Sochi shooting sport coverage

[Trent]

Since they are in Russia maybe after doing the skiing they should use a Mosin 91/30. That would be a real test to their endurance.....

They used to do the biathlon with service rifles up till the 60's or so.

The ranges used to be longer than 50 meters too; 100 and 200 yard stages were required. But, it's been "sporterized"... only retaining a semblance of it's martial roots. (Which is sad, as it's about the only winter Olympic event that *has* a martial root, at that).

I like the idea of a "penalty lap" though. I wonder if I could work that in to my monthly sporting rifle competition. "OK, you missed three, so go take three laps around the sporting clays range and come back to the rifle range when you're done."

Hmm.. I think I might have people dropping out of the rifle match if I did that. Even if it was for their own good.

 

[scaatylobo]

@ trent

We agree on the ORIGINAL martial theme of the Olympics.

Too bad its all foo foo stuff now.

 

[Trent]

I tell you what, though, those damn Anschutz rifles can shoot.

I had a guy show up for my sporting rifle match one weekend. At the same club they used to have a silhouette match. He said he shot in that before, but no one shows up anymore.

Guy asks "Hey can I use my 22 in this?"

"Sure", I say, "If you can hit out to 200 yards with it, no problem."

He smiles, walks away.

Comes back and unpacks the Anschutz. And consistently, the remainder of the summer he was in the top 3 or 4 shooters, against precision centerfire rifles.

It also answered the unasked question as to why people quit showing up to that 22 silhouette match.


I since split 22 and centerfire in to separate events.

Now he's shooting in the smallbore event and whooping up on everyone.

 

[kvtcomdo]

I was mentioning to my wife over the weekend how refreshing it was to see both the mens and women's biathlon.

This the first time in a long time i've seen the coverage of the shooting sports and these people are real athletes.

Good for NBC or whoever made the decision to cover a very exciting event.

 

[Cee Zee]

They showed a lot of the men's biathlon during the last Winter Games. I watched a good bit of it. But they are showing it much more now. I guess they are trying to tap into the same gun craze that has dried up .22 ammo for so many of us.

 

[JSH1]

It could be worse, you could be stuck watching figure skating. I'm SO glad my wife hates figure skating and gymnastics as much as I do.

I'm also loving NBC's full event streaming on their website. I can watch what I want, when I want, with minimal commercial interruption. As a bonus, the internet streams don't have andy of the silly back stories on athletes either.

 

[Dr.Rob]

If you stream online you can watch HOURS of biathlon rather than 30-40 min edited highlights.

 

[16in50calNavalRifle]

Very interesting that they used to use service rifles/larger calibers in the biathlon. Makes sense, given the roots in northern European infantry training. I've been thinking it would be great to have a biathlon more like the old one, larger calibers, longer ranges, etc. "Great" - not popular or suitable for today's Olympic or high-end international sports circuit.

And in fact, per an earlier comment, I was thinking an ideal bit of equipment would be Mosin-Nagants (Finn or Russian). Probably a snow-shoe segment too, more terrain, and of course shooting from cover.

I love x-c skiing have always wanted to do biathlon, but never lived in a snow zone. I remember being one of two people skiing at YMCA of the Rockies one day years ago, the other guy was doing biathlon practice, skating penalty loops and lining up at the range (of course no shooting). We talked and at that time he wasn't much younger than I was.

One ski resort in the northern Sierra in CA had an intro biathlon course, but it disappeared from their line-up. Should check again and see if anyone's doing it.

From a purely athletic/competition stand-point, the biathlon is fantastic - the combo of maximum aerobic exertion with the lowered heart rate and concentration for shooting is beautiful. There's also a lot of strategy. Just watched the 12.5K biathlon sprint on the video delay - a very watchable and even dramatic event, not something most people would ever say about x-c skiing.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Can you imagine how much harder it would be with recoil and long range shooting with irons?

 

[hq]

It could be worse, you could be stuck watching figure skating.

Ahem.

I could say that hurt a bit.

For all of you who have daughters: Never, ever let them start figure skating as a hobby, and if they do, make sure that they never make it past club or regional level. National and international level figure skating is among the most time-consuming hobbies this side of being a full-time pro athlete, and unless you're passionate about figure skating yourself, you'll be bored to death.

I've been more or less forced to not only watch just about every figure skating event on TV, but to spend dozens of weekends every year at ice rinks all over Europe, watching hundreds upon hundreds of performances, freezing my butt. My three daughters figure skate.

On a positive side, whenever I find out that there's a competition any of them will participate in, I try to arrange a hunt for myself with a local commercial outfitter. That's a decent way to kill time and be a semi-good parent by being at least somewhat around instead of staying at home.

 

[Trent]

Can you imagine how much harder it would be with recoil and long range shooting with irons?

People think 50 meter rimfire is easy?

Heck what they are doing at short range with rimfire is impressive . Standing at 50 yards, hitting a 4.5" target every time, legs and body wanting to shake from exhaustion, lungs screaming for air... that isn't easy.

The A23 target we use in 50 yard events at our club has a 6" black center (7 ring). On the standing events, shooters often miss getting shots in to the scoring rings, period; let alone in the black center.

This is the pic of our smallbore targets that we use ; left is for 50 yards, right is 50 meters reduced to 50 yards; note the size is smaller on the 50 meter reduced targets.



The international 50 meter version is here; my thumb is for scale.



The best 10 shot string, slowfire, standing, at 50 yards, on that target at our club matches last year, was a 76 (shot by yours truly, with PS90).

Here's the average scores on that target last year:

Average in August 2013: 44 match 1, 49.8 match 2 (9 shooters)
Average in September 2013: 37.44 match 1, 36 match 2 (10 shooters)
Average in October 2013: 37.88 (only one match, 8 shooters)
Average in November 2013: 34.81 (one match, 11 shooters)
Average in December 2013: 38.87 (one match, 7 shooters)

Hitting something that small standing, and reliably, under ideal conditions, is not easy.

Let alone after you are exhausted.

I've been shooting a long time, I'm a reasonably OK shooter (I shoot on the high end of sharpshooter, to middle of the Expert range, in High Power).

But *I* couldn't hit a 4.5" target standing @ 50, every single time, on my best day.

 

[Dr.Rob]

I wasn't suggesting it was 'easy' at ALL.

I was suggesting the addition of a centerfire's recoil, and the addition of reading the wind at longer range (say 200 meters) in less than ideal weather (winter) you can imagine there were a LOT of penalty laps in the old days.

 

[Trent]

Oh yeah for sure! Sorry I mis-read!

A 10mph wind at 200 yards is a huge deal, compared to 50.

And I would wager skiing with a bruised shoulder from a metal buttplate stocked service rifle is not as much fun, either. Those old war horses kicked like mules.

On my 300 win mag f-class gun (only gun / load I have drift tables memorized for), it's 0.15" at 50 yards, while it's 2.46" at 200.

What is insignificant at 50, becomes an entire scoring ring of difference at 200. This is amplified if the bullet is slower or has less mass; e.g. 308 or 223 would be even more affected.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[16in50calNavalRifle]

Dr Rob, I think the "Historic Biathlon" (there, we have a name for our new event) will incorporate some different scoring/competition elements. As you note, shooting results would differ quite a bit from the current biathlon (i.e., a lot of misses). Maybe even some options to use more ammo (more shots), with appropriate penalty (added time, for example). Set it up so there would be different strategies to win (for example trading off penalties from extra shots against the debits from misses targets, etc.).

Reactive steel profile targets (not bullseyes), partly obscure, from cover (realistic). Terrain variations (not a rectangular shooting range along side the tracks).

Lots of ways to make it more realistic and interesting, closer to its historic military roots in Finland's wars against the Soviets.

Suppose it would have to go back to "classic" skiing only, no skating/freestyle.

Anyway, it's already an interesting sport from a shooting perspective, but our "historic biathlon" concept would really increase the the shooting interest and influence.

 

[JSH1]

Ahem.

I could say that hurt a bit.

For all of you who have daughters: Never, ever let them start figure skating as a hobby.....

Hate was probably too strong of a word. I appreciate the impressive amount of skill and athleticism involved in figure skating and gymnastics. I just have no interest in watching it. I don't understand the scoring and in general have very little interest in any event that uses scores from a panel of judges to determine the winner. I don't watch halfpipe for the same reason.

 

[Pete D.]

I'll wait for the YouTube vids to come up: spending $50 Billion in a Communist country, with a communist TV organization? Won't get my ratings, except for better dead than...

Communist country......they surely ain't our pals but you are a bit behind times...Russia for all its quasi totalitarianism.......hasn't been Communist for the last 25 years.
Pete

 

[BigBL87]

Communist country......they surely ain't our pals but you are a bit behind times...Russia for all its quasi totalitarianism.......hasn't been Communist for the last 25 years.
Pete

Beat me to it. Russians might not be my favorite folks, but Communists they are not.

 

[Cee Zee]

Russians aren't commies any more but they are totalitarian just like always.

Heck what they are doing at short range with rimfire is impressive . Standing at 50 yards, hitting a 4.5" target every time, legs and body wanting to shake from exhaustion, lungs screaming for air... that isn't easy.

Actually considering the equipment they are using it is way easier than doing it with the standard rifles we have around even if we're talking good rifles. They spend big bucks to make those rifles accurate and it works.

BTW people sometimes shoot perfect scores on the ARA targets. I sure as heck don't but some do. I have shot my share of what I think are decent targets though. Here's one example I scanned. It's not great but it's one of my best. Also this isn't a true ARA target. It's just one based on the same dimensions for the individual squares and the circles in them. 2 of these together with an extra shot on one target is equivalent to an ARA target. If I had shot 2 of these (plus the extra) I would have scored about 2300 out of a possible 2500. There are no X's in ARA scoring but the 100 ring is smaller than the NRA 10 ring. I shot that with my Savage MkIIBTV. I've shot a 2200 on a full set of 25 targets with that Savage. I was using Wolf ammo for it and for this target here. And it was benchrest shooting, not off hand. But I've shot 1800 shooting off hand with a Marlin 60.

These are not Olympic level targets but it's pretty close considering the difference in equipment. I'm no way claiming I can shoot the way those biathalon guys do with their heart rate up and their breathing heavy. But it isn't as if none of us here could shoot on their level with the equipment they're using.

 

[Trent]

Yeah, standing is an entirely different scenario though from bench or prone. It's a lot more difficult to steady the rifle. If your mid-section, back, and legs are in good shape (and not fatigued), it helps; but not exactly easy.

Those guys aren't using shooting coats either. So no help stiffening the back up.

The biggest issue I see is the back muscles, when they are exhausted or screaming for oxygen, are shaky things, and that'd make it incredibly difficult.

To illustrate the difference in fatigue; at the last rifle shoot I was too busy to work my way through the line during the event, and shot afterwards. A couple of the regulars like to try to beat me, specifically, so they put up targets and made me run the sporting rifle course...

Normally I'm in the high 60's, mid 70's when I run it (I don't use a shooting coat).

I put down a monster 43 score that day. I'd been moving non-stop since that morning, missed lunch, and every muscle was fatigued. It made a HUGE difference in my standing score.

The sitting/kneeling and prone scores were still where I normally shoot; mid to upper 90's. (Standing is the only stage that reliably keeps me from putting down master or high master scores)

 

[Pete D.]

rifles

big bucks to make those rifles accurate and it works.

what they do most is put on a custom stock. the rifles themselves, be they the Anschutz 1827 with the Fortner bolt or the Russian Ishmash, don't require accurizing. They aint cheap though so big bucks are involved in the purchase. Over three grand and you still need to buy the rear sight and the harness gear.
Barrels are guaranteed accurate to -20C (-4F).
About the skiing. You cannot always tell about the severity of the hills that are part of the biathlon course. Some of them are so steep that the word "wall" is a better descriptor.
about targets....what they are doing is very challenging but remember that they are not shooting at a target that has scoring rings...they just need to hit the thing and do it quickly.
Pete

 

[Cee Zee]

The real challenge is in the ability to get the heart rate down plus in being able to ski at decent speeds. The shots they make aren't that great really. They're shooting golf ball size targets at 50 meters. That's not too tough even for the rifles we use. But doing it while exhausted is another thing. And those stocks make a big difference in being able to shoot in that condition. That's the whole purpose for those expensive stocks. They have been engineered and tested and re-tested for decades. It's no surprise they can do things with those rifles that would be very hard for most of us. When I was young it may not have been nearly as hard. I'd be lucky to stand up straight after skiing 100 yards these days. And if I got down in the prone position I may not be able to get back up for a while.

 

[Pete D.]

prone

LOL.

And if I got down in the prone position I may not be able to get back up for a while.

Too true. These days getting back up is the hard part.
Pete