Match

[Hiwall55]

Was wondering how the Harris Mn. Shoot went. Heard there was some Distant Thunder!

[Distant Thunder]

All I can say is that it is a great place to shoot. They have a very nice 1000 yard range and Friday is a practice day. I used that practice day to shoot Kurt's .44-77 Shiloh. A very nice rifle and a great cartridge especially when loaded with paper patch bullets. If there is a cooler looking cartridge in BPCR I've never seen it. Thanks, Kurt.

I also shot my Hepburn with some of Brent's powder that we loaded in my cases with my bullets so he could see how it shoots in an accurate rifle! I followed that up with 3 of my own loads for a comparison which resulted in 3 10s. Then I shot 3 more with some paper patch bullets a good friend gave me to try. My long range pp bullet is an elliptical and it shoot very well, these other ones were rather blunt in comparison and are longer and heavier too. I expected the first one to fall short. To my surprise I shot 3 more 10s with out even touching the sight setting! How that could be I have no idea. It seems I can put any ppb on my load and shoot 10 after 10 at 1000 yards! It could just be the rifle I guess, it does shoot pretty well.

So here's the results of two days of shooting and we had some pretty switchy winds on Sunday.

GRRC LONG RANGE MATCH AUG 2019

KLUSKENS JIM 511 9X
FARRINGER STEVE 448 4X
DANIELSON BRENT 445 3X
ODEAN LYNN 401 3X
THEISEN MIKE 389
SAATHOFF BOB 368 2X
FREIER GARY 368 1X
LOQUASTO ALAN 319 3X
ALTENBURG KURT 276 1X
MACE TOM 252
SCHAAF DICK 236
ROGERS LOWELL 231 1X
NEWELL DAVE 194 1X
MARTIN BOB 101 1X

Not only was the shooting great fun but the club put on a fantastic lunch Saturday for everyone! The potato salad was really good. Then Saturday evening Bob Saathoff grilled up a bunch of brats and there some more potato salad! Then a few beers were consumed just for good measure.

Another thing is that the club waves the registration fee for first time shooters! That was pretty nice. If there is a friendlier bunch of guys and gals I don't know of them. It was well worth the drive that is for sure!

I'm going to have to plan on getting back over there again next year.

[Kurt]

And Jim you never flinched or complained shooting that crescent buttplate and pulling a 3# trigger When you get yours running I will put target sights on mine and we will compare the 19 twist with your 16 and see how they do.
I wasn't satisfied with my shooting but it was not the load or rifle. Like I said at Lodi last May, it's time to put glass on the rifle shooting 1000 yard paper. I'm seeing the Doc later this week to see what's going on with my lamps.

Your right about the blunter nosed bullets. I have said this several times and they will stay stable all the way as far the sights will reach with the proper length bullet.

[Hiwall55]

Thanks guys, sounds like fun was had by all.

[Distant Thunder]

Kurt,
The crescent buttplate wouldn't be my first choice. The rest of the rifle is beautiful, a great hunter.
Probably just a misspeak, but mine is a 17-twist.
I've been looking at the cases we fireformed now that they are all cleaned up and they look pretty good. Gives me something to look forward to. I can only hope to have it up and shooting by mid summer next year.
I put off going to a scope for silhouette for 4 or 5 years, but I just couldn't see those odd shapes through the iron sights anymore. What a difference it made once I changed to a scope.
For some unexplainable reason I can still shoot pretty well with irons on paper bullseye targets. Must be them paper patch bullets I shoot!

It's more fun when you can see the target well enough to shoot your best. There is a learning curve with a scope but once you get past that I'm sure you'll be happy with the results.

I'll soon have blocks on all my rifles because I know that day is coming when my eyes won't be up to shooting good without a scope and I'm not going to let that stop me from having all this fun. You shouldn't either. Just my thoughts on that.

[Gunlaker]

Wow Jim, you won by a pretty big margin! It looks like you've got that rifle really working, plus some good wind reading and trigger pulling of course :-).

It sounds like Brent still hasn't solved the problems he posted about last year on the Shiloh forum?

Chris.

[Don McDowell]

This match is something I've had on my bucket list for a couple years now... Maybe next year

Thanks Jim for giving us the scores, and a great big atta boy for that fantastic score. Great score to start with but the fact you did it with patched bullets makes it even better!
2 out of the top 3 shooting patched is surely something to put the patched naysayers back on their heels just a bit.

One of the things I see coming out of the scores of these long range matches should spring glee from all the shooters is Steve F's scores , for someone who shot his first long range match in Phoenix this past March , he is certainly already a force to be reckoned with and is surely only getting better as he gets more matches under his belt. Well done Steve.

[Distant Thunder]

Chris,

Brent is getting closer to resolving his accuracy problems. That's one reason I shot 20 rounds using his powder in my rifle, trying to help him narrow down the issue. While it shot better in my rifle than in his that's not saying much. I do believe he'll be back next year and I sure hope so. He's more fun to be around when he's shooting well!

Don,

Steve is a really nice guy and he's placing well in these LR matches and doing it on ranges he's not shot on before too. He's going to be someone to watch (or watch out for!) as time goes on. I like seeing new names at the top, it's good for our sport. We just need to convert him to paper patch!

Brent did a really great job in the scope both days and I didn't do anything really stupid so it went pretty well.
My Hepburn continues to shoot very, very well with those paper patch bullets. It will hold the ten ring at 1000 yards. Like I've said before, "A man always looks his best when he's shooting paper patch!".

This is a match that has a small number of shooters, but that may not last if word gets out on how well they treat others and how nice of a range it is. They want new shooters to come and want those that have been there before to return. They are open to suggestions on how to improve their match and draw more shooters.

I must say that I really like shooting 800, 900 and 1000 yards at a match, but there is a lot to be gained in just shooting 1000 yards for two days. The Friday practice is by itself worth the cost of shooting the match. I don't get to do that much if at all. There is NO local range near me that has anything close to 1000 yards. Well there is one range about 3 hours from me, but it is OWNED by the high power guys and they don't like black powder shooters much.

[MikeT]

Jim,

Thanks for the good review of our Harris, MN range.
See you in Lodi.

MikeT

PS If someone knows how to post a picture of the match winners, I will email it to them.

[Distant Thunder]

Well, Mike, that's not too difficult even for me.

   

P.S. I'm the handsomer guy in the middle with Steve on the left and Brent on the right.