It's the little things that get you

[PhillipM]

I tried out my new to me match built M1 on the line today at our local club where we fire a 200 yard JCG course A using the walk down and score method.

My sighters were dead on and I settled in for the 600 yard simulated string. One of my first shots went wildly into the 7 ring at 10 when the side blast of the M44 to my right caught me off guard. I think the concussion wave moved my rifle. Other than that things were all x, 10, and 9 shots so when the target black had so many holes in it I couldn't tell the last shot fired I quit looking through my scope and concentrated on shooting, feeling very good about my performance with my new rifle.

Downrange, when I examined the target I was surprised to see two shots at six o'clock in the six ring and then counted holes and came up with 15! I have never crossfired but I checked the guy to my right, a young teen with an AR and didn't see any 30 cal holes. M44 guy was all over with only two rounds in the black and I wondered if two were mine... but if so what about the other three? I trudged back to the line wondering what the heck I'd done wrong. I was shooting 168's over thrown charges of 46.5 grains of 4895 and had convinced myself that I must have severely underloaded five somehow or I only fired 15 times. I picked up 20 spent casings, ruling out that theory.

By this time it's time to fire rapid prone and run my string feeling good then look through my scope and see nada. Not the first hit! My friend Dennis is beside me looking through his scope as he coaches the youngster and asks how I did and I say, man I don't know what's going on, I hit zero and on the first stage lost five rounds. He yields a clue when he says, I was watching you shoot that great string through my scope and noticed none of your last rounds were in the black.

I look over my super duper match rifle then count elevation clicks... one...two...three! Ugh! At least I'm smart enough to have a screwdriver in my bag so I snug up the slotted nut a little and fire 90 rapid sitting and 84 standing which combined with my 133 prone round out to a 307-3x for the day.

After the match I could shove the aperture down with my thumb so after double checking a book for the procedure, tightened the nut up until I couldn't push it down.

Most of the time my problem is the loose nut behind the trigger so that's what I blame first. From now on, when I know I didn't screw up I'm going to check the equipment. I sure as heck never thought to check the sight tension on my super duper match gun thinking that's a problem for worn out rack grades, not my thoroughbred! I certainly paid the price throwing away 150 points!

[JohnMOhio]

Phillip, don't feel bad, it has happened to all of us at least once. Sometimes twice. Before a match, I always check for any loose bolts or screws the night before the match and I get everything ready that I am about to take with me.

[Maury Krupp]

Checking for loose screws, etc is a good idea.

I have witness marks for my zeros painted on my Elevation Drum. They won't stop a loose or broken sight from running but if that's why my shots aren't in the right place they'll show it and I won't be going WTF?

Maury

[PhillipM]

Checking for loose screws, etc is a good idea.

I have witness marks for my zeros painted on my Elevation Drum. They won't stop a loose or broken sight from running but if that's why my shots aren't in the right place they'll show it and I won't be going WTF?

Maury

Thanks, John. Maury, it was my first time out with this rifle and was going to do that when I got home, lol! Live and learn.

On edit: The knob didn't turn, it was so loose the sight sounded like a zip tie when pressing it down with my thumb, so the paint wouldn't have made a difference.

[John Kepler]

One other critique Phil...you took too long to figure out that your sight was busted because you didn't trust yourself or your rifle. If your rifle is suddenly "off-call", it's time to start checking things out. Have enough confidence in yourself to be able to call your shots...and look for trouble when the result is radically different than your call. If you can't call your shots, then that is where you need to work.

John K.

[PhillipM]

One other critique Phil...you took too long to figure out that your sight was busted because you didn't trust yourself or your rifle. If your rifle is suddenly "off-call", it's time to start checking things out. Have enough confidence in yourself to be able to call your shots...and look for trouble when the result is radically different than your call. If you can't call your shots, then that is where you need to work.

John K.

Thanks John, and Maury too. I always welcome constructive criticism.

This begs a question, just how close can you call a shot? For the moment just considering the shots in the black I could not have called any of them anything but dead center. Sure there was a tiny bit of wobble but it's not easy to pick it out clock direction. Is this a point I need to work on? If so do what?

What torpedoed me was buying a new spotting scope a few months ago that will see holes clearly at 200 and then not using it! I should have looked to see that the two that dropped out at 6 o'clock and caught a clue.

What is a good strategy to avoid similar tragedy on this style match where there are no pits? I can see holes at 200 yards but what happened here is there were so many clustered in the middle I couldn't discern easily where succeeding shots hit. I think trying to plot all that would be a time wasting nightmare. FWIW, I did correctly call the 10 o'clock flyer when the M44 went off beside me causing a small earthquake.




The matches we shoot at my local range are to me run strangely, it is the JCG A course of fire but darn near anything with iron sights is welcome to be shot, however only service grade garand scores are turned in. This has driven up participation and everyone has fun shooting what they brung. When I get a little more practice I want to go back to dzlenka's range and play with the serious shooters again.

It may not be Perry, but at least we ate good.

http://www.msgunowners.com/t15159-ma...-videos#149519

[pmclaine]

Looks like a nice range. I shoot matches that are similar - allowing any milsurp. I like the increased participation and I get to see some neat hardware.

Shot a 369 yesterday with my Garand. I blew the prone rapid - not one shot in the black but a beautiful group centered 2-3 inches right of black. When I took a look through the scope I thought my front sight walked but it was tight. Had that patterned as predicted by my slowfire I would have broke 400. Is it an expected circumstance to pull shots right in the rapid?

[PhillipM]

Looks like a nice range. I shoot matches that are similar - allowing any milsurp. I like the increased participation and I get to see some neat hardware.

Shot a 369 yesterday with my Garand. I blew the prone rapid - not one shot in the black but a beautiful group centered 2-3 inches right of black. When I took a look through the scope I thought my front sight walked but it was tight. Had that patterned as predicted by my slowfire I would have broke 400. Is it an expected circumstance to pull shots right in the rapid?

I've done it and I'm left handed. I spoke with a distinguished shooter about it and he said if I do that every single time consistently, change the windage. At one match I noticed some fired two, glanced through the scope, changed the mag and fired the other eight.

[John Kepler]

Like everything else in our sport....practice! You can start learning it by simply paying attention to what you should be doing anyway (BTW, this entire exercise will help you shoot better!)..."shooting" your front site to the point of remembering the EXACT position of it when the shot breaks. For good or ill.....it's THAT position that is your "call". Once you've developed the skill to call your shots....you can make wind-reads better, faster, and identify problems in the shooting system quickly enough to possible salvage the string. Ain't this fun!

[John Kepler]

Looks like a nice range. I shoot matches that are similar - allowing any milsurp. I like the increased participation and I get to see some neat hardware.

Shot a 369 yesterday with my Garand. I blew the prone rapid - not one shot in the black but a beautiful group centered 2-3 inches right of black. When I took a look through the scope I thought my front sight walked but it was tight. Had that patterned as predicted by my slowfire I would have broke 400. Is it an expected circumstance to pull shots right in the rapid?

Nope! You blew your NPA and tried to "horse" the rifle into the center with predictable results. The Basics are important for some VERY good reasons.....NPA, consistent "spot-weld", and you'll cut the center out every time!