Highpower Rifle Association
Precision Sharp and Snap Shooting Match By John Morgan-Hosey
The Match Fortunately, the weather was kind, with bright conditions and very little wind on Century Range first thing in the morning. After booking-in and receiving a safety-briefing, the forty-eight competitors were split into two squads - one squad in butts the other on the firing-point. The butt squad had a bit of a surprise when they saw the targets - the ‘cold bore’ starter looked rather small. The squad that went to the firing- point had an even bigger surprise - at 200 yards, the cold-bore starter looked tiny!
The principle behind the Stage 1 target was that a precision rifleman should know where his first cold bore shot of the day will impact, in relation to a warm and fouled barrel - something that is relatively easy to determine if you keep good records. Secondly, the target would allow the competitor to gain confidence that his rifle is zeroed and grouping as expected before moving further back.
Clearly there were not many who had cold-bore shot information to hand as the results on paper proved. Only nine targets had the first shot fully within the cold bore circle - these were outward gauging so hits on the black ring were discounted and only one of them was dead centre on the Cold Bore Smiley. Interestingly, more than 50% of the Wildcat Class got a scoring first shot, whereas in 223 Class it was only 12% and in 308 Class, only 7%. The rest of the Cold Bore Starter target also presented quite a challenge and targets were later returned to the competitors for detailed analysis over a pint at the prize-giving later in the day.
The Stage 2 ‘Partially Obscured’ targets were a little easier. By the time these targets were engaged shooters had already gained confidence in their shot placement. Getting these targets wrong resulted in a ‘minus two’ penalty per shot in the black. However, the scores were generally better than Stage 1 but no one scored the maximum possible fifty points. The oval target in particular did not leave much room for error.
Stages 3a, 4a and 5a titled ‘Know Your Limits’ gave the competitor the opportunity to engage target based on their own marksmanship and equipment ability. On offer were a fig. 12c, 12b and fig. 14 as
well as two plain discs sized at 1 MOA and ½ MOA. At each distance, the first two shots were taken at a four-inch sighting diamond with each one individually marked. The scoring on each target rewarded the harder shots with the MOA discs offering the highest score but with no margin for error.
The ‘figure’ targets had two scoring zones, so an off- centre shot would still return some points whereas an off-centre shot on a MOA disc scored zero. It was as we moved further back on Butt 19 that the shooters on the high-end lane numbers - nearest the trees on the right hand side of Century Range - started to perceive problems with their wind-calls, with some putting it down to the fact that they were shooting in ‘magpie alley’. Unfortunately, someone has to shoot in those lanes but if the match is repeated, we will ensure those shooters are placed further left next time.
Analysis of the scores after the match showed that the fig. 14, scoring fours and threes, was the most popular target and very few competitors tried their skill at the MOA discs scoring four and five respectively.
Stages 3b, 4b and 5b - the ‘Snaps’ - consisted of five exposures of a ‘figure’ target for six seconds with two shots required each exposure. Something that did catch a couple of shooters out - the snap exposures were presented randomly over the six-foot frontage of the target lane, so they did not always appear in the same place. With a scope turned up to high magnification, the field of view reduces so a compromise has to be made. A fig.14 was used at 300 yards with a 12b and 12c at 400 and 500 yards respectively. To not disadvantage competitors using rifles with only a five-round magazine capacity, the time between the third and fourth target exposure was twenty seconds to allow a quick magazine change. Again the lack of maximum possible scores on the snaps was encouraging with only two people scoring a maximum at 500 yards on the 12c and none on either the 14 or 12b.
The final stages at 600 yards consisted of rapid-fire, precision-deliberate and snap shooting. A United States Army target was used for the rapid-fire 6a Stage - the ‘Excellence In Competition’ silhouette - which looks very similar to the B27 NRA(US) PPC Target. Competitors were given two marked sighting shots before a thirty-second exposure to fire ten rounds. The maximum possible score for this stage was sixty points, the highest score on the day was forty-six.
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