A full agenda of rifles to shoot:

Tuesday - M1 and No. 4 Mk 1/3 in 35 round Vintage Service Rifle Match (200 yds)

Wednesday - 1903a3 in Vintage Service Rifle Match, No. 4 (T) in Vintage Sniper Rifle Match (300 and 600 yds)

Thursday - AR-15 in 80 round Service Rifle Match (200, 300 and 600 yds)

Friday - AR-15 in 80 round Service Rifle Match (200, 300 and 600 yds)

Saturday - No. 4 DCRA 7.62 in 40 round 2x600 Match (600 yds)

I cancelled one of the 600 yd and 80 Shot Service Rifle matches, didn’t think my back could handle that much prone shooting, that would have made for long days on Friday and Saturday. 

WX is looking good, a few warm days, winds 10 to 20 mph on a few of the days which will make things interesting. 

Looking forward to the results!

 I’m set up at the campground and enjoying the sun. The wind has finally settled down. Tomorrow’s weather looks perfect for shooting. Wednesday will be fairly windy for the vintage sniper match.  

We had quite good conditions today, clear skies and temps in the low 60’s to low ‘70’s.  Low humidity but fairly breezy initially from 3 O’Clock but as the winds filled in, it swung towards the 12 O’Clock position (head on). Some gusts probably reached close to 20 mph. That made the standing position quite “fun”. 

I did fairly well with the M1 in the JC Garand Match (10 shots prone slow, 10 shots prone rapid and 10 shots standing slow fire, all at 200 yds) with a score of 286-4x. I’m presently in first place out of 54 shooters, but could well get bumped tomorrow (there are four more relays to go, today we had 6 relays).

I then shot the No. 4 in the Vintage Military Rifle Match, same course of fire as above. A disappointment, was all over the target.  Perhaps putting too much stress on myself as I thought I could pull off a solid win with a score of 290 or above. This rifle shoots incredibly good, but I just did not do it justice. I’m in 6th place at the moment out of 19 shooters.  Again, more to go tomorrow. 

As for tomorrow, in the AM I will shoot in the Springfield Match, same 30 shot course of fire.  Then in the afternoon is the I will shoot the No. 4 T in the Vintage Sniper Match.

That's a decent start!

I always found the first day the worst day!

Just relax  remember its the next shot you worry about only.

Today was an interesting shoot! I don’t think I’ve ever shot is winds this bad. 

In the morning, I shot the in the 1903 Springfield 30 round Match (10 prone slow, 10 prone rapid and 10 standing slow, all at 200 yds). Dropped a few points in prone slow, not bad. Prone rapid was interesting. On the magazine reload with the second five round clip (yes, this is a “clip”), I could not get the cartridges to push out of the clip into the magazine. They all ended up all over the shooting mat and one got jammed into the magazine. Panic set in as I tried to pick them up and get them into the magazine. Finally, with 20 seconds left on the clock, I closed the bolt on the 6th round and proceeded with a very fast rapid fire. Amazing I only threw off one shot into the 7 ring, one 9 and three 10’s for a score of 96. 

Standing slow fire went well, a 92 for a total score of 286.  Fairly good, but not enough to win. Then while completing the score card for the standing stage, 10 points suddenly disappeared from the monitor on the prone rapid sub-total. We questioned the RO’s and they looked it up on the computer. Apparently, the last shot hit the target at 4/10ths of a second after the time limit, even though it was before the “cease fire”command was given.  Oh well, that’s how the cookie crumbles as my Mom would say. 

Well, looking at the competition tracker now, it’s showing those 10 points got added back in. Go figure. So, this puts me in 2nd place for the overall 3 Gun Aggregate, one point behind the guy in first place. I’ll get bumped a few places down tomorrow as there are two more relays yet to fire. 

I’m still holding 1st place with the M1, now out of 68 shooters, but still two relays to go, so that could change. 

After this match, a few of us helped coach a new group of shooters shooting their first Excellence in Competition (EIC) match with the AR-15. This was a simplified version, 40 rounds in 4 positions all at 200 yds. It was fun, enjoyed helping the new shooters, important for the future of our sport. 

But the real challenge was the Vintage Sniper Match. I shot my rebarrelled No. 4 T. I’ve never shot in winds like this before. Sustained winds of 20 mph with gusts over 30 mph. Instantly changing direction from about 2 O’Clock to 11 O’Clock. My 300 yard stage started out sloppy, shots around the 9 ring, then it settled in to shooting 10’s and X’s for a score of 96. Decent, but not good. Then 600 was really interesting trying to watch for the wind shifts. Everyone was having trouble. Many couldn’t hold shots in the 8 ring, multiple 7’s. I somehow managed a score of 92, which was third highest at 600.  Our team ended up 4th place, my partner had a bit more difficulty than I did at 600x shooting his USMC 1903A1 Sniper.  I’m happy with how the T is now shooting, and I was worried about letting him down. We are now looking forward to the D-Day Sniper Match. 

Tomorrow is back to the black gun, an 80 round Service Rifle Match. Hadn’t shot it since early December. Gotta look up my notes to figure out what the elevation settings are for the three different ranges. 

Shaun, I really appreciate that, thanks so much for the suggestion!

Oh, how I wish I could have shared this experience with my Dad. He will enjoy the phone conversation we will have about it later…

The 80 shot Service Rifle Match did not go well for me today. First off, I was not dressed for the weather. A cold front moved thru last night bringing temps today in the ‘40’s with more high winds, 15 to 20 mph with gusts to 25. I started to shiver about 1/2 way thru the match, chilled to the bone. It would have been fine without the wind. On top of that, I could not get in the prone position, something was just “off”. Couldn’t get my head lifted high enough to see thru the scope. Plus the shivering, my final stage at 600 yds suffered badly. After the first 10 round string I got up and repositioned my coat and sweatshirt which helped, but by then my vision was blacking out and I was too cold to hold the rifle still. 

The awards ceremony was held this afternoon for the Garand, Springfield and Vintage Military (GSM) Matches, the Vintage Sniper Match and a few others which I did not shoot in. I held on to my first place win with the M1 Garand and given a $125 gift certificate and very nice M1 Stock donated by the Garand Collectors Association. Also, surprisingly, I ended up 2nd place in the GSM 3 Gun Aggregate, just one point short of 1st place (I shot an 849 out of 900 point possible, winner shot 850).  We had 95 competitors shooting in the GSM matches. 

It’s sometimes difficult to pick yourself up after a poor performance, such as what I did on Tuesday with the No. 4. You just don’t know what the other fellow will do, or what mistakes he or she makes. So, it’s as Shamu says, the only important shot is the one you’re about to take, forget about the shots you already took.  

Tomorrow is another 80 shot Service Rifle Match, should be much less wind, although still quite cool in the morning.  My final match is on Saturday, shooting the No. 4 DCRA 7.62 in a 600 yard 40 round match. 

Weather is a pain sometimes.

When I shot competitively & had more clothes than when moving house! T-shirt & jeans, a Barbour suit, & a thick turtle neck wool sweater. Oh & a set of cheapish "Gorton's Fisherman" sou'wester cape & farmer john trousers! Sneakers & Wellies!

It was English weather, "Don't like English weather? Wait 10 minutes, it will change"!

i think you did a marvelous job taking 1st in the M1garand stage of the game , 

as to the cold days experience , we all have a bad day from time to time , dont let it weigh on you tomorrows another day and a fresh start , treat it as if its the first day , start fresh and go for it , 

in my case we shoot six stages the first and four stages the second day , i walk away from each stage without looking back , im looking at the next one , they are all different unlike what your doing [more ;like sporting clays actually] so i never look back only forward , sometimes theuy go well , sometimes not , but theres always the next one to deal with , 

It’s 32 deg F (0 deg C) this morning.  That’s pretty cool for Alabama in mid March.  But, light and variable winds today, so I think I’ll be OK.  The match is from 9:00 to noon. 

Get yourself warmed up and ready for the next one.

At our shoot recently, I knew the weather was going to be cold, I hate being cold, so I prepared for it by wearing my thermal long-johns and long sleeve top as a first layer. My motorcycling neck warmer as well, which was a really good idea. I was comfortable and warm all day. It certainly helps the concentration.

There is a 2x600 match going on right now, but my body just can’t take an 80 round (plus sighters) match and a 40 round (plus sighters) match in the same day.  That puts too much strain on my neck. The 80 shot match consists of 40 rounds in prone. And the 2x600 is also 40 rounds prone.

So, I’ve learned to know my limits. And even then, I find the second 10 round string in prone slow fire very difficult. 

I did fairly well with the “green rifle” today in the 80 shot Service Rifle Match, that is my olive green stocked Armalite National Match AR-15. I’m so glad I’m no longer chasing distinguished rifleman points, and now I can just relax and have fun. But, the day got off to a rocky start…

Got to the range early enough, which is a 30 minute drive from the campground. Parked the truck, pulled out the shooting cart and started loading gear. Opened the back door of the truck to get the rifle. No rifle. Left it in the camper. Checked the time, and figured that I might make it back to the range about 5 minutes before the match starts, so tore off back to the campground. Got the rifle, tore back to the range. Pulled out the cart again, loaded up, got the rifle, then went to get the package of score cards.  No score cards, left them at the camper!

The envelope of score cards includes stickers with your name, CMP Competitor Number, Firing Point Number and Relay Number.  Too late now to go back again. 

So, took the gear over to the firing line and confessed my stupidity to the CMP Staff.  Now, they really are a fantastic group of guys and gals, and they figured it out. They moved me to the second relay because the first was already in prep by this point. Amy gave me a blank card, from a different match format since they did not have any cards for this one and said to write down your score on the back of the card and sign it. So I did that, and got thru the match just fine and they have entered my score in the On-Line Tracker system manually. 

My score wasn’t great, a few of us dropped shots low into the 9 ring at 300 yards in prone rapid and we ended up holding the aim high in the 9 ring. Happened on both the prone rapid stages.  Neither of us could figure out what happened there.  

At that point, I realized too what went wrong yesterday in the prone slow position at 600 yards (besides freezing my butt off). I had set down my shooting mat at too shallow of an angle to the line of fire. I need to be at about 30 deg to the line of fire and it was more like 20 deg. This threw everything off, made the sling too tight, head too far back, couldn’t see thru the scope, it was all just wrong. Today was a much better prone slow result, first string just about cleaned it with one shot scoring a 9.9 for a total of 99-6x.  Second string opened up from fatigue and loosing focus, as it usually does for me. 

Ended up finishing in the top quarter of the pack. 17th out of 73 shooters. Not my best performance by any means, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

Tomorrow will be a fun shoot, the 2x600 (two strings of 20 shots prone at 600 yds) with the No. 4 DCRA 7.62 set up with a PH 5C rear sight and a AJ Parker “Matchmaker” front sight. I’ve got a good load for this rifle, so hope to do reasonably well, although I’ll be up against scoped modern Service Rifles. Not thinking at all about placing high, just want to shoot this rifle in a match. 

I’m beat, just got home and unloaded the shooting gear. 

I shot the No. 4 DCRA 7.62 today in a 40 round 600 yard mid-range match.  Really enjoyed it but this pushed me to the limit of endurance (neck strain).  My back was able to take it fairly well, so I have Almost fully recovered from putting it out about a month ago. 

The rifle shot well.  The wind was fairly challenging, 8 to 10 mph from 3 to 5 O’Clock with gusts running up to 15 mph, but also short duration lulls where there was almost no wind. This range never seems to get a steady wind. 

I shot my Long Range Load, Lapua Case, BR-2 Primer, 44.0 gr Varget, 168 gr TMK. 

Took me a few shots to sort out the right way to turn the windage knob on the PH 5C, seems I make this mistake at least once a year! 

On the last 10 shot string, a low 6 appeared on the monitor, not to call (Shot #17 below). I thought perhaps a low powder charge.  The next shot, #18 was right next to it.  I starred at the monitor a while and I suspected the shim between the barrel and bearing at the forend middle band had come out. I came up 2 minutes to check the theory and a low 8 resulted, #19.  Came up another minute and a 10 resulted, #20, the last shot.  Other than this problem, the rifle held very good elevation throughout the 40 shot match, about 2 MOA. 

The most satisfying part was a string of five shots landing in the X ring during the third 10 shot string. 

any idea who i might need to contact to set things in motion ? 

he is actually serious abot getting some great competitive events here 

Hopefully, there may be others here in similar circumstances that can get CMP to sponsor a local club/range match.  It’s a great opportunity to shoot your Lee Enfield (and other vintage military service rifles) in a friendly easy match). 

Now got six rifles to full clean. I did push a few wet patches thru the bore after each days shoot, which helps with the process. 

I’ve pulled the forend off the DCRA No. 4 and was surprised to find the paper shim between the barrel and forend bearing in tact. I’m now puzzled by what happened. And, now that I’ve thought more about it, my sighting shots at the 600 yd match yesterday were 3 minutes high, with the rear sight set at the elevation setting from my previous shoot at 600x.  So by the end of the shoot, the rear sight was back to the previous shoot’s setting.  

The action must be moving in the forend, or the butt stock is loose. It’s possible too that the front trigger guard screw collar is too long, and the action is rocking on it, but there seems to be too much barrel pressure on the forend for that to happen. 

Will take a bit of diagnosing to sort this out. 

Don't feel bad I have a cheat page in each of my logbooks for my sights,

Oh, I got that too!  

I just hope it wasn’t the targets that “acted up” again….

Who knows, might have been all on me! 

That's encouraging news Geoff!

The NRA (UK) said that the historic matches over here were recovering after the covid layoff and they noted more individual members were entering multiple times than previously. 

The weather plays an important part here if an historic match is successful or not, we generally hate shooting a valuable wood stocked rifle in the rain...and it rains a lot in the UK! 

But, they will close down the range if there is lightning, I think it remains shut down until 30 minutes has passed since the last audible strike. Fortunately, the weather fronts usually move thru fairly quickly and we get to resume shooting usually within the hour. 

That roof continually proves its worth to me every summer, in providing shade on those very hot sunny days. I’d probably stroke out laying out prone in the Alabama sun in July with a shooting coat on.  I might take a rainy Bisley day over the baking sun of the US South in the summer.