'Varmint Silhouette' — The Rifles of Pala
We’ve given our readers a double dose of Tactical this week (see our latest Feature STORY), so it’s time to showcase some shiny, long-barreled rifles with wicked paint jobs.
Pala guns are purpose built for one task–knockin’ down steel critters at 200 to 600 yards with Extreme Accuracy. Pala, an Indian Reservation in So. California, has a monthly match that atracts serious marksmen from throughout the state. You shoot four types of targets, each at a particular distance. The targets increase in size the further out you go.
Click HERE for GIANT SIZE Range Photo.
There are a wide variety of rifles, but typically you see a BR-style rifle, with a heavy, 28-30″ barrel, often using a muzzle brake. The brake definitely helps you spot your hits by reducing muzzle jump. You need a very accurate chambering, so you’ll see 6BRs, Dashers, 6-284s, 6.5-284s, and a few 6mm Remingtons. Our friend John Adams has tried a 22-6.5×47 at Pala along with his own .243 wildcats. This long-range silhouette game is great fun (and you can go gamble at the Casino when you’re done). Here are some Pala rigs on the line. Note how the shooters have fabricated platforms to raise their front rests:
The Berger Bullets crew–Eric Stecker, Shawn McKenna, and Michelle Gallagher recently attended the Pala Match. Eric reports: “You would think that shooting silhouettes using rests and scopes would be easy but it was quite a challenge since the wind direction and velocity changes could easily push your bullet off the small varmint silhouette targets. You really had to stay on top of the changes to get hits each time. The high score of the day was an impressive 48 out of 50. (For the record we were not at the top of the list as this type of shooting is harder than it may seem but I did beat Shawn and Michelle…teehee).” Nice shooting Eric (Shawn took second place, F-TR Class, at the 2006 Nationals).
A while back we did a feature story on a husband/wife team who shoot at Pala. Click HERE to read the story. It has some nice photos of the range taken by John Adams, and it even includes Katy’s famous guacamole recipe!
For more info on shooting at Pala, visit Ramshooter’s Website (nice rifle photos), and the North County Shootist Assn. site.
