Osage Orange Sharpshooters
News July 2004

2004 Updated Schedule - Online at www.swampworks.com/OsageOrange.html

Osage Orange Sharpshooters
Jul 17 Sat 8 AM - Club Match
Jul 24 Sat 8 AM - Club Match - Carbine Rattle Battle
Aug 21 Sat 8 AM - Club Match
Sep 18 Sat 8 AM - Club Match
Oct 16 Sat 8 AM - John C. Garand Match

Other Matches
Camp Perry CMP week
is the first week of August. We still have beds available in the huts. If you can go, we'd love to have you. I think the Springfield Match is probably full, but we still need a few people to put together a team for the 6 man team match. Give me a call if you're interested.

The Bucksnort Shooting Club near Marshall will host the Planet 2004 Matches at the same time. There will be across the course matches on Thursday and Friday, a 4x600 yard match on Saturday, and a team match on Sunday. Call Steve Milholland at (417) 831-2309 if you're interested. I believe Steve Kemm, Ed Bowles, and Thomas Reemes are going to go along with Steve, so you'd have some company there.

      A Note from Steve M. aka Swampy:    I'm really looking forward to the Planet 2004 Matches in August. For those of you like me who like to shoot Highpower but can't afford the time to go to Camp Perry the Planet Matches are a great alternative.   
      I've put together a photo page that shows the Bucksnort Range. The photos were taken at recent matches I've been to there. If you look close at the photos you might see some familiar Osage Orange faces.
      There is also a full schedule, a list of the amenities, and a lot of info about what goes on at the
Planet Matches.

Click the link... HERE

If you are thinking of going to the Planet 2004 Matches in August, E-mail me and I'll send you a copy of my Planet 2004 Match schedule and entry form. I'll bring some to the Match on July 17, but I'd like to know how many copies I'll need. Let me know if you want one.

July 17 Match
This Saturday's meeting at Bois D'Arc will be a normal match. In addition, if you wish to polish your rattle battle skills, we will run a quick practice after our normal match. I will bring targets. The rattle battle is one of the matches shot at Camp Perry. It is a team match, and it is all rapid fire. Each string of fire is 50 seconds long and begins with the command "Load and be ready." Upon the firing command, competitors have 50 seconds to fire as many rounds as possible. The targets are silhouettes, and the 600 yard target is half the width of our 'normal' target and twice half again as tall (our normal target is a 6" black bullseye, while the rattle battle 600 yard target is 3.5" wide and 8.5" tall, roughly). We'll shoot the 600 and 500 yard targets prone and then the 300 yard target sitting. We might be a bit rushed, but it doesn't take much time for this match!

July 24 Carbine Rattle Battle
And then the next week we will put our rattle battle skills to work with the M1 Carbine. If you have one or more Carbines, bring them. Last year we managed to get 13 Carbines at the match. You will be issued a Carbine (for the match only) and a couple of magazines. The OOS will provide the ammunition, free to club members, guests will pay. Each competitor will be issued 50 rounds of ammunition. We will form 4-person teams through a random process. Each team will have a sight-in period to get familiar with the rifles, and then we will shoot 2 strings of fire: prone and sitting. Any unfired ammunition will be returned to the club. It would also help if everybody helped to score targets, because that takes a lot of time. In our game we will award 4 points for a prone hit and 2 points for a sitting hit. There will be cash prizes for the winning team. It's loads of fun.

Marshfield Range News
The court has not yet provided a ruling on the Marshfield range. In a formal document, the judge had set June 15 as the deadline to complete work, and he was seen to review the range June 1, yet he has yet to issue his ruling. We have been waiting for the ruling before putting together the incorporation papers for the club, but this is getting to be quite a wait, so we will probably go ahead with the legal work. I'll keep you posted on membership dues etc. The next meeting to discuss all this with the Midwest Friends of the Gunowners of America (MWFGOA) will be help July 22 in the Marshfield Library at 6:30 PM. If you are at all interested, this would be a good meeting to attend.

I have ordered 20 copies of the NRA Highpower Rifle Rule Book, largely so that the folks who have recently gotten into the "big matches" at Bucksnort, St. Louis, De Soto, and Camp Perry would have something to inform them on the rules. It is not light, bedtime reading, but if you are going to a match that has pits, for example, it's worth reviewing the scoring procedures. If you feel you would benefit from a rule book, get in touch with me.

The CMP also has a rule book. You can order a paper copy or see it online at their web site. It is not a particularly informative document, though. All of the specific item such as pit operations, scoring, rapid fire commands, protest and challenge procedures, etc, are discussed in the NRA rules. The CMP just lets it go with saying that the NRA rules apply.

Raffle
I have ordered an H&R Service Grade M1 for us to raffle. Steve Kemm said he'd have tickets printed. This should be fun.

Ammunition
I ordered a few thousand rounds more of the M2 Ball from the CMP, so if you need to purchase some, we should have enough.

See you Saturday.

Questions or comments????
Contact Bill Corcoran
(417) 862-8618
E-mail <wtc928f@smsu.edu>


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