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Osage Orange
Sharpshooters -----Upcoming
Activities + Matches ------JCG
Certificates It would be nice to have
a complete Osage Orange Sharpshooters team at the championships
next year…or maybe two teams. The matches at Joplin, 3rd
Sunday of each month, are a good way to try a match run according
to traditional NRA rules (rather than the CMP rules we use). The Dalton Range and Springfield Benchrest Rifle Club set up their schedules very early in the year, and we will need to do the same. Last year Steve Milholland and Steve Kemm took care of scheduling our shoots, and we owe them a hearty thanks…we've had lots of shooting and no problems whatsoever. If you have any ideas or comments on the schedule…such as changes you'd like to see, communicate them to either Steve or me. Actually, the only problem
I had was buying enough targets, simply because I couldn't believe
the numbers needed! Here's a tip…National Target Company
gives us a 20% discount, but if we purchase more than $500 worth
at a time, it jumps to 40%. I bought targets 3 separate times.
Next year I'll know better. We may want to make a large purchase of surplus reloading supplies, like powder, brass, and bullets so that club members could purchase smaller lots. Surplus is still cheaper than new, and there is a small price advantage to purchasing surplus stuff in large amounts. We could also make a large purchase of Sierra bullets. We can drive to Sedalia and purchase factory seconds, which shoot just fine.. My own opinion is that new components (primers and new brass) can be purchased at Steve's Guns just as cheaply as any mail-order place. Please make your opinion known on whether (or not) you think another reloading clinic would be worthwhile next winter. I would like to offer our introductory clinic late in March next year, followed within 2 weeks by the John Garand match. One thing I've thought about is having the clinic on Saturday, including a bit of time for folks to shoot, followed by a practice match on Sunday if we could swing the range time. What other activities would
you like the club to run? On the AMU tapes, Chris Hatcher repeatedly points out that he uses the type of trigger squeeze that causes the gun to fire just at the time he desires, when the relationship between the front sight post and the target is just exactly as he wants it. This technique is the opposite of what many of us learned. I learned "the gun should surprise you when it goes off." In the standing position, the only way I could ever shoot a decent score was to hold hard on the black and squeeze gently. Any time I told myself "that looks good" and tried to pull the trigger quickly, I invariably pulled the sight off the aiming black and threw one wide. I am the type-cast person for "the gun should surprise you when it goes off." Hatcher says (to paraphrase) "you must be able to pull the trigger without disturbing the sights." In the context of the standing position, what Hatcher means is that you must be able to pull the trigger FAST without disturbing the sights. I can all pull the trigger without disturbing the sights, but it takes me about 2-3 seconds with a gentle trigger squeeze. I figure I can hold the front sight on the target for about a half a second, maybe a full second in the standing position, and then it wobbles off, up or down, left or right. In the past, I relied on my natural point of aim to pull the sight into the correct relationship as the gun went off. I accepted my wobble area and just squeezed gently. The trick top shooters use is to get the gun to go off in that half-second interval when everything is lined up correctly. I shot with the match winner at the Missouri Service Rifle Championship. He pulls the trigger on the AR-15 with the second joint of his trigger finger…the middle part. So do the AMU shooters. There is a tremendous advantage to using the second joint; first, it produces greater leverage than the tip of your finger, and so the effort needed to pull the trigger is lesst; second, it moves through a smaller angular arc for the same motion of your big knuckle, thus giving you less angular deflection and less likelihood of pushing the rifle muzzle sideways; and third, it pulls more directly backwards towards the stock and the u-shaped portion of your hand, thus assuring a more straight-back pull. Now I find that pulling the trigger with the second joint, and making sure I'm pulling a bit down on the trigger, and also making sure that the U-shaped area between thumb and forefinger is firmly against the back of the pistol grip, I get a perfectly straight pull EVERY TIME. And I can pull the trigger so fast, it's almost like a jerk. Except the sights don't move (much). I can line up the sights, tell myself "NOW" and pull it. Wow! No, they're not all 10's and X's, and yes, I still shoot my share of 8's and 7's. But my standing scores jumped a full 10 points in one week. The traditional hold for many old shooters with the M1 rifle was to put the thumb on top of the pistol grip, directly to the rear of the rear of the receiver. In doing this, you create a vice between your trigger finger and thumb, thus helping to assure a straight-back pull. It's more difficult than with the AR, but it is still possible to make the gun fire, on command, without disturbing the sights. Push with the thumb, pull with the trigger finger, and pretend you're trying to squeeze them together to make their tips meet. It's not shooting skeet; there is NOT a quick jerk, just a quick, determined SQUEEZE. Maybe they should tell us to squeeze the rifle instead of the trigger. And by the way, also try using the second joint of you trigger finger on the M1. Works for me. I'll be glad to demonstrate. Reminder Bill Corcoran http://www.swampworks.com/OsageOrange.html |