New Years day shoot

[Hungry Horse]

 Every New Years day, the Konocti Rod and Gun Club, hosts a shoot at our range, call the Shootwhatchabrung. Any legal, safe, firearm is welcome. The targets are small novelty targets shot at close range, off hand. This event started out as a strictly black powder event, years ago, and over time expanded to whatever shows up.
 For the last few years we haven't even had enough muzzle loaders to form their own relay. This year we got six smoke poles on the line, with three of them being  flinters. We had twenty four shooters in all.
 The course of fire usually consists of small targets hung on a frame, with relays provided for pistol, rimfire, rifle, and muzzleloaders. The last target has always been, (until this year), a fine bottle of either whiskey, or Scotch, suspended form a rope, or lashed to a fence board, that must be cut to win the prize. Any gun at the match is eligible to participate. Be warned this take much longer than you might think.
 This year I had the good fortune to get an unfinished TC Hawken kit for nearly nothing. I decided that since most of the fine sippin' whiskey that had been awarded in the past, resided in most of the various winners trophy cases, without being opened, we were do for a change. I hung an empty bottle with a note in it. This didn't discourage a single shooter, since its all about bragging rights anyway. The rolled up note said simply "You have won a Thompson Center .50 Cal. Hawkens kit". You should have heard the whoop when the winner read that note.
 Pretty sneaky way to get another black powder shooter to the event don't you think. We alway have beans for lunch ( and good luck), and cornbread, just because I love it.
 This is one of the clubs most popular events. It is so popular that last year they convinced me to do another one on St. Patrick's day. Happy New Year all.

                        Hungry Horse

[Bull Shannon]

Sounds like a lot of fun, how far was the bottle from the firing line?

[Hungry Horse]

 Bull;
  The bottle was only 10 yards from the firing line, so even the handgun shooters could participate. The bottle was lashed to a old redwood fence board, about six or seven inches wide, and about a half inch thick, hanging from a wooden framework. The targets for the previous events of the day, were upholstery brass tacks, that had strings attached with gift certificates from the local gun shop hanging from them. The target was the tack. I cut a string right at the very bottom of the tack with my grandpa's old .38 and didn't get the prize ( we did have to move the pistol shooters up about ten feet so they could hit the tacks).
 Just to give you an idea of how much shooting it takes to cut a board this way. I shot six shots in the rotation with my .58 cal. Harpers Ferry, at the board, and there were 22 people shooting. Oh, and my gun was not the biggest caliber, one of the guys was shooting a 20 gauge trade gun, and another was shooting a 12 gauge riot gun with slugs. There was also a .458 Magnum, and a .41 Swiss centerfire conversion from rimfire, along with a miss mosh of AR platform stuff, and big caliber handguns.
 We went to the board because in the past I used a piece of new cotton hackamore to support the bottle, and nearly ran out of daylight before we got the bottle on the ground.

                      Hungry Horse

                                 

[Bull Shannon]

I think that those were dandy ideas using all that for targets and I would ask to borrow those scenarios for my muzzle loader shooting club's future matches.

[Hungry Horse]

Bull;

  You are welcome to use any of these ideas, but I will tell you that I make small changes each year, to keep it interesting. They never know what they are going to be shooting  at. We have shot at poker chips, hanging from a strings. I have used plastic coins from Dollar Tree, or checkers, as targets. We did a card cut one year. We shot at bamboo skewers one year. And, back when we were still using the hackamore with the bottle of Wild turkey braided up in the end of it, I even changed it up and attached the whiskey by the neck from two strings with a button in the middle of each string as the target instead, just to get some of the guys to leave the .458's at home. That last year of the hackamore we had two .458's shooting, a Lott, and a magnum. There was also a 45-70 and a 50-70 trapdoor Springfield shooting. The strings and the buttons, turns it into a head game. More than one shot was thrown away because somebody didn't want to give a really good shooter a single shot at the whiskey. Have fun.

                        Hungry Horse

[Bull Shannon]

Really good stuff, I will add it to our scenarios this year.  We've shot at plastic Easter eggs hanging by strings, had Grinch targets and even stood in line shoulder to shoulder, then handed our rifle to the shooter on the right, shot and reloaded, handed it to the second person to the right, etc.  The brass tacks and suspended whiskey bottle will lend themselves well to our target selections, thanks for sharing with us.

[Hungry Horse]

Bull;

  We have put a yard sale sticker with a number on every gun that entrants bring on to the range and made the shooter roll dice to see what gun they are going to shoot. That pretty enjoyable to watch. especially when someone gets beat with his own gun.

                Hungry Horse

[Bull Shannon]

Bull; We have put a yard sale sticker with a number on every gun that entrants bring on to the range and made the shooter roll dice to see what gun they are going to shoot. That pretty enjoyable to watch. especially when someone gets beat with his own gun.
Hungry Horse

Another great idea, will have to copy that one as well.