Business Meeting–January 31, Saturday 5:30pm—Heritage Cafeteria—Battlefield and Fremont
2009 Schedule – All Saturday Events
|
Date |
Time |
Activity |
|
Jan 31 |
5:30 |
Eat/Meet –Heritage Cafeteria |
|
Feb 7 |
8:00 |
Fun Shoot |
|
Mar 7 |
8:00 |
Beginners Clinic |
|
Mar 21 |
8:00 |
Beginners Match |
|
Apr 18 |
8:00 |
Any Rifle Match |
|
May 9 |
8:00 |
JCG Match $$ |
|
May 23 |
8:00 |
|
|
June 27 |
8:00 |
Vintage/Springfield Match $$ |
|
July 18 |
8:00 |
Carbine Match $$ |
|
Aug 15 |
8:00 |
Rimfire Sporter Match |
|
Sep 12 |
8:00 |
Any Rifle Match |
|
Oct 10 |
8:00 |
JCG Match $$ |
Business Meeting
I hope to see you all at the meeting Saturday, January 31 at the Heritage Cafeteria. As you may have read, there will be a door prize for a lucky person. See my previous newsletter for details.
Fun Shoot
February 7 is our Fun Shoot. I guess that’s a good enough name. The time it was 17 degrees and snowing it wasn’t real fun, at least until it was over, then it became a fun memory. Funny about those sorts of things, eh?
I’ve bought a couple of interesting targets for this one (no, not a washing machine or refrigerator, the State of Missouri frowns on that). Be sure to bring an accurate rifle. You may want to bring a .22 with a scope, but it’s not necessary.
OK, what do you need to bring? Every course of fire will be for “any rifle, any sight.” So if you want to shoot your .20 Ruger or .17 HMR, have at it, scope and all. Some of the games will require you to stand and shoot, and some of them will allow you any of the legal positions (standing, sitting, kneeling, prone). So a mat would be a good thing. As is usual in our game, slings may only be used standing, sitting, or kneeling. We will not shoot from a bench. Ever again.
Be sure to bring something for the prize table. When we first started this, the idea was to bring some old thing from the firearms hobby that you no longer needed—an old box of cartridges, some bullets for a caliber you no longer reload, that sort of thing. It seems to have morphed into, “bring anything you want to give away.” Please, no old washing machines or refrigerators.
Air Rifle Practice
This winter, I’ve spent a lot of time shooting the air rifle offhand in preparation for the coming season. My goal is to shoot some excellent scores this year, so I’m actively searching for a practice regimen that provides the most progress for the least work. I’m averaging about 40 shots per day, every day, and that doesn’t mean I always shoot every day—some days I shoot more others less.
One of the things I’ve experimented with is different size targets and different ranges. The overriding concept is to use a target or distance that is easier to hit, thus increasing shooter confidence. One of the biggest impediments some of us face is “chicken finger,” –the situation where our hold on target is good or at least acceptable, yet we don’t pull the trigger, or at least don’t pull the trigger on time. Shooting at an easier target makes it easier to pull the trigger, and that (I think) should translate into better scores. As a footnote, here, I have always felt my ability to hold the sights on the target was really quite good. As you can imagine, I just never seem to pull the trigger at the right time.
I’ve experimented with using the 10m air rifle target (similar size to the 50 ft smallbore target) at 5 yards. A number of issues make this a less than an ideal solution, but I think if a person made a point of shooting 20 shots a day at this larger target and shorter distance, your offhand shooting will definitely improve. At least that’s what I think. But let’s talk about the problems before you try it.
The first problem is that neither of my air rifles will raise the sights high enough to hit the center of the target at this distance. At 5 yards, the pellet has not crossed up and over the line of sight between your eye and the target (remember, the projectile in a rifle is launched upward and follows an arc over the line of sight and then to the target). So, even with the sights cranked all the way up, I’m shooting under the target. I don’t like this, but you can partially offset it by shooting for group—shoot a bunch of shots, keep your sight picture consistent, and your group should be small. Any mistake will make for a larger group. This works OK, but it is not a lot of fun. And that’s the second issue—without some gamesmanship involved, this is boring. I like seeing what my score is, and offhand group analysis in the middle of a snow white page is somewhat imprecise. Furthermore, unless I keep forcing myself to break the shot very quickly, I fall back into the habit of waiting and waiting until the sight alignment is perfect, and I’m just back to the old chicken finger bit.
In summary, it is difficult, boring, and hard to assess success. On the other hand, it seems to help. Sometimes I’ll go down to shoot and take 10 shots on the big/short targets, then move back to 10m and shoot silhouettes; I think the practice up close help me pull the trigger on the smaller targets. You try it for 10 days and see if your shooting doesn’t improve. Let me know how it goes.
The 10m targets we’re using are under the “Downloadable Forms” area of the web page. They are PDF and should print perfectly.
Politics
My friends, you know I try to stay away from political discussions, especially in these newsletters. I appreciate the fact that when something big is coming down the political road, folks alert me to the issues, and often we can get Swampy to issue an email announcement pointing everyone at resources to be read or acted upon. That, to me, is a good practice, because in my experience, political discussions can very quickly devolve into arguments, and arguments can destroy friendships. I would hate for a friendship with a club member to bet hurt by a political argument.
But the other day I heard some folks arguing about our new President on “Guntalk,” the radio show. And then today the bird dog and bird hunting forum I read on the web had a link to the White House’s policy on “Sportsmen”. Here’s the link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/additional/
It’s nice. They believe in the right to hunt; I forget which amendment that is.
So, OK, I backed up to “agenda” (above), then selected “Urban Policy.” Here’s a cut-and-paste of a section, from the White House agenda:
Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.
Folks, I don’t need to comment, but I will.
“Closing the gun show loophole” simply means that private sales of firearms will be prohibited. It will be impossible to legally transfer a firearm to anyone without filling out federal paperwork. “Making guns in this country childproof” will eventually make your M1 or 03 illegal as well as virtually destroy the firearms industry—imagine if a child got killed with a “child proof” gun—the lawyers would eviscerate the company.
And “making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent” wouldn’t be totally awful if that was all they did—we all managed to live through that goofy period where our 12 lb AR-15’s were “assault weapons” if they had a bayonet lug and flash suppressor, and sporting rifles if they didn’t. It’s sheer idiocy, we know, but we found a way to live with it. My fear is that with large Democratic majorities in Congress, the original bill will be highly modified in the manner of places such as California and New Jersey.
The arguments I heard had a gun writer arguing that the current red-hot market for guns was because of Obama’s stated policy to outlaw at least some types of firearms. A liberal was arguing that, no, the President had expressed respect for the 2nd Amendment, and he had no intention of banning guns. I guess, to the person making the argument, the statement “Assault Weapons Ban” has nothing to do with banning guns. It’s some new construal of the word “ban” I guess.
Who’s right? You be the judge. (I just bought a new AR-15 lower.)
Bill Corcoran (417) 862-861 williamcorcoran@missouristate.edu