{"id":2010,"date":"2022-10-12T15:03:40","date_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/?p=2010"},"modified":"2022-10-12T15:03:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T15:03:41","slug":"sniper-match-saturday-8-october-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/2022\/10\/12\/sniper-match-saturday-8-october-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Sniper Match; Saturday 8 October 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is amazing what ideas can come out of a trip over to Port\nClinton, Camp Perry and a session at Small Arms Firing School and National Matches.  Once the Juniors saw everything that was happening\nover there \u2013 they wanted to do it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, over the end of summer we managed to put on a Rattle Battle \u2013 but the Juniors wanted to shoot a Sniper Match.\u00a0 As we all know, the Vintage Sniper Match is shot with old guns; M1903\u2019s, M1903A4\u2019s, M1C\u2019s, M1D\u2019s and several rifles from other countries.\u00a0 The Juniors don\u2019t shoot those old wooden guns, so we thought we would just shoot a Vintage Sniper Match format and let the Juniors shoot their service rifles just to get the flavor of the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first thought we could shoot a Sniper Match on a Thursday at practice \u2013 but several \u201cnot Juniors\u201d said they would like to shoot as well, so\u00a0someone (not me) had the great idea that we could shoot it after the Mid-Range Match last Saturday; so we did.\u00a0 I set up two classes for the match; Vintage Class for \u201cold \u00a0wooden guns\u201d and an Open class for everything else.\u00a0 We would shoot the usual SR-3 target at 300 yards and then just to add some interest \u2013 we moved about 80-yards back to a firing line at the front of the mower house and shot on the MR-63 target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sniper Match is a Team Match and teams are known for their imaginative team names.\u00a0 We had four teams initially sign up for the match \u2013but one team had to drop out (a casualty of old age, cold and Arthurite-is) and we had a three team competition.\u00a0 The overall favorite team for the Match was the team of Mark and Mark<\/em><\/strong> (Mark Walters and Mark McKee).\u00a0 Mark McKee, the old bear, came out of hibernation just for this match!\u00a0 This pair are serious shooters – \u00a0a nationally ranked team in the CMP Vintage Sniper Match competition at Camp Perry \u2013 usually finishing well into the medal classes with their scores.\u00a0 They bring a pair of well-tuned M1903\u2019s to the line, both with the Unertl 8X externally adjusted scopes shooting optimized match loads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Mark and Mark with their M1903’s. Note the vertical sandbags.<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The next Team was the Branson Bunch<\/em><\/strong>, the father-daughter team of Geoff and Emma. \u00a0Geoff and Emma had an ammunition shortage, so they had to borrow FWRR Junior ammunition and both of them shot Emma\u2019s service rifle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Miss Emma and Geoff working on sighters<\/strong><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The final team was The Coot and The Cutie; <\/em><\/strong>Larry Beardsley and Kileen Shaffer.\u00a0 Larry was shooting an M1903A4 with a \u00a04X Weaver K25-F and LC66 M2 Ball ammo and Miss Kileen shot her service rifle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Larry and Kileen working sighters at 300-yards<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We had never shot this match at FWRR \u2013 so it was a bit of a\nlearning experience, but once we went through a couple of the LOAD\nAND BE READY, TARGETS, UNLOAD AND DISMOUNT<\/em><\/strong> command cycles \u2013 things went\nvery smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the first stage at 300-yards, the competition was\npretty close.  The Branson Bunch<\/strong>, with their modern service rifle, was narrowly out in\nfront with a team aggregate of 193-3X. \nAstonishingly \u2013 The Coot and The\nCutie<\/strong> were in second place with a pair of 94\u2019s for a team aggregate of\n188-3X.  Mark and Mark<\/strong> had a couple of shots wander out into the far regions\nand came off the line at 300-yards with a 182-5X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, we packed up, switched to the MR-63 face and moved\nback to the extended range.  This was a\ntrue unknown distance \u2013 we had not lasered the move-back so all shooters had to\nestablish new zeroes after some sighting shots. \nThe five-minute sighter period was a bit hectic, and the wind had picked\nup a bit as the afternoon wore on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark and Mark\u2019s <\/strong>experience\nshowed as they quickly settled into a steady pattern of good shots.  The wind blew them around a bit, but they\nalso hung a lot of shots into the middle of the target ending up with another\n182-5X; a very consistent team effort.  It\ngoes to show that Old Age, Cunning and Practice do pay off after all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Branson Bunch<\/strong>\nstruggled a bit after the move back. \nTheir second string had a number of shots wandering wide both upwind and\ndownwind as they fought wind conditions. \nThey ended up at the longer range with a 159-1X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Coot and The Cutie<\/strong>\nshot last.  The door was open for them to\nsnatch a victory off the table if they could hold their performance from 300-yards.  But, then The Coot<\/strong> made a very bad strategic decision.  He decided to change from the LC66 M2 Ball\nammo he had shot at 300-yards to 168-grain Hornady BTHP Match loads.  BAD MOVE BUBBA!<\/em><\/strong>  <\/em>The\nheavier ammo shot to a different zero \u2013 not just elevation, but windage as\nwell. The Coot<\/strong> started turning knobs\nand promptly turned the windage knob the wrong way \u2013 then turned it further the\nwrong way on the next shot. Then, getting flustered \u2013 he proceeded to cross\nfire on the third shot for record.  After\nturning the windage so far right that the next shot was a Miss, he finally\nmanaged to get back into the scoring rings for the last few shots.  The\nCutie <\/strong>did what she could do to salvage the day, but the damage was done.\nHer 88-1X only brought the team up to a 143-1X for the extended range stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, Mark\nand Mark<\/strong> \u2013 with their pair of old wooden Vintage M1903\u2019s carried the day\nwith a match aggregate of 364-10X.  The Branson Bunch<\/strong> followed with a 352-4X\nand The Coot and The Cutie<\/strong> trailed\nwith a 331-4X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was fun though. \nGary Mabis, who was watching – made the comment that we should do it\nagain when he could shoot.  I suspect\nthat once the girls get over their distrust of the big gun, they will want to\ntry the Vintage Match at Port Clinton.  And,\nI suspect we will work one of these into next summer\u2019s schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to everyone for\na fun match to close out the year!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is amazing what ideas can come out of a trip over to Port Clinton, Camp Perry and a session at Small Arms Firing School and National Matches.  Once the Juniors saw everything that was happening over there \u2013 they wanted to do it! So, over the end of summer we managed to put on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2015,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2010\/revisions\/2015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}