allowed are in the online rule book. Different between them. Trigger pull weights were not checked back in the 70/80s. If trigger pull weight is to light, that a gun doubles or goes full auto, you will be disqualified.
The High Standard should work well with CCI standard Velocity ammo. Dry guns dont run.

Iron sights are fine for the lower clarifications. if your abilities take you to master or high master, then a dot sight may improve score?
 
Last edited:
The type of optics allowed in Bulleyes, simply allow you to see your point of aim more clearly, no more, no less. The make your wobble area apparent, real apparent, and some shooters never get over that and will snatch the trigger rather than press it due to this. They do create another failure point in the system, with dead batteries, loose mounts, wandering zero's, etc. For most shooters over 30 or who don't have 20/20 or so vision they do make the sport more enjoyable as you're not staring at a fuzzy front sight on a fuzzy target with fuzzy rear sights trying to make hits.

I do feel they should be a separate category, but that might just be general disdain for allowing magnified optics in Service Rifle over in Highpower shooting.
 
I have been shooting Bullseye for 30 years or so, started out with a Gold Cup and High Standard. Still using the Gold Cup after adding a match bushing and red dot sight. Now shooting a Smith 41 for rimfire and have added a Smith 52 for center fire. I went with the 41 over the HS because reliable magazines are available.
 
It may be a blessing for you that the primer supply issues have many of us committing the entire season to rimfire only. If you’re better off, good for you. The journey to a respectable average is such a personal one and is so different than any other sport/skill, that I wouldn’t dream of trying to advise. I am only a mid-level shooter anyway. Your battery is perfect. Read the rules and get your trigger pulls to be legal. If your service pistol is different than your wad gun then those trigger pulls can be different though you may want them both to meet the higher of the two requirements (4 lbs). The commitment necessary, if you are genuinely bitten with the bug to succeed and not just participate, will consume you; dry fire every day, excercises tailored to the physical requirements associated with shooting for six hours, note taking, analyzing every pull of the trigger, mental management , and hundreds of hours in front of your Dillon 550 (if you’re just entering the progressive world, make it a 750). Twenty-two leagues are a great way to stay sharp but the commitment is about as much minus the reloading (and sooner or later you’re going to want to see if you have the stuff to shoot those same scores with the big gun). Welcome to the funny farm.
 
1/2 Gold Cup and Victor are about ideal. The only use for that Ace would be to put a Marvel or Nelson conversion on, the floating chamber assembly is just not as accurate as a solid barrel.

3. I think you would be optic ready the day you said "I LIKE this and will keep doing it seriously." But Gil Hebard once said, you don't need a custom gun until you are well up in Sharpshooter.

4. I know they have opened up the list of "service pistols" but I think the best bet would be another good .45, whether a Gold Cup or accurized iron sight Government Model. There are gunsmiths and shooters focusing on Berettas but why set up a different caliber and action type? And check around, be sure you can get to enough CMP matches for it to be worth pursuing.
 
Here is a forum devoted specifically to bullseye shooting:

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/

+1 to shoot what you have and figure out if you want more. I started BE 5 years ago with a SW M41 and a SA Range Officer. Now I have 3 Range Officers, 2 M41s, and M14 and M17 revolvers plus reloading for all of that. It's a rabbit hole like anything else. I improved a lot faster in the beginning before branching out the in fun directions.

Many folks will suggest shooting irons only until you're distinguished in both 22 and service Pistol. I only mostly followed that, and wish I had completely.followed that. If you can see iron sights well, you'll learn a lot more than shooting a dot.
 
Install Dot Sights on your guns, and never look back. If you are old enough to have back problems, you are old enough to shoot dot sights instead of irons.

I went to my second Bullseye 2700 of this year and again shot myself to last place by a comfortable 400+ points. Nothing like 4 months of recovery from a 4 day Covid hospital stay, and then total joint replacement of my left shoulder. Fortunately, I'm right handed. The best part was going to the match with 13 bricks of large pistol primers and coming home $120 cash and 7 bricks of small pistol primers and 3 bricks of large rifle primers. My primer inventory is now almost to "Lifetime Level" for age 74.
 
I have been shooting Bullsye Pistol (aka Conventional Pistol, aka Precision Pistol) for 30 years. I started with a Gold Cup that was further improved by the late George Madore. My .22 for many years was a Hamden made High Standard Victor. Nowadays it is a Nelson Precision conversion on my Gold Cup frame.
Somewhere in there i fell into another rathole and started shooting International pistol matches….mostly the Free Pistol event. Inevitably, the led me to Air Pistol and a CO2 FWB match
pistol followed by a PCP Hammerli.
Beware.
 
I’ll say it here because in the Bullseye community I’d get flamed. Shooting a dot is buying points. Simple as that. The tired argument that a dot permits one to continue the great sport well in to mature years, and the popular “my eyes just can’t handle irons anymore” is not even convincing the folks who are saying it. Put an ocular of the correct diopter in front of your shooting eye and you’ve got the eyes of a twenty year old again. Yes this is technology of another sort compared to the dot but you’re missing the point. Those guys are wearing glasses anyway. My scores through an entire season of switching from a dot to irons and back again repeatedly, conducted to give me the answer to this very question, gave me about four percent higher scores with the dot. It is simply an easier sight picture to master. Why else are twenty year olds and everyone on the AMU team, at the nationals using dots?
 
20 years ago, going from irons to dot sight gave me 100 more points (1,700 to 1,1825 total). Today, Covid in September 2021 and 5 years older lowered my scores from 2385 (could not break 2400) to 1685 - 1725, good for last place in a match by 400 points, but I had fun.
 
Inthealders said:
I’ll say it here because in the Bullseye community I’d get flamed.
Click to expand...
Rightfully so. Dots don't make you shoot better, they make you see better. You can't hit what you can't see. Scores get better when you can see what you're shooting at.
Nothing wrong with sticking with the 19th century technology if it works for you but it is doing the same thing the dot does, clearing up your sight picture.
 
Saluki91 said:
1 - I have a Colt 70 Series Gold Cup National Match for .45, center fire, and CMP service pistol. Assuming I begin with iron sight only, is this is an adequate gun to get me started? Do I need anything to make it match ready - barrel, springs, etc.?

2 - On the .22 side, I think the most appropriate .22 pistol I own is a High Standard Victor. Again - assuming I begin with iron sights, is this a good choice, or do I need to go shopping? Another option might be a Colt Ace that matches the .45 mentioned above. The trigger on the Colt is quite heavy when compared to the High Standard, and it also requires high velocity ammo... still worth considering?

3 - At what point do optic-ready pistols become necessary?

4 - Back to CMP Service Pistol... My beloved Walther PPQ is on the approved list, but it isn't a match model, and only has a 4" barrel. Is this worth consideration for use in CMP, or do I need to discuss an upgrade/addition with the Easter Bunny?
Click to expand...

Taking these in order:
1. A Gold Cup is fine. It would probably benefit from a tune-up by a good bullseye gunsmith (most people posing as gunsmiths these days are parts-swappers who have no idea of what a serious match trigger feels like). But don't let that stop you from shooting.

2. A HS Victor is fine. Don't waste your time on the Colt Ace, shoot the Victor.

3. Optics go on a mount...which you can buy for the guns you have. Having said that, I'll throw in a tip...take a file and open up the rear sight notch on your iron sights. American-made pistols have very narrow rear sight notches, they don't allow a good light bar on each side of the front sight. This is one of the areas where the European Olympic-grade guns have American-made guns beat all hollow.

4. Shoot the Gold Cup for CMP Service Pistol.
 
Inthealders said:
The tired argument that a dot permits one to continue the great sport well in to mature years, and the popular “my eyes just can’t handle irons anymore” is not even convincing the folks who are saying it.
Click to expand...

So very true in my experience. As Jenrick opined, optics and irons should be in separate categories.
 
I had a discussion with some good BE shooters in my area and we came to the conclusion that you can see more information shooting irons than dots. Shooting a dot, you don't know if the front sight, rear sight, or both are off. With irons, it's easier to know what your hand and wrist are doing in irons compared to dots.
 
Soupy44 said:
Shooting a dot, you don't know if the front sight, rear sight, or both are off. With irons, it's easier to know what your hand and wrist are doing in irons compared to dots.
Click to expand...

I agree-but dot proponents might counter that you don't need to see both front and rear sights at the same time to make a good score when aiming with a dot.
 
I'll put it this way...if you shoot iron sights, you're good to go for NRA, CMP, ISSF, and black powder events. If you shoot a dot, you're OK for NRA...but that's it. Since my primary focus is BP first, ISSF second, and everything else third, I shoot iron sights.
 
I'd agree SwampWolf, but you will want to know if you want to be really good! Poor grip makes bullseye hard.
 
SwampWolf said:
I agree-but dot proponents might counter that you don't need to see both front and rear sights at the same time to make a good score when aiming with a dot.
Click to expand...
Actually you don't even use the front and rear sights. All the dot does is change where your eyes are focused. Every other skillset needed to shoot is exactly the same. Optics don't have some magical properties that make an average shooter better.

Calling for a separate category for optics is calling for the demise of iron sights. Younger shooters, if you can even get them interested, will lean towards the newer technologies. This should be encouraged, not set into a different category.
 
Last edited:
kidneyboy said:
Calling for a separate category for optics is calling for the demise of iron sights.
Click to expand...

Just the opposite, imo. Serious Bullseye shooters have mostly turned to optics because they are much easier to get a good score with. Attend a meet at a venue like Camp Perry (was) and witness how optics have taken over the sport. I think it's a travesty that a "traditionalist" shooter, wedded to irons, has to compete against shooters using optics on an otherwise even playing field. Separate categories (not just one or two "special" events) is the only real hope for a future using irons in sanctioned events.
 
Last edited:
SwampWolf said:
Just the opposite, imo. Serious Bullseye shooters have mostly turned to optics because they are much easier to get a good score with.
Click to expand...
This is a misnomer, imo. Last I checked the introduction of optics hasn't produced a whole new level of scoring or a crowded field of High Masters.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

alfsauve
  • Locked
CMP v NRA Rules
Replies
4
Views
441
Laphroaig
Laphroaig
P
  • Locked
CMP Service Rifle - Where to Start in Central TX?
Replies
12
Views
3K
wv109323
W
C
  • Locked
CMP EIC match scores
2
Replies
35
Views
2K
Blackfork
B
T
  • Locked
Bullseye Shooting Practicing Problem
Replies
8
Views
738
Sunray
S
T
  • Locked
Oak Ridge, TN CMP Clinic
Replies
8
Views
860
dfugate
D
Back
Top