September Postal Match

[JBJ]

Fill up your powder horns and shot bags. It's time for the September ALR Postal Match and we need all of you boys and girls to wipe out your "Hawg rifles" and get some shooting done this month. It's a lot of fun and that's the whole point of these postal matches - to have fun, hone our shooting skills and share our common interest in these wonderful old rifles.  This month's target is downloadable from the National Muzzleloading Rifle Association at the following link: https://www.nmlra.org/downloads. You are looking for the "Rabbit in the Fence Row". Here are the guidelines for shooting Mr. Rabbit:
1. Shoot Mr. Rabbit either offhand at 25 yards or bench/rested at 50 yards. If you want to shoot both positions that's fine, but only one positon per target. Re-enter as often as you like.
2. One shot per bull and, including the rabbit's eye, there are 5 bulls per target. Four of the bulls have both a 10-ring and a 9-ring. The rabbit's eye is a 10 and anywhere on the body (including the ears) is 5 points. A perfect score is 50 -5x. X's will be used to break a tie score.
3. Half ball rule.

If you have any trouble getting the target to download, let me know wand we'll try to work something out. Good luck to all of you shooters.
J.B.

[Tony N]

Looks like a fun target, I’ll print some off today and try and get out this week

Tony

[JBJ]

Go get him, Tony!

Following is just a suggestion that might help older eyes in particular:



This type of aiming point helps my old eyes and I have these triangles in black, bright orange and even flourescent green. What color helps me the most depends on my eyes that day and the lighting conditions. I have to thank Marc for sharing this tip with me and it has helped my shooting. I have tried other approaches to the problem of small, blurry targets, but this has helped the most. An additional bonus, last month, for reasons unkown, my old rifle's point of impact shifted about one inch. Marc, who was spotting for me, simply shifted the triangle to compensate. Thanks, buddy.
Hope that this helps some of you folks.
J.B.

[Daryl]

Good suggestion.

[Nessmuck]

Well.....you'll get your steps in

Moving that pink paper ...to show you where the bullseye is...

[Daryl]

All part of the contest.

[JBJ]

Shooting offhand will reduce the steps by one-half 

Nessmuck, it is a lot of steps, but for some of us, it's better than not being remotely competitive. Thank goodness for a younger friend with younger legs!  Thanks, Marc!

J.B.

[foresterdj]

Forgot my orange sticky notes, so 50 yard was not going to happen.  Shot off hand at 25 yard, which reminds me every time why I never shoot off hand anymore.

.45 with .440RB, .018 patch, 70 gr 3Fg



I think a 14 on 5 shots.  That is a zero behind bunnie, 5 for low shot on bunnie chest, a lucky 9 in front of bunnie, the shot behind head was so low it hit the chest 9 ring so a zero and the eye shot was far left hitting the 9 ring behind the head.

[JBJ]

Foresterdj,
That's an excellent, and I might add, an honest call - 14. I totally understand what you are talking about re offhand and I share your experience when I try offhand! However,  some of the folks here are really good offhand and I hope that we will hear from them before rabbit season is over  . That's an interesting thought re using sticky notes - ummmm. I sure hope that you'll get those stickies and give it another try. Thanks!
J.B.

[JBJ]

Folks, it's almost half way through September and we need some more rabbit stew! I know that you are out there and we need to hear from you. So Taylor, Daryl, Marc, Herb , scottmc, Eric, Hawg, Smylee, recurve, and Carper and so many more that I cannot recall, it's time to go "hunting" for those wiley, wascal rabbits! Thanks, guys.

J.B.

[ed lundquist]

Printing some out now, maybe I can get away for a bit tomorrow.

[foresterdj]

Kudos to those who can still hold steady. I could 20 or 30 years ago. It's a steady rest for me now. Grouse, bunny and squirrel opens tomorrow.

[Tony N]

 I’ve got some printed and plan on heading out tomorrow morning.

Tony

[Dphariss]

Got targets printed but the wind is up. Gusts to 19. But it might die off later but I am tied up after 4 so….

[Dphariss]

Dry fire target at about 20 ft. Snapping set trigger only. Or wood flint on plain trigger guns.
The movement after the trigger breaks can be interesting when the flintlock lock time is considered.
Just be sure you are serious and don’t give yourself bad habits with the dry firing.

[ed lundquist]

Not a good day, my wobbles and shakes were in full play. Started out ok and went downhill fast, I'll certainly try again. 38" Rice, 495 ball, ,017 patch [advertised as .021], 75 grains 2f, Dawn/water lube, weather and wind were fine. Shot so poorly I didn't have a go at 50.

[alacran]

Well, I printed 3 targets on the back of the ones I didn't have time to use last month. The plan is to go out and shoot this morning. I haven't shot my squirrel rifle in a while, and this may be good practice for it.
I checked the forecast on three different sites and got three radically different forecasts. So, it is either going to be sunny, rainy, or windy. Possibly it will be all three I can only count on the windy part, they always seem to get that right.

[JBJ]

Well folks, after seeing a couple of targets, I have decided to GENEROUSLY score Mr. Rabbit and simply count score on where the ball lands. Trying to decide which target was being aimed at started making my head swirl!  So, going back to foresterdj's target, the new score is 9+9+9+5=32. Ed's score was a little tricky for me because of the low shot which I finally decided hit the lower hind leg. Therefore, Ed's target is scored 10+9+5=5+5=34. I think that this approach will simplify things for both me and the shooters. Take the safe way and you could put all five shots into the body of Mr. Rabbit and have a score of at least 25 

Let's have some fun and get busy shooting - weather permitting. Seems like there are issues all around and we are no exception here in NC. Tropical mess off our coast promises rain all week!
J.B.

[foresterdj]

Generous scoring. On-the-other-hand, if I was shooting at the red coat on the left and hit the red coat on the right, it was a miss, but still one less red coat.

[JBJ]

Yes sir on both counts.   

J.B.

[alacran]

I went out today and it was sunny at first then became cloudy but no rain. The wind made up for that blowing from the SW at 18 to 21 miles an hour. It changed direction a couple of times.
I was using my Yorkish .40 cal. skwerl rifle, .395 ball .020 bear lubed canvas patching and 50 grains Goex 3F.
JBJ you have me totally confused as to the scoring so I will let you score it.

[MJBush]

Nice target!
Michael

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Nice shooting alacran...25 offhand or 50 bench?

[Daryl]

I see a 39/50. 1X

[alacran]

I forgot to state that I shot it offhand at 25 yards. I don't really like shooting off the bench. I prefer to shoot off cross-sticks.
 
I rushed the left hand target.
The wind blew down the target stand of two shooters that were close to me. I figure my stand would be next.