Shootin' With Mr. C.

Note: This is the second part of this series. Reading the first part before reading this part will make this part make more sense.

When I first started using the red dot sight I wasn't having much luck with it, and I was even slower and less accurate than I was with the iron sights, and that's REALLY slow and inaccurate. The more I used it, though, it started to work better and better. After two or three times at the range I was actually faster and more accurate than with iron sights. Like just about anything, it was obvious that how successful I would become would depend mostly on how much I wanted to practice. In those days the only handgun action shooting at the CWSA club was rimfire hanging plates, bowling pins, and bowling pin tops for the rimfire pistols. My first year or so, even with some practice, I was still lucky to finish in the middle of the pack overall.

One day while ordering some High Standard parts from Brownell's, the sales rep mentioned a new stainless steel and carbon fiber barrel from Volquartsen that Brownell's had just started to stock. I took a look at the pictures and decided that I had to have one! Twelve inches of barrel and a compensator too, how cool! It took me a while to scrape up the money, but finally I ordered one.

I snapped it onto my High Standard and mounted a red dot sight. The first thing I found out, shooting it from a sandbag, was that it was REALLY accurate. The close tolerances and tight fitting match chamber really made it shoot well.

Then I found out that even though it was quite light, it was still difficult to hold and control, especially if you were trying to move quickly from target to target. A little experimenting and I discovered that if I wrapped a couple of fingers around the barrel a bit back from the compensator I could hold it fairly steady and still move it around. Since there were no rules regarding exactly where you placed your weak hand on the gun, I started shooting that way to see if I could actually get fast enough and accurate enough to be competitive.

Over the next couple of years I discovered, addressed, and resolved a number of problems that cropped up. I found that I was having a large number of 'failure to fire' situations, and when that happened, you had to pry the round out of the chamber as the extractor couldn't grab it solidly enough to pull it out. I experimented with extractors and extractor springs, but the problem just wouldn't go away. Finally I figured out what was going on. The match chamber actually allows the bullet to engage the rifling in the barrel. Sometimes that engagement would keep the rim of the cartridge from fully seating against the face of the barrel. When the firing pin would hit the rim the round would move forward the last small amount and the firing pin wouldn't strike the rim solidly enough to fire the round. Changing the chamber to a standard depth chamber and polishing it a bit resolved the problem. I'm sure a little bit of accuracy was sacrificed, but not enough to affect action shooting.

All of this work and practice takes us up to a couple of years ago. The gun was running reliably and as a result of a ton of practice, I was starting to visit the winner's circle in the bowling pin top matches from time to time. Being fairly accurate but not particularly fast worked well in the rimfire hanging plate matches. Then CWSA decided to start running some steel plate matches, a little like steel challenge, and also to start running some rimfire falling plate matches. I shot some of those, but with very limited success. I was set up for pin tops, I practiced for pin tops, and that was where it all seemed to work together, along with the hanging plates.

At the start of last Summer I decided to try to take it to the next level, practice all I could, and then at the end of the Summer go to California and shoot in the Steel Challenge World Championships. The difference between a small local club shooter and a world class shooter is immense, but I decided to do the best I could, and try not to be dead last!

I started shooting on the average five days a week. The last month before I went to the World Championships I was practicing almost every day, and twice a day once or twice a week. I don't know the exact count, but I figure I shot approximately 20,000 rounds of rimfire in practice. Did I improve? Yes, definitely, but still miles away from the top shooters in the game. I was now winning the rimfire pin top matches and rimfire hanging plate matches at CWSA quite often, but still not every one. I had, however, greatly improved both the physical and mental parts of my competitive shooting. I took a lot of seconds in rimfire falling plates and speed steel matches. One shooter won just about all of those, and I couldn't quite catch up. Close, but not close enough! I also started entering every class at the bowling pin matches to gain additional match experience.

I took a break from shooting for a couple of months over last Winter, as I was starting to get burned out from all of the matches and all of the practice range time. In February, though, I was back at it, practicing all of those things I wasn't happy with. The first four matches of the year went well, and I won all four of them, a hanging plate match, a falling plate match, and two bowling pin top matches.

All of the work I had put in was finally paying off. I had learned a way to coax a bit of speed out of a shooting technique usually only used by silhouette shooters. I still wasn't as fast as the fastest shooters, but I would seldom miss. At the last bowling pin top match I broke the range record for pin tops, shooting five pin tops off the table, starting from a low ready, in 2.85 seconds. Sure, a really fast shooter could probably do it in sub two, but this is just a small club match. I was kinda proud of my time, even if it did involve a little luck!

At the World Steel Challenge Championships I ended up 49th out of 73 Optic Sight rimfire shooters. I know I could have, and will, do better, but for a first World Championship I was really pretty happy. I left that match with the will to practice even harder and see if I can do even better!

Then the bomb dropped. The CWSA club member who has absolute power as to the match rules, and who had up until this year won just about every CWSA match week after week, changed the rules. Under his new rules, in all bowling pin, speed steel, and falling plate matches my shooting method was now banned. You were now required to start with both hands on the rear grip. Taco grips and any other form of grip where you had your weak hand anywhere else other than on the rear grip at the start was now illegal.

Sure, I could probably learn a different way to shoot that complies with his rules, but really, why bother learning something new just for shooting at one club when the method I use is perfectly legal at the only other club in the state's Pin Shoots, and it's just fine under the Steel Challenge Association's rules, and it's just fine at the big Man of Steel match held a few weeks ago.

I shoot competition just for the fun of it, and there's no way I'll ever get good enough for a big bucks sponsorship. I enjoy the fellowship, I enjoy the chance to innovate, and I enjoy trying to shoot the best I can. If that gets me a first, or dead last, it really doesn't make much difference. If I had a good time, that's what matters.

As someone once said, a door closing can be a door opening, and perhaps that's the case for me. Perhaps it's time to travel farther to matches and shoot against stiffer competition, and thereby continue to improve.

Any shooter that takes shooting so seriously that they no longer are having any fun, so seriously that losing is a crushing blow to their ego, so seriously that they will change the rules so they can win, that shooter should ask themselves why they are even attending the matches in the first place. Sadly, they have lost something of great value, the ability to have fun and not take themselves, anyone, or anything too seriously.

Weekend Shooting "Three-fer" - Part 2

When I got home from the KRRC Fun Steel match Saturday night, I still had to clean my High Standard rimfire pistol as shooting all day Saturday had left it pretty dirty and gungy. I stripped down both KeeWee's High Standard and mine, and got them all ready to go for Sunday's double matches, then hit the sack for some shut-eye before Sunday arrived.

At 9am Central Whidbey Sportsman's Assn. was having the first shooting event to be held in the newly excavated pistol bays. At 4pm Gig Harbor Sportsman's Club was having their weekly Clay Pigeon pistol shoot. It was a about two and a half hours from CWSA to Gig Harbor, counting a ferry ride. Not a lot of time to waste along the way, but enough time to get to Gig Harbor, and even stop for something to eat along the way. Here's the match reports:

Central Whidbey Sportsman's
Rimfire Hanging Plate Match

The five new pistol bays are now ready for use, and the hydro-seeded grass is just starting to sprout on the new berms. In the past we held the hanging plate matches on the 75 yard range, but if we were shooting a match, no one could use the range for any non-match shooting. Now, with the new bays we can hold hanging plate and speed steel matches without interfering with any of the shooting on either the 75 yard or the 200 yard ranges.

I've covered the hanging plate match rules before, but to recap, you get three runs at the plates at each of four distances, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. You get six seconds to take six shots, hopefully hitting each of the six plates once. As the distance is increased a larger plate is used, starting with 4" plates at 10 yards and ending up with 7" plates at 25 yards. Your score is the total number of plates you manage to hit. We shoot both an optic sight and an iron sight class.

In the Optic Sight Class at 15 yards I had one cartridge that failed to fire, even with a good solid firing pin strike. By the time it was cleared the time had expired. costing me 3 plates. Bummer! I had already shot one "Flyer", so I was down by 4 plates early in the match. Not a good start. On the next run one of the magazines (that I didn't clean and lube the night before like I should have done) decided not to feed any ammo after the second shot and a slap and rack didn't work to get the next round into the chamber. The next run, with a different magazine, I just flat out missed one of the plates. Now I was 9 plates down only half way through the match. Not a good start, for sure!

I quickly unloaded the three magazines I was using and dipped a bore brush into some Hoppe's #9 and gave the mags a quick scrubbing. I wiped them clean and put a drop of oil in each one, then reloaded them for the upcoming round at 20 yards. I usually don't look at the scores in mid-match, but I had such a lousy score at mid-match I was curious to see just how far out of it I actually was. Since it was the first hanging plate match of the year perhaps everyone was a bit rusty and was struggling a bit too. "Evil Al" was three plates in the lead, I was barely in second, and Scott, Lou G., KeeWee, and Rainy were right behind.

I tried to focus on the remaining six runs and put the other stuff behind me. That's really hard to do as a bad run tends to stick in your mind, and that just generates more bad runs. I finished up with a 5-6-6 for 17 out of 18 at 20 yards, and 6-6-6 for a perfect 18 at 25 yards! For such a terrible start I had at least pulled it together for the last two distances.

When the scores were totalled, Rainy was fifth, KeeWee was fourth, Al had slipped to third, Scott was second, and I had managed to pull off a miracle with a near perfect finish after a disastrous start.

In the Iron Sight class Al showed everyone the way, shooting a beautiful S&W Model 17 with an 8" barrel. I managed a second, and Scott was third.

Hanging plate matches are an interesting challenge. The rate of fire is fairly slow, but perhaps the most difficult part is to stay focused for every shot since you don't get any extra shots to make up for misses.

After helping to load up the plate rack and plates for storage, KeeWee and I loaded our gear and headed for the Clinton ferry to get to the mainland for our drive to Gig Harbor, South and a bit West of Tacoma.

.... End of Part 2 - Part 3 Tomorrow

(Yes, the picture is from a hanging plate match last year - The grass hasn't grown that much yet in the new bays)

CWSA Hanging Plate Match - 11/04/2007

When we got up this morning, the weather certainly didn't look very good. Although it wasn't raining, the clouds were low and looked like they could start raining any minute. As we drove North towards Coupeville and the CWSA range, the skies looked better and better, and by the time we pulled into the range it was only partly cloudy with a little sunshine peeking through. That meant that today we would be shooting a rimfire hanging plate match since it wasn't raining.

John and his wife Jeanette were there when we arrived, and we all helped finish getting set up for the match. John had brought along his favorite Ruger with a red dot sight, and I loaned him an iron sighted Browning Buckmark that I had "tuned" a bit.

"Evil Al" shooting his Model 41 with Rainy running the timer.

The basic format of a hanging plate match is you shoot six shots in six seconds at six round steel plates. You do this three times at each of four distances, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. as the distance is increased, larger plates plates are used, 4" plates at 10 yards, and ending up at 25 yards with 7" plates. Total shots taken is 72, and your score is the number of plates hit. We shoot two rimfire classes, "Iron Sight" and "Optical Sight"

KeeWee scoring, Rainy timing, and John shooting.

The turnout was fairly small, but typical for matches this late in the season. It didn't take us long to shoot the required number of shots and we were done before noon. John, from The Kitsap Rifle and Revolver club shot very well considering it was his first try at a hanging plate match. Shooting my Buckmark in the iron sight class he came within one plate of winning the class, and he was third in the Optic Sight class.

Here's John again, this time with his Ruger.

After we finished the match we all helped to load up the equipment and haul it back to the shed for storage. After everything was put away,John, Jeanette, KeeWee and I went over to the bowling pin range to let John have a try at pin shooting. Of course ,we all had to shoot a few pins too! We even ran a few head to head matches just for the fun of it.

By now it was getting towards afternoon and John and Jeanette had a ferry boat to catch to get off of Whidbey and to head home, so we packed up the toys and went our separate directions.

It had been a great day, lots of shooting, plenty of stories, and a good time had by all.

CWSA Hanging Plates & Pin Shoot

Once again it's been a busy weekend, with a CWSA Rimfire Hanging Plates match on Saturday, and a Bowling Pin Shoot on Sunday. The Weather was perfect both days, with scattered clouds in the morning, and clearing off and sunny in the afternoons.

Hanging Plate matches aren't quite the pressure cooker that pin shoots are, as you aren't shooting head to head, but are taking turns shooting at the plates. Although you are required to get six shots off in six seconds, that seems downright leisurely compared to pin shooting or falling plate matches. KeeWee shot perhaps her best score ever in the Optical Sight class, good enough for third place. We all had a good time, and no one really worried too much about scores.

Sunday was the CWSA Bowling Pin Shoot, and those ARE adrenalin laden matches. It's two tables out of three, head to head, and loser is out! No Second chance to redeem yourself. The first round match ups are determined by shooting four tables of pins against the clock. Your slowest time is discarded, and the remaining three are totaled to determine your first round opponent. The fastest against number two, number three against number four, and so forth. No easy first round match ups!

In Centerfire Optical Sight and Centerfire Iron sight I got eliminated in the first round. Things were not looking good, as my qualifying times had been right near the top in every class, but that meant I was matched with someone really fast, usually "Evil Al". The third class up was Revolver, and both Evil Al and Tony (the two fast guys) had both had problems in qualifying, and I ended up with fast time, although it was far slower than they usually shoot. Once again Al knocked me out in the first round, although I was close enough that if he had made any mistakes I might have had a chance. He didn't make any mistakes. Score so far: Three classes, three first round eliminations. Next up was Big Bore Revolver, where everything had to be a .44 or larger. The class also limited you to only six shots per table, so speed was still important, but accuracy was really important, too. Unfortunately we only had two shooters in the class today, Al and I. We decided to shoot 3 out of 5, instead of 2 out of 3, just for the fun of it. Al's .44 Magnum loads were a little light and they weren't getting the pins solidly off the table. My .480 Ruger loads were getting the pins emphatically off the table, and I ended up doing a little better than Al, mostly because of the loads, rather than shooting skills. At least I wasn't "Two and Out" as the trend had been so far!

Next on the schedule was to change over to the bowling pin tops for the two rimfire pistol classes, Rimfire Optic, and Rimfire iron sight. With the relatively small turnout, we only had two shooters in Rimfire Iron sight, Randy N. and I. Randy and I have had some really close matches in the past, and today was no exception. Today was my day, as I got a couple of fortunate rolls and managed to squeak by for a narrow win.

In Rimfire Optic sight qualifying I was clearly having problems hitting anything with my regular long barreled High Standard. I wasn't shooting accurately, and I wasn't shooting fast, either. If you are really accurate, you can get by being a little slow, and if you are really shooting fast, you can tolerate a little inaccuracy, but I couldn't find either speed or accuracy. I ended up matched against Al in the first round, and once again he dusted me off pretty good! I had also entered my S&W 422. For some reason it seemed to be working better than usual! I won my first round match up, and then ended up back up against Al, the same Al who had just blown my doors off when I was shooting my "Fast" gun, but now I was using my "Slow" gun.

One of the things that makes pin shooting so much fun is the unpredictability of the pins. Once they've been shot up a bit, you never know what they are going to do. If you hit them exactly center mass, they usually go off the table, but if you are off just the smallest amount, they might just tip over, or jump sideways and knock over another pin, or go spinning across the table giving you a moving target to chase! Sometimes you will end up with pins tipped over and lying all over the table, one giant mess, often called a "Train Wreck" for obvious reasons.

I figured all I could do was try to shoot as cleanly as I could, try to not beat myself, and if Al had a good run, I was toast! If Al had a bad run, anything could happen. On the first table Al got a trainwreck, and I was able to win the table. To my amazement, the second table went almost the same, and Al got a second crop of pin tops that just wouldn't cooperate. I had managed to eliminate Al with my slow gun, after he had wiped me out solidly when I was shooting the fast gun! That's what makes pin shooting so much fun, you just never know what's going to happen!

Meanwhile, KeeWee had been cruising along with solid shooting, and came up against Rainy. KeeWee and Rainy both shoot just about the same, and one week one will beat the other, and the next week they will trade places. Their matches are usually really close. This was KeeWee's week to shine, as in the semi-final round the two of them met again. KeeWee won the first table. The video below is their second table to decide who moves on to the finals.

This is what club shooting is all about, two evenly matched shooters each giving it their all. KeeWee put this round solidly in the win column.

That put KeeWee and I in the finals.

KeeWee: "Don't forget who does the cooking........"

Mr. C. "Don't forget who does your gunsmithing....."

KeeWee: "Fair enough....."

I shot the best I could shoot, and she shot well too, but I managed to sneak away with the win. We ended up first and second, how cool is that!

CWSA Hanging Plate Match -- 07/08/07

KeeWee tags a plate!

We had a great rimfire hanging plate match at CWSA on Sunday. The weather started out partly cloudy but by mid morning it was beautiful, and not to hot either! We had nine optical sight shooters and seven iron sight shooters, which allowed the match to move along quickly and be over by noon. Evil Al and Rainy were off to the big handgun shoot in Montrose, Colorado, so it seemed strange not having them there. Wayne F. (Dad) and Mike F. (son) were there, and both are new shooters this year. Wayne shot well ,but was overshadowed by son Mike, who is taking to competitive shooting like a duck to water. Fortunately for me, Mike seems to be picking up iron sight shooting faster than optical sight, but if he keeps improving as fast as he is, he's going to be unbeatable in the near future, regardless of class!

The basic format is to take six shots in six seconds at 6 steel plates. You do this three times from 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. The 10 yard plates are 4" in diameter, and each 5 yards you move back ,the plates are 1" larger, finishing up at 25 yards with 7" plates. Your score is the number of plates you hit, with a perfect score being 72.

When all the smoke had cleared, in the iron sight class Mike F. had posted one of the best scores ever shot at CWSA with 60 points. I straggled in to second place with 56.

The optical sight class was very close with several shooters in a position to win after the first and second rounds, with Mike F. leading by a couple of plates, followed by me, and KeeWee right behind us. Final scores after four rounds had Mr. C. with 68, Mike F. with 63, and KeeWee with 56.

Everyone had a grand time, lots of jokes and kidding around, and we all had lots of fun.

After all, this is only a game, and if you aren't enjoying yourselves, why not go find something that you DO enjoy, and do that instead, instead of taking it so seriously that it stops being fun?

CWSA Hanging Plates 06/02/07

What a beautiful day to go shooting! A few puffy clouds, a bit of morning fog, no rain in sight, WOO HOO, let's go shooting!!

The CWSA rimfire hanging plate matches are one of our club's easiest and least stressful competitions, but it makes you concentrate on accuracy while retaining an element of speed, as you have six seconds to make six shots at hanging steel disks at four distances, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. As the distance is increased, the plates increase in size, starting with 4" diameter plates at 10 yards ,and finishing up with 7" plates at 25 yards. You make three runs at each distance for 72 total shots . Scoring is simply the number of plates you hit, so a perfect score would be 72. We shoot two different classes, rimfire pistols with optical sights, and rimfire pistols with iron sights.

KeeWee Shoots Six For Six! Lou running the timer.

KeeWee got to be the first shooter, starting at the 10 yard distance. Her first run set the tone of the day, as she shot a perfect six on the first run. She just barely missed one plate on the second run, and missed two on the third run. She continued to shoot well throughout the match, shooting several more sixes at different distances. She ended up with 51 plates, good enough to secure second place, just ahead of RandyN, who was trying my (Smith & Wesson model 422) by one plate. The iron sight class was also closely contested, and everyone had a lot of fun shooting the wobbly little plates. By
Noon the match was complete, and we put all of the match equipment back into storage. We dropped Lou's car off at his place, and Lou, KeeWee, and I jumped into my van and headed over to Burlington, WA to check out the new Sportsman's Warehouse. I had heard that the Sportsman's Warehouse stores were rather impressive, and they definitely are! 60,000 square feet of hunting, shooting, fishing, and reloading goodies. It took us a couple of hours to walk up and down all the aisles checking out the inventory. I picked up a book on gunsmith machining, some stuff for my Dillon 550B press, 1,000 rounds of CCI Standard velocity .22 ammo, and a bunch of other stuff. KeeWee found a nice new coffee pot for camping, and Lou found some goodies, too! Quite a store, I can see I'll be leaving a buck or two there in the future!

After cruising to Warehouse, it was time to head back for the hour and forty five minute drive home. We made one short detour to a Mickey D's for some ice cream to cool off with, then back to the island and home.

It was a busy day, but fun was had by all!!

CWSA Hanging Plate Match 03/25/07

Even the night before the match, no one knew if it was going to be a rimfire hanging plate match, or a round robin rimfire falling plate match. If it was raining on Sunday morning, we would go to the pin range and take advantage of our new shooting station and staging area shelters, and shoot a falling plate match. It the rain had stopped during the night and the range wasn't too muddy, we'd go to the 75 yard range and shoot the first CWSA hanging plate match of the year.

When KeeWee and I arrived, we could see that cars were starting to park at the 75 yard range, so a hanging plate match it would be! For such threatening weather it looked like we would have a reasonable turnout, particularly since it was early in the year. We had a number of new shooters, including Mac, Wayne, and Wayne's son Mike. (From now on referred to as "Big Mike").

We would shoot two classes, rimfire optical sight, and rimfire iron sight. Each shooter would shoot three six shot strings at each distance, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yards. The plates would be 4" diameter at 10 yards, 5" diameter at 15 yards, 6" diameter at 20 yards, and 7" diameter at 25 yards. You have six seconds to fire each six shot string at the plates. You get one point for each plate hit, for a perfect possible score being 72 plates.

Just as we started shooting, it started to rain. Not heavy, but wet enough that I put the camera away, rather than getting water into it. That's why there's no pictures.

By early afternoon we had all completed our shooting and it was time to add up the scores. In optical sight class, my unconventional Taco Grip and silhouette based stance lends itself well to this type , since speed isn't as much of an issue as is accuracy. I managed to pull off the win, followed by LouG and "Evil Al" in third. When was the last time you saw Al as low as third? Lou was having a good day, and managed to get a few more plates than Al. KeeWee and Rainy ended up tied. Talk about a close rivalry! At last week's falling plate match KeeWee outscored Rainy by one half of a point. Those two are always neck and neck.....

The big story of the day was the iron sight class. Big Mike, Wayne's son, had fired one round through a 9mm. several years ago. With the exception of some rimfire rifle shooting as a lad, that's his TOTAL handgun experience, except for last Thursday, when I took Mac, Wayne, and Mike to the range for a little handgun practice before the match. We went over some of the basics as to range safety, grip, stance, and so forth. Everyone shot 6 or 8 magazines full of ammo. That was it.

At the end of the 10 yard segment, I had a one plate lead over Big Mike in second place. After the 15 yard segment, I had picked up one one plate for a two plate lead. The tables turned on the 20 yard segment, with Big Mike hitting three more plates than I, to give him a one plate lead going into the final distance. It now boiled down to 18 shots from 25 yards to decide the winner, and I was one plate behind.

I had an exceptionally lucky run at 25 yards, (with me, iron sight class ALWAYS involves a lot of luck!) giving me just enough plates to pull off the win. Congratulations to Mike on a really fine day of shooting, and I can see that it's only a matter of time until Mike's going to be big trouble for the rest of us at CWSA!!

Everyone had a little bit of "First Match of the Year" problems, but everything went smoothly under the expert guidance of LouG, our shoot coordinator.

After the match, Wayne, Mike, KeeWee and I headed up to Oak Harbor for a good Mexican dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant.

What a fun day!!

Wish you could have been there to share the fun................