Jenrick
Member
So I shoot my first High Power match this weekend. First off a big thanks to the fine folks of the Temple Gun Club, specifically Ken and Doc for helping me out. Next a big thank you to Blackfork for providing a lot of information to get me started and putting me in contact with Ken and the folks in Temple.
The match started at 0730, and as the drive there had been in solid fog, I was wondering if the match was going to go. It was foggy enough as we setup targets that we couldn't see the 200 yd line. Temple does not have pits, they do a 200 yd and a 300 yd line. Targets are placed at the line, with a white sheet hung behind them to show bullet holes. Reduced sized targets are used at the 600 yd line. As there are no pits, the sheet provides a nice method of spotting your shots, though obviously it's not as easy as having some in the pits with a spotting/scoring disk.
Setup went quickly with everyone pitching in and getting the target stands out, targets hung, sheets hung, and in general letting me know what the heck was going on. We shortly all loaded up and moved back to the 200 yd line.
The fog had cleared up enough that the targets were visible, but it was still rather foggy. We took our time getting setup and ready to give the fog a bit more a chance to clear up, which it agreeably did.
The whole reason I was shooting High Power was to get better at traditional position shooting, as after attending my departments rifle school I realized I wasn't very good at it. I had a lot of practice running into a room and shooting things at 7yds, but no much beyond 25-50yds with iron sights. Because of this I decided to take my issued work rifle, 16" flat top carbine with carrying handle irons, out to shoot. After talking to Blackfork6 and later Ken, I knew that the short barrel would be a handicap, and the carrying handle sights probably wouldn't get me all the way out to 600 yards. However shoot what you got and learn right? I ended up shooting Winchester White Box 55gr FMJ, at this point in time I'm not to worried about out shooting my ammo.
After getting my meager shooting gear laid out, I took a look around and tried to learn all I could. Everyone was very friendly and happy to answer any question I could come up with. Once the line was ready, I put a few sighters down range to get my 200 yd zero, which was about 4 MOA's off of my work 50 yd zero. After that it was time to put some rounds down range.
The bullseye seemed a lot smaller at 200 yds then it did when we pasted them up. 22 minutes to shoot 2 sighters and 20 rounds seems like a really long time, when your used to 20 seconds for 5 rounds at 25 yds. However I found that it was about right, giving me time to settle into my position, get a good hold (keeping it on the black somewhere), and pull the trigger. I got all my rounds off, and shot around a 170 something with no X's. I was actually fairly surprised how well I shoot offhand at 200 yds, with no jacket etc. Certainly better then I was expecting.
Next up was 200 yd rapid fire, thanks to the kindness of folks on the line I had a few extra mags to alleviate having to reload mags between strings, and had a web sling. I had never really shot with a sling before, always having used either a single point or a three point sling, not a true supporting rifle sling. There was an amazing difference between shooting with a true rifle sling, and shooting without. I'm tracking down slings for all of my rifles.
Learning to get in to position during rapid fire is going to take some work. I burned a few seconds on each string getting settled into position. Once I was in and had the weapon settled in, the shooting went well. The sling kept the weapon in tight, and 60 seconds wasn't a rush. I paced myself off of Ken shooting next to me. Having a high master in the next lane makes it a lot easier to know where you should be.
After 20 rounds it was time to score, and off we went. I shot around a 165 with 1 hard earned X.
From there it was back to the 300 yd line, where Ken again helped me refine my zero. Unfortunately at 300 yds the short barrel started to have problems. I was able to sight in, but the shorter barrel was giving the rounds less velocity, and making them alot more susceptible to the wind.
The 300 yd rapid from prone went well, again shooting around a 160, with no X's. Last up was the simulated 600 yd prone targets, using reduced sized targets from the 300 yd line.
I finished up the simulated 600 yd prone feeling good, figuring I was again around 160 or so. The sling had really helped me tighten up my hold. Ken who as I stated is a high master shooter put a few rounds through my rifle to see how it shot, using his own 69 gr rounds. I also had a chance to dry fire his service rifle, which was just amazing (more on that later). Now it was time to go score, and to see how Ken had shot my rifle. We had figured that his heavier 69 gr rounds would shoot a little lower, and would probably be a decent group. I didn't feel to bad about my shooting, after we couldn't even find a group from his rounds (if a high master can't get a group out of your rifle prone and slinged in, then there may be something to needing a different rifle
).
I finished the day out with a 158 no X's at 600 yds. My total was 639 -1x, with the match winner shooting a 795-26x. Only 156-25x to go Obviously I've got a ways to go, but considering how much fun it was to shoot 639 it'll be a lot of fun getting there.
So things for the next match:
---Dry fire, a lot. I've got to get a tighter hold in offhand. My current hold is all over the black, and well into the white on occasion. I'd really like to tighten that down to just the black, and from there over course into the 9 and 10 ring.
---Get some more equipment. I shot the match with no jacket, no sling, no scope, a camping mat, and 3 mags. At a bare minimum I need to add 2 more mags, a sling, a different mat (something I can get muddy and the wife won't kill me), and a score book/data book. The jacket would be nice, as would an actual shooting glove, but the spare ski glove I've got worked well enough, and I'd like to shoot a few more matches to know what I want in a jacket before I get one.
The lack of scope is going to be an issue. Without pits at either of the nearby ranges that have High Power matches, it's pretty much a necessity to be able to spot my shoots and adjust my sights. The problem is that the suckers are expensive. Price wise it's almost a toss up at present on getting a new AR or a good scope, when you add on a good scope stand your approaching the price of a NM rifle.
For the moment I'm going to just go without, and hopefully find someone looking to get rid of one and buy used.
---Get a different rifle or at least upper. Ken's rifle is a purpose built service rifle, heavy barrel, national match sights etc. Several things struck me when I got a chance to dry fire it. The first was the weight, it's a lot heavier then my 16" carbine. Obviously this helps with recovery during recoil and in steadiness during offhand. Secondly was the national match sights, the front sight was a lot sharper then mine, and the rear sights are of course more adjustable. Third was the trigger. I've never shot a two stage match trigger before, and it was a massive difference. The trigger was light and clean, and made me drool.
Going to a 20" barrel will of course be a requirement to shoot service rifle, and it will help getting the bullet out to 600yd. As I'd like to keep my rifle usable for both work and play, I'm not totally sure about putting in a two stage match trigger like Ken had, but wow it was nice. I suppose I could always just get another lower... Regardless the current plan for my new AR is a 20" upper with one of the new competition NM ready removable carry handles. That way I can still shoot SR, but I can mount my work EO-Tech on it for the rest of the month. I'll look at getting a two stage trigger put in in the future.
---Learn to reload. 100 rounds of .223 isn't the cheapest thing to buy, and thats for the cheap stuff. Good match quality ammunition is whole lot more expensive. As a matter of courtesy I'm supposed to pick up my brass, so I've even got brass. Everything I've read has reloading match quality rounds as cheaper then even mid range brass cased commercial rounds. I think it's time to get a single stage press finally
---Shot a lot more. I haven't had that much fun since the first time I ran a live fire shoot house.
-Jenrick
The match started at 0730, and as the drive there had been in solid fog, I was wondering if the match was going to go. It was foggy enough as we setup targets that we couldn't see the 200 yd line. Temple does not have pits, they do a 200 yd and a 300 yd line. Targets are placed at the line, with a white sheet hung behind them to show bullet holes. Reduced sized targets are used at the 600 yd line. As there are no pits, the sheet provides a nice method of spotting your shots, though obviously it's not as easy as having some in the pits with a spotting/scoring disk.
Setup went quickly with everyone pitching in and getting the target stands out, targets hung, sheets hung, and in general letting me know what the heck was going on. We shortly all loaded up and moved back to the 200 yd line.
The fog had cleared up enough that the targets were visible, but it was still rather foggy. We took our time getting setup and ready to give the fog a bit more a chance to clear up, which it agreeably did.
The whole reason I was shooting High Power was to get better at traditional position shooting, as after attending my departments rifle school I realized I wasn't very good at it. I had a lot of practice running into a room and shooting things at 7yds, but no much beyond 25-50yds with iron sights. Because of this I decided to take my issued work rifle, 16" flat top carbine with carrying handle irons, out to shoot. After talking to Blackfork6 and later Ken, I knew that the short barrel would be a handicap, and the carrying handle sights probably wouldn't get me all the way out to 600 yards. However shoot what you got and learn right? I ended up shooting Winchester White Box 55gr FMJ, at this point in time I'm not to worried about out shooting my ammo.
After getting my meager shooting gear laid out, I took a look around and tried to learn all I could. Everyone was very friendly and happy to answer any question I could come up with. Once the line was ready, I put a few sighters down range to get my 200 yd zero, which was about 4 MOA's off of my work 50 yd zero. After that it was time to put some rounds down range.
The bullseye seemed a lot smaller at 200 yds then it did when we pasted them up. 22 minutes to shoot 2 sighters and 20 rounds seems like a really long time, when your used to 20 seconds for 5 rounds at 25 yds. However I found that it was about right, giving me time to settle into my position, get a good hold (keeping it on the black somewhere), and pull the trigger. I got all my rounds off, and shot around a 170 something with no X's. I was actually fairly surprised how well I shoot offhand at 200 yds, with no jacket etc. Certainly better then I was expecting.
Next up was 200 yd rapid fire, thanks to the kindness of folks on the line I had a few extra mags to alleviate having to reload mags between strings, and had a web sling. I had never really shot with a sling before, always having used either a single point or a three point sling, not a true supporting rifle sling. There was an amazing difference between shooting with a true rifle sling, and shooting without. I'm tracking down slings for all of my rifles.
Learning to get in to position during rapid fire is going to take some work. I burned a few seconds on each string getting settled into position. Once I was in and had the weapon settled in, the shooting went well. The sling kept the weapon in tight, and 60 seconds wasn't a rush. I paced myself off of Ken shooting next to me. Having a high master in the next lane makes it a lot easier to know where you should be.
After 20 rounds it was time to score, and off we went. I shot around a 165 with 1 hard earned X.
From there it was back to the 300 yd line, where Ken again helped me refine my zero. Unfortunately at 300 yds the short barrel started to have problems. I was able to sight in, but the shorter barrel was giving the rounds less velocity, and making them alot more susceptible to the wind.
The 300 yd rapid from prone went well, again shooting around a 160, with no X's. Last up was the simulated 600 yd prone targets, using reduced sized targets from the 300 yd line.
I finished up the simulated 600 yd prone feeling good, figuring I was again around 160 or so. The sling had really helped me tighten up my hold. Ken who as I stated is a high master shooter put a few rounds through my rifle to see how it shot, using his own 69 gr rounds. I also had a chance to dry fire his service rifle, which was just amazing (more on that later). Now it was time to go score, and to see how Ken had shot my rifle. We had figured that his heavier 69 gr rounds would shoot a little lower, and would probably be a decent group. I didn't feel to bad about my shooting, after we couldn't even find a group from his rounds (if a high master can't get a group out of your rifle prone and slinged in, then there may be something to needing a different rifle
).I finished the day out with a 158 no X's at 600 yds. My total was 639 -1x, with the match winner shooting a 795-26x. Only 156-25x to go
Obviously I've got a ways to go, but considering how much fun it was to shoot 639 it'll be a lot of fun getting there.So things for the next match:
---Dry fire, a lot. I've got to get a tighter hold in offhand. My current hold is all over the black, and well into the white on occasion. I'd really like to tighten that down to just the black, and from there over course into the 9 and 10 ring.
---Get some more equipment. I shot the match with no jacket, no sling, no scope, a camping mat, and 3 mags. At a bare minimum I need to add 2 more mags, a sling, a different mat (something I can get muddy and the wife won't kill me), and a score book/data book. The jacket would be nice, as would an actual shooting glove, but the spare ski glove I've got worked well enough, and I'd like to shoot a few more matches to know what I want in a jacket before I get one.
The lack of scope is going to be an issue. Without pits at either of the nearby ranges that have High Power matches, it's pretty much a necessity to be able to spot my shoots and adjust my sights. The problem is that the suckers are expensive. Price wise it's almost a toss up at present on getting a new AR or a good scope, when you add on a good scope stand your approaching the price of a NM rifle.
For the moment I'm going to just go without, and hopefully find someone looking to get rid of one and buy used.
---Get a different rifle or at least upper. Ken's rifle is a purpose built service rifle, heavy barrel, national match sights etc. Several things struck me when I got a chance to dry fire it. The first was the weight, it's a lot heavier then my 16" carbine. Obviously this helps with recovery during recoil and in steadiness during offhand. Secondly was the national match sights, the front sight was a lot sharper then mine, and the rear sights are of course more adjustable. Third was the trigger. I've never shot a two stage match trigger before, and it was a massive difference. The trigger was light and clean, and made me drool.
Going to a 20" barrel will of course be a requirement to shoot service rifle, and it will help getting the bullet out to 600yd. As I'd like to keep my rifle usable for both work and play, I'm not totally sure about putting in a two stage match trigger like Ken had, but wow it was nice. I suppose I could always just get another lower... Regardless the current plan for my new AR is a 20" upper with one of the new competition NM ready removable carry handles. That way I can still shoot SR, but I can mount my work EO-Tech on it for the rest of the month. I'll look at getting a two stage trigger put in in the future.
---Learn to reload. 100 rounds of .223 isn't the cheapest thing to buy, and thats for the cheap stuff. Good match quality ammunition is whole lot more expensive. As a matter of courtesy I'm supposed to pick up my brass, so I've even got brass. Everything I've read has reloading match quality rounds as cheaper then even mid range brass cased commercial rounds. I think it's time to get a single stage press finally
---Shot a lot more. I haven't had that much fun since the first time I ran a live fire shoot house.
-Jenrick
