Target Shooting

[ResearchPress]

But we all know target shooting is only useful as hunting practice. Otherwise, you can just use a paper punch to put holes in the paper without the 200 yards walk if that is your sole "aim".

I was entertained by the above satirical comments with regards to target shooting on the now locked 'Weapons' thread. As someone who has no interest in hunting I wonder how many competitive target shooters read these forums.

While I enjoy short range target shooting (and currently hold the Muzzle Loaders Association of Great Britain ( www.mlagb.com ) records for 50m offhand target rifle, 200 yard military rifle and 600 yard target rifle) my main enjoyment comes from long range target shooting.

200 yards may be the accuracy limits for your hunting scenarios, but try target shooting with a muzzle loader at 1000 yards for some serious paper punching! :thumbsup:

Great Britain hosted the 5th MLAIC World Long Range Muzzle Loading Championships at Bisley last September ( www.mlagb.com/bisley2005 ). The next World Championships are likley to be in South Africa in 2007. Anyone aiming to go? I'll be there.

You can learn more about long range muzzle loading on my Long Range Muzzle Loader web site.

For those with a taste for firearms and target shooting history then see also my Research Press web site.

Both sites have a lot of on-line resources, particularly reprints of 19th century texts.

David

 

[walruskid1]

target shooting is stress relief. the only person that i am competing against is me. i will be checking out the web pages, thanks. WK1

 

[MikeChapin]

I used to be pretty competitive years ago. I was out of the game for about 15 years and am just coming back. Doubt if I'll be a good as I used to because I don't have 30 year old eyes and reflexes anymore.

I still enjoy off hand target and primative shooting even though I don't win near as much as I used to. About the only time I bench shoot is when I am sighting in or working up a load.

I don't hunt near as much as I used to so the paper punching is not really any prep for hunting. It's just fun.

 

[Big John]

No disrespect intended to Stumpkiller, I'm very big into target shooting and competitive shoots. While target shooting i've had many people come over to watch me with a muzzleloader,try mine and then get into muzzleloading at our club shoots. Bragging rights is what i get out of my shoots, but introducing people to BP is my enjoyment! Last year 6 new friends joined who are newbees.

 

[OTHERN]

I very much agree with walruskid1. Target shooting is stress relief!!. I shoot roundball, so long range as shown above is out. Did enjoy looking at the longrange stuff though.

Othern

 

[jtmattison]

target shooting is stress relief. the only person that i am competing against is me.

I shoot every weekend. It's my "quiet" time away from work and honey do's.

Huntin Dawg

 

[walruskid1]

target shooting is stress relief

until i have four shots in one hole and the fifth is about two inches out of the group. GRRRRR....... :haha:

 

[bpbrs]

Question,
You mean 50m as in Vetterli.
I'm working on that one, sort of a self torture kind of deal.

 

[ResearchPress]

Yes, I shoot Vetterli - a fascinating but demanding discipline.

For those that are wondering what we're talking about, Vetterli is the name given to the Muzzle Loaders Associations International Committee ( www.mlaic.org ) 50m offhand free rifle match.

Course of fire is 13 shots in 30 minutes, with the best 10 scoring shots to count. No sighters.

The target has a 50mm (approx. 2") diameter 10 ring, and if you want to win an international match you need to be capable of shooting 100's. That won't guarantee a win though - at the 2003 European Championships in Finland, the top six in the reproduction rifle class scored 100! The top 2 I think scored 100 in the World Championships in the US in 2004.

My personal best is 99.

David

 

[bpbrs]

ahhh a 99 your killing me. LOL Think my best is 91 or 92?
Now I have a new rifle and will see how she shoots. I'd like to be in the 95 range by end of June, time and weather willing.

You'd think with those 3 free shots it would be easy.. :shocked2:

Bill

 

[roundball]

target shooting is stress relief

until i have four shots in one hole and the fifth is about two inches out of the group. GRRRRR....... :haha:

:rotf: :rotf:
Been there, done that !!!!!!!!!!!!

And how about the last shot of the range session...I have this thing where I want my last (usually 40th or 50th) shot to be perfect...drives me crazy if I blow it !!

 

[ResearchPress]

This is my target shot in the MLAGB Short Range Championships last August.

Sadly I don't get to train anything like as often as I need to to maintain that sort of shooting!

David

 

[arilar]

David,
To practise targetshooting is for me the ultimate relaxation and to compete the ultimate challenge and excitement :v . Have done almost everything between original Japanese matchlockpistol and Withworth according to MLAIC.
I do hunt (no BP allowed in Sweden). But that is for filling the freezer! Got myself a moose 2 months ago. Made me happy and family happy :grin:
ARILAR :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[Stumpkiller]

But we all know target shooting is only useful as hunting practice. Otherwise, you can just use a paper punch to put holes in the paper without the 200 yards walk if that is your sole "aim". :rotf:

'Twas a joke, son. Pete Townsend was lead singer of the Who.

You missed the little laughing guy graemlin when you transferred that. :grin:

The original reference was to Col. Townsend Whelen's famous quote: "Only accurate rifles are interesting."

If you're shooting 1,000 yards with a patched round ball in a flintlock then I am impressed. :hatsoff:

If your rifle weighs more than 10 pounds then I am happy for you but not interested in lugging it around.

Heavy, conical shooting muzzleloaders are not interesting . . . to me. Takes all kinds to make the world turn and I'm happy if you're happy

 

[ResearchPress]

I appreciated it was a joke, hence my reference to your 'satirical comment'. :applause:

Furthest anyone target shooting patched ball rifles in the UK that I am aware of is 200 yards, although the norm is 100m. I find them fun but no where near as interesting as the 19th century British match rifles of Whitworth, Henry, Metford, Rigby etc. The rules for the 19th century competitions restricted rifle weight to 10lbs. although modern competition rules permit rifles above that weight.

Pictured below is an original Whitworth match rifle, c1865.

... and below are three modern reproduction match rifles:

Top to bottom:
- Intermarco Creedmoor
- Custom built rifle by S.Gardiner of London
- Pedersoli Gibbs

Offhand shooting is a great discipline as is military rifle, but as stated above my main interest is long range. Equipment and to an extent the shooter can be tuned for optimum performance at short ranges, and the mid-range shooting of 200 to 600 yards offers valuable opportunity to learn. At longer distances the shooter really needs to get to the range and start to learn the effects that changing wind and atmospheric conditions have on the flight of the bullet. It is a challenging discipline but ultimately rewarding and the thrill of seeing the target drop below the mantlet at 1000 yards and reappear with a V-bull scored really has to be felt!

Finally for the patched ball enthusiast, pictured below is an original flintlock target rifle by R.Fenton of London. He was based at 19 Shoemaker Row, Blackfriars, London (1792-1815) and the rifle made about 1810. This rifle belongs to a friend who was kind enough to let me photograph it for a magazine article.

Fenton was a member of a target shooting society and the Duke of Cumberland's Sharp-Shooters, a Napoleonic era Volunteer (home guard) regiment. Museum Restoration Service published in 1968 a facsimile copy of Captain Barber's (Commander of the Duke of Cumberland's Sharp-Shooters) "Instructions for the Formation and Exercise of Volunteer Sharp-Shooters", 1804.

David

Pete Townsend was lead singer of the Who.

ps. I think you'll find that Roger Daltrey was the lead singer with The Who and that Pete Towsend was lead guitar.

 

[Stumpkiller]

ps. I think you'll find that Roger Daltrey was the lead singer with The Who and that Pete Towsend was lead guitar.

Touché. :applause:

But I do know Keith Moon was the one into blackpowder (in drumsets :haha: )

Lovely rifles, to be sure. Long ago in a past life I fired .222 Rem in "stock" (sportsman) benchrest at a local club. Windy days seperated the shooters from the artists. I'd be proud of my 1/2" group and the guy just ahead of me would be posting his .24" 5X group on the leaderboard. :redface:

 

[Runner]

Interesting! What is the first historical reference to conicals in a match that you know of?

 

[Stumpkiller]

1824

Below is a [much] earlier post by . . . me!

“When”, I asks myself, “did conical bullets first show up?” I am curious about the predecessors of the one-piece T/C Maxi-Ball and Maxi-Hunter projectiles. Not sabots (which mean “wood shoes” and involve plastic and so are easily recognized as the devil’s work), but the simple one-piece cast or swaged lead bullets. Sabots, by the way, were used as early as 1833 by the French. Credited to a Lieutenant-Colonel Poncharra, who improved an 1825+/- concept created by Captain Gustave Delvigne. Delvigne’s bullet required a shoulder in the breech plug and that the bullet be pounded via the ramrod enough to upset the lead into the rifling ”“ obviously not the thing for battle. The Poncharra sabot was first used in combat over in Algeria in 1840. I know the Whitworth used by Civil War snipers had a hexagonal conical bullet that fit special rifling, and Minié (who died in 1879) had his hollow base bullet by 1848, and the Snyder used a Pritchett bullet (similar to the Minié) right around that time. Our own James H. Burton designed the familiar one-piece minie bullet. The earliest shoulder-fired conical bullet mention I could find in my tiny library was an 1824 attempt by Captain John Norton to get the British Government to accept a cylindrical, hollow-based bullet. According to the author, Gary James writing in Dixie’s 1983 Blackpowder Annual, Norton was turned down without tests conducted as “a spherical ball was the only shape of projectile adapted for military purposes.”

I've seen much older German flintlocks with fast twist (and funky bore shapes) that probably used bullets that were longer than round. But you wanted a referenced date.

 

[Puffer]

David, is that sight "original & can it be documented ???

Puffer

 

[ResearchPress]

I assume you mean the sight on the Fenton. It is contemporary to the rifle. I have seen one other Fenton rifle of this type which had a similar sight. Little is written about Fenton.

David