The construction of the new 100-yard firing point has gone
as far as it can this Fall. Ted Smeltzer
got a new (at least a replacement) track for his Bobcat and he finished up the remaining
dirt moving work. The top is smoothed
off nicely and there is a gentle slope front-to-back at the firing positions. He also did a very nice job of feathering in
the ends and edges.
THANK YOU TED!
Today I fertilized and seeded the bare dirt with a tough football field grade turf seed that Ag-Plus said would grow on chipped concrete (at least that was the claim). With rain the rest of the week it should get a chance to water in and sprout a bit before we get any really hard freezes that would freeze the dirt. We’ll see what happens; we may need to hit it with some Ryegrass overseed next spring.
It appears that our local deer herd likes the new firing
position – there were a lot of deer tracks in the moist dirt this afternoon –
it looks like all of the four-footed neighborhood kids were playing King of the
dirt pile on the mound.
Saturday, October 24th was our Deer Rifle Sight-In event at
the range. Indiana deer season starts
November 14th, so we wanted to give members and guests a chance to set zeroes
and to have plenty of time to practice with a rifle they knew was zeroed where
they wanted it to be. This was a free event
to allow club members who are not High Power shooters an opportunity to get a
benefit from the electronic targets the club has procured.
Our High Power luck held for another Saturday – it was cool but
beautiful. We set up electronic targets
at 100, 200 and 300-yards so hunters could set a zero at one distance and then
see just how high or low they shot at the other distances. We had seven or
eight hunters take advantage of the event.
One gentleman brought out his new rifle with a freshly
mounted scope – with no idea just where it might be shooting. We did a crude bore sight off the bench and
then took the first two shots. The
Silver Mountain Targets told us that he was about 24-minutes off to the
left. He was not sure which way his
scope adjusted, so we put about 6-minutes of what we thought would be “right” on
the knobs and shot again. The third shot
was about 30-minutes left; obviously we guessed wrong.
So – we put about 30 minutes of the “other right” on – and his
fourth shot was solidly in the black.
His fifth and sixth shots were solid 10-X shots and he was well sighted
in at 100-yards with just a couple of more shots. He went over to the 200-yard bench and shot
three more shots to verify his drop at 200-yards; as far as he intended to
shoot at anything.
The point of the story; within 30-minutes and about half a
box of ammunition, a hunter was able to go from a new unfired rifle to a rifle
with a solid set of zeroes that more than meet his needs. That would have been hard to do with a paper
target, shoot and walk setup.
Several other people shot at various ranges, mainly putting
touch-up adjustments on their rigs and we had some casual shooters try out the
electronic targets for the first time.
They agreed that electronic targets would spoil people very quickly.
It was a successful day – thanks to everyone who came out
and helped with target set-up, helped work with hunters and to tear down and
put things away.
