Getting restarted in silhouette shooting

I’m slowly getting back into shooting shape in between surgeries. In the last week, I attended two different silhouette shooting matches at the Birchwood Shooting facility in Chugiak. The regular monthly Bang and Clang match was held last Saturday and the first 22-caliber silhouette match was held this past Monday evening.

The bang and clang match is fired at four banks of silhouette targets at four different distances: 50, 100, 150, and 200 meters. The silhouettes used at 50 meters are called chickens and resemble them fairly well. The 100-meter targets resemble pigs while the 150-meter silhouettes look like geese. The 200-meter targets look like rams.

The shooter has ten minutes to fire at each of ten silhouette targets. The object is to hit the target and knock it off the rail it was on. The shot is counted as a hit only if the silhouette falls completely off the rail. If the target only spins but remains standing, or if a target is shot out of sequence, it is counted as a miss. Each shooter usually has a spotter to call his shots and keep score on the shooter’s card.

I started out with the chickens, but having missed the last four monthly matches, I had forgotten my rifle was shooting high at 50 meters. I had failed to note this in my shooting notes. My first four shots were misses. I was shooting without a spotter and couldn’t see where my shots were going. One of the guys watched a minute and told me I was shooting high and about how high my shots were going.

With that tip, I adjusted my sight picture and hit four of the last six targets. Not great, but at least I was back shooting.

My next relay was the 100-meter pig bank. Now knowing my sights were a little high, I was able to adjust my sight picture for the shots. I knocked down the first nine silhouettes – I was doing well! One of the other shooters had been watching me and commented that I must be a good shot. My reply of: “Not really,” proved my point as I missed the last target. Still, hitting nine out of ten pigs isn’t bad!

By this time, I was getting chilled, and my ankle was really beginning to hurt. I decided to stop for the day, packed up my gear, turned in my card, and headed for home. I could warm up and relax, but most importantly, get off my ankle to ease the pain. These matches are informal, so stopping half-way through the match was no big deal.

The 22-caliber silhouette match this past Monday evening functioned very similarly to the bang and clang. The silhouette targets are scaled down in size for the shorter ranges of 40, 60, 75, and 100-meters, and can be hard to see. The shapes are also similar, but are referred to as ptarmigan, wolverine, goose, and ram, respectively, for a more “Alaskan” flavor.

I had brought my gear to shoot, if necessary, because of a lack of shooters, but I was only planning to watch and see how the match was run. There were fourteen shooters participating, so I watched. I had last shot 22-caliber silhouette in Kodiak some thirty years ago and had done well. Knowing how my last bang and clang match went, however, I decided to just watch and learn. I did end up spotting for the shooter who shot the high score for this silhouette competition.

The competitors had all brought modern bolt-action or semi-auto repeating rifles and were using scopes for sighting. The rifle I had brought was a recreation of the old Winchester, low-wall single-shot rifle with a period correct scope mounted on it.

Shooters had two-and-a-half minutes to shoot a bank of five targets. After a momentary break, the shooters repeated the time for the second bank of five targets. The shooting line was then shut down and shooters went forward to paint and reset the silhouettes on their rails. This match went quickly because two shooters could shoot each bank and the times were a quarter of the bang and clang times.

Check the Alaska Rifle Club webpage for match schedules and come out and watch or participate if you have an interest. This is a good group of folks who will be happy to help with any shooting or gear questions. You’ll enjoy yourself and meet some new folks too!

Don’t forget the Big Lake Gun Show this weekend in Big Lake.