My rifle club decided to turn their scheduled CMP clinic today into a special mini-match celebrating the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. We fired the normal 50 round CMP clinic course of fire and then followed up with 16 round mini-"Rattle Battle" where we fired at IDPA silhouette targets at 200 yards.
I decided to commerate the event by shooting my 1945 SA Garand. This is one of the old CMP "Collector Grade" rifles and is all matching and like-new. I don't ever shoot this rifle, due to it's collector value, but I decided that if I ever was going to shoot it, I couldn't think of a better day then the 60th Anniversary of D-Day.
I had a great time. The rifle ran smoothly and shot straight. Unfortunately, I'm not used to the lockbar sights and forgot to check them reguarly and had some problems with the sights working lose by the end of the match. I wound up posting my lowest score ever, a 324. By the time we did the rattle-battle the sights were off low and right and I only got 6 peripheral hits on the target out of 16 rounds fired. The rifle was fine, it was the loose nut behind the buttplate that was the problem.
The funny thing is that I also shot in Saturday's clinic and fired a 397, which is my best score ever.
I'm worn out now. My shoulder hurts and I have a scrape in my elbow where the recoil shoved my elbow around on the ground. I can't complain though, after thinking about the men who fought 60 years ago and what they went through in Normandy.
I decided to commerate the event by shooting my 1945 SA Garand. This is one of the old CMP "Collector Grade" rifles and is all matching and like-new. I don't ever shoot this rifle, due to it's collector value, but I decided that if I ever was going to shoot it, I couldn't think of a better day then the 60th Anniversary of D-Day.
I had a great time. The rifle ran smoothly and shot straight. Unfortunately, I'm not used to the lockbar sights and forgot to check them reguarly and had some problems with the sights working lose by the end of the match. I wound up posting my lowest score ever, a 324. By the time we did the rattle-battle the sights were off low and right and I only got 6 peripheral hits on the target out of 16 rounds fired. The rifle was fine, it was the loose nut behind the buttplate that was the problem.
The funny thing is that I also shot in Saturday's clinic and fired a 397, which is my best score ever.
I'm worn out now. My shoulder hurts and I have a scrape in my elbow where the recoil shoved my elbow around on the ground. I can't complain though, after thinking about the men who fought 60 years ago and what they went through in Normandy.
