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August 6th, 2010
 Students from the Brownells-sponsored Third Year Gunsmithing program at Trinidad State Junior College (TSJC) donated their time to help shooters at the recent Black Powder Cartridge Rifle National Silhouette Championships. The students repaired guns during the event, held at the NRA’s Whittington Center Range near Raton, New Mexico.
The TSJC gunsmiths-in-training worked on almost 40 guns belonging to the 200 competitors in the event. In the photo at right, John Cowell and Bob Campbell work on a firing pin problem for one of the shooters. The Whittington Center experience let the students practice their skills with the extra time pressure of helping a shooter get back to competition. “This is exactly [what] the 3rd Year Program was designed to do — get the students hands-on experience solving real gun repair problems,” said Brownells President, Pete Brownell.
Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Silhouette Basics
You’ll find a good summary of Black Power Cartridge Rifle Silhouette History, Rules and Equipment on the Outdoor Adventures Network website.
 In Black Powder Cartridge Silhouette Silhouette (BPCRS) competition, shooters must knock down steel silhouette chickens at 200 meters (656 ft.), pigs at 300 meters (984 ft.), turkeys at 385 meters (1,262 ft.) and rams at 500 meters (1,639 ft.). As in high-power rifle silhouette competitions, the chickens must be shot off-hand, in the standing position. However, BPCRS differs in that the pigs, turkeys and rams may be shot in a prone or sitting position using a cross-stick rest. Ten shots are fired at each target, for a total of 40 shots per match. The challenge is in the equipment — BPCRS is limited to single shot, exposed-hammer, American rifles of the era preceding 1896. Only original or reproduction single shot rifles that shoot cartridges loaded with black powder or Pyrodex are allowed. Only original sights may be used –- no scopes.
Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Links:
August 6th, 2010
At the 50th ISSF World Championship, most of the media attention has focused on air rifle, smallbore rifle, and trap (shotgun). However, the world’s top 300m centerfire shooters are also competing in Munich this week. In conjunction with the 2010 ISSF Worlds, the 300m World Championship is taking place in Munich this week, with mens’ and womens’ prone, 3-position, and team events.
Thus far, the 300m prone mens individual and team competition have been concluded, with Mens’ 3-position yet to be held. The womens’ 300m prone event takes place Monday August 9th, while both men and women will shoot the 3-position event on Tuesday, August 10th.
300m Results So Far
In Mens’ Individual 300m prone, Great Britain won the team event, with a 1792-89X combined three-man score. Team Austria finished just one point behind, 1791-104X, but with a much higher X-Count. The French team finished third with 1790-104X, lead by a superb performance by Josselin Henry, who shot a 600-36X, not dropping a point. Though his 4th-place finishing Team Norway did not make the podium, Norway’s Vebjörn Berg shot a brilliant 600-43X, one of the best match scores in 300m history.
In individual mens’ 300m prone competition, the top three shooters were Austria’s Stefan Raser (599-36X), Norway’s Vebjörn Berg (598-44X), and Marcel Zobrist of Switzerland (5989-39X). Top American was Michael McPhail, who finished 7th with 597-36X.
Click these links for ISSF World Championships 300m Schedules and Results:
 Frenchman Ties Perfect 600 Record Score
with 6.5×47 Lapua Factory Ammo
No equipment lists have been published for the 300m World Championships, so there is very little information on the hardware and ammo used by the top competitors. However, we did learn that France’s Josselin Henry shot his 600-36X using factory-loaded Lapua 6.5×47 ammo. Henry’s perfect 600/600 score was shot in the 300m Prone Relay 2 Elimination match yesterday, August 5th. A perfect 600 was first shot by Norway’s Harald Stenvaag, NOR in 1990, then matched by Germany’s
Bernd Rücker in 1994, and by Norway’s Vebjörn Berg in 2010. Notably, Berg also shot a 600-43X in his own prone elimination match in Munich on August 5th. According to Lapua factory representatives, Josselin Henry shot his 600-36X with factory-loaded 6.5×47 Lapua (123gr HPBT Scenar) rounds, right out of the box, without any test shooting or lot selection.
August 5th, 2010
 At the 50th ISSF World Shooting Championship in Munich, American Joshua Richmond shot a perfect 50 in the finals to win the Double Trap World Championship. Shattering 50 out of 50 targets in the final stage, Richmond hit 196 total targets overall (out of 200 possible), equaling the current ISSF World Record record set last year. That record was set by China’s Hu Binyuan, who took the bronze in Munich, after Russia’s Vasily Mosin captured the Silver Medal in a tie-breaker shoot-off. Richmond’s victory secured an important Olympic Quota Place for Team USA. Josh is currently a member of the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) at Ft. Benning, Georgia.
You can watch Richmond’s amazing record-tying performance on the ISSF-Sports.org website. CLICK this LINK, then select “Final Double Trap Men” on the Right.
After Richmond’s final match he was surrounded by his American team-mates, who celebrated the first Olympic Quota won by the US Shotgun Team in this World Championship. Richmond told the ISSF press team: “It feels simply great! To win a World title, equaling the world record and securing Olympic Quota place… I still don’t know how I made it! I [was] Junior World Champion in 2005… to win a title in the open category five years later is a dream come true!”
Top photo courtesy USAShooting.com
August 5th, 2010
 The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit’s Service Rifle team dominated the 49th Interservice Rifle Championships. USAMU shooters won the coveted 10-man Interservice Rifle team championship and swept every major award at the Interservice tournament, held last week at Quantico, Virginia. USAMU teams also won the the 1,000-yard team match in both the service rifle and match rifle categories, setting a new match record in the service rifle category. With its performance at Quantico, the USAMU completed a sweep of all interservice marksmanship championships in 2010 — soldiers and teams from the USAMU previously won the shotgun and pistol interservice competitions, as a team and individually.
Individually, Staff Sgt. Brandon Green was the big winner during the week. He won six championships, including the overall individual championship — his second time winning the prestigious title. He also won the Coast Guard match, the Marine Corps match, the 600-yard match rifle, the 1,000-yard match rifle, and the match rifle individual long-range championship.
Members of the winning 10-man Interservice Rifle team were: Sgt. 1st Class Lance Dement, Sgt. 1st Class Grant Singley, Staff Sgt. Tyrell Cooper, Staff Sgt. Brandon Green, Staff Sgt. Joel Micholick, Staff Sgt. Scott Grant, Sgt. Sherri Jo Gallagher, Spc. Kevin Trickett, Spc. Augustus Dunfey, and Pfc. Amanda Elsenboss. Coaches were Sgt. 1st Class Emil Praslick and Staff Sgt. Walter Craig. Cooper was the high individual shooter during the match with a score of 497-21x.
August 4th, 2010
 by Steve Cooper, CMP Online
The CMP Rimfire Sporter Match is now one of the most popular events at Camp Perry, drawing hundreds of entries. The Rimfire Sporter Match, first held in 2002, was designed to accommodate a novice shooter with nothing more than a store-bought .22 caliber rifle (and no fancy competition gear). The Rimfire Sporter Match is a recreation-oriented, 3-position competition using off-the-shelf .22 caliber sporter rifles. Rifles may be manually operated or semi-automatic and competitors are broken into three classes: open sights, telescopic sights, and tactical rifle. Read AccurateShooter.com’s detailed Guide to Rimfire Sporter Matches
Blustery Conditions Challenge Rimfire Sporter Shooters
While some shooters dealt with a driving rain, wildly-fluctuating crosswinds and the accompanying delays, others enjoyed bright sun and calm conditions during the 9th annual Rimfire Sporter Match on Sunday, July 25th. Chalk it all up to “The Camp Perry Experience”. Veteran shooters know that weather is almost always a factor here and newcomers received received a classic introduction to it Sunday. Nonetheless, the shooters battled through the conditions to post some fine scores.
Command Sergeant Major (CSM) Steven Slee, 46, U.S. Army Reserve, won the Open Sights class with an aggregate score of 578-23X out of 600 possible. Charles Opalewski II, 20, was second in open sights with an aggregate score of 574-14X. Opalewski was also the high ranking overall junior and 4-H junior shooter. Nick Takacs, 61, was the high senior competitor in open sights class with an aggregate score of 569-17X. In Telescopic Sights class (T-class), Lucas Boord, 20, finished first, using a Kimber Hunter to score 593-27X. Placing second in T-class was CSM Steven Slee with a 592-31X. Natalie Harper was the High Woman, High Junior and High 4-H Junior shooter in the Telescopic Sights Class with an overall score of 588-14X. The top senior shooter in T-class was Steve Gossage, 63, with an aggregate of 586-32X. READ More …
August 3rd, 2010
 While much of the American shooting community is focused on the National Championships in Camp Perry, Ohio, nearly 2500 of the world’s top shooters are competing in Munich, Germany in the 50th ISSF World Shooting Championships which concludes August 11, 2010.
 The 50th World Shooting Championship opened in Munich, Germany on the 30th of July with a festive Opening Ceremony on Munich’s iconic Marien-platz. This is the largest World Shooting Championship ever — with 2,460 shooters from 103 countries competing for medals in 54 events. Competitors will also vie for 69 Olympic Quotas allowing their respective nations’ teams to compete at the 2012 Games in London.
At the ISSF World Championships, disciplines include Air Rifle, Air Pistol, Smallbore Rifle, Smallbore Pistol, Running Target, 300m Rifle, and Trap, with classes for Men, Women, and Juniors. So far Americans have done well, with high individual placings and a team win in the mens’ 50m rimfire prone event (see photo). The 50m mens’ prone team, consisting of Matt Emmons, SGT Michael McPhail, and SFC Eric Uptagrafft, won its second consecutive World Championship.
The ISSF-Sports.org website provides extensive coverage of the ISSF World Championships, including video webcasts of the finals in many disciplines. There are numerous photo galleries where you can see the shooters and high-tech air rifles and rimfire rifles used by the top shooters from many countries.
Running Target Competition is Fun to Watch
At the ISSF Worlds, one of the most challenging events is the Running Target Competition. Since this is not an Olympic shooting discipline, you may have never seen it before. But we guarantee this is worth checking out. Shooting in a man vs. man format, pairs of shooters engage a quickly moving target at 10 meters with air rifles. But the scoring is like tennis. For each pair of shots (one by each shooter), the competitor who puts his shot closest to dead center gets one point, while his opponent gets nothing. This is all done offhand from the standing position, requiring superb holding skills. It’s hard enough to shoot “10s” when the target is fixed. Imagine trying to put a pellet in a tiny 10-Ring, when the target is moving! To watch the Running Target Finals, CLICK this LINK then select the “Medal Match 10m Running Target Men” video from the list at the right. Forward to the 28-minute mark for the final Gold Medal shoot-out between Russia and China.
Team USA photo by Wolfgang Schreiber, ©2010 ISSF
August 2nd, 2010
by Danielle Sturgis, The NRA Blog
 A collegiate All-American in the 1940s, Mr. Fred Cole is now 88 years old and still a Camp Perry competitor. At Thursday night’s NRA Awards Ceremony, where smallbore prone champions were awarded their medals, Match Director H.Q. Moody was excited to introduce him to the audience before the official ceremony began. “He’s been our senior perennial champion forever,” Moody said, “and he’s one of our sport’s fine gentleman.”
 As Cole stood and waved at the audience, the entire auditorium joined him in a thundering standing ovation. Cole competed in both the 2010 smallbore 3-position competition and the smallbore prone competition. He ended the week with a comprehensive score of 4714-216x. Cole’s pictured above (left) shooting in the prone position from 100 yards.
“I started shooting in 1937 at Xavier High School Rifle Team,” Cole told NRAblog. “That’s 73 years of shooting. I shoot mostly smallbore position. That’s my first love.”
The Stonybrook, New York, resident reports winning a total of 6 intermediate senior championships throughout his Camp Perry career.
Why has he devoted so much of his time to competitive shooting? “It’s the greatest sport in the world,” Cole proclaimed. “It’s a character builder. It demands personal discipline. It’s a challenging sport, and one can participate individually or as a team member.”
July 30th, 2010
 Shooting an impressive 4790-355X, SSG Shane Barnhart earned the title of National Smallbore Rifle Prone Champion, while competing this week at Camp Perry, Ohio. Finishing second and third, respectively, were 1LT Christopher Abalo, and Charles Kemp. Abalo and Kemp had identical 4786 scores, but 1LT Abalo had the higher X count. Abalo scored 344X compared to Kemp’s 338X.
Army Shooters Top the Field
Story by Danielle Sturgis, The NRA Blog
SSG Shane Barnhart has been to Camp Perry since 1992, minus two years. This year is his best smallbore rifle performance. Did he come expecting to win? “I was hoping (to place in top 3),” he said. “I knew going into Any Sight that I had Abalo and Kemp, both very fine shooters, to keep up with.” What was the biggest challenge of the week? “Battling the wind,” Shane said. When asked if he had any advice for young people thinking about shooting competitively, Barnhart responded: “You can get a free ride to college,” he said.
First Lieutenant Christopher Abalo practiced for the national smallbore prone championships for just one month, yet still managed a strong second-place finish. “I took a two-year break from competitive shooting, so this feels good,” he said. “I feels great, actually. I expected to shoot well, and I would say I met my expectations.” Below are photos from the 2010 Smallbore Prone Championships.
Gunny Zins Wins his 10th Pistol Championship
In related news, retired Gunnery Sergeant Brian Zins of Poland, Ohio, was named national champion at the NRA National Pistol Championships held July 13-17 at Camp Perry. This was Zins’ 10th National Championship. Zins shot consistently high scores throughout the event, winning the .22 Caliber Championship and placing in the top three for both the Center Fire and .45 Caliber Championships. Zins’ Aggregate score of 2650-134X placed Brian at the top of the leader board for the tenth time in his shooting career — a record number of National Pistol Championships. CLICK HERE to learn more about Zins and other pistol competitors.
July 27th, 2010
 The NRA Metric Smallbore Championships were held in Bristol, Indiana from July 17-20th. Team Lapua shooters performed well in this prestigious match. Team Lapua member Kevin Nevius shot superbly, earning the title of 2010 Metric National Champion. Nevius also won the Metallic Sight Aggregate Trophy, the Metallic Sight Team Trophy with Eitan Barazani, and the Overall Metric National team title with Barazani. Both Nevius and Barazani shot Lapua ammo.
Team Lapua member Nancy Tompkins, shooting Lapua Midas+ ammo, was the 1st Master and Top Woman competitor. The First-place Junior competitor, Elijah Ellis, also shot Lapua ammunition. Most of these top competitors are now competing in the 2010 NRA Smallbore Prone National Championships held at Camp Perry, Ohio, this week, July 25-28th.
At the Metric Championships, conditions were mild and partly cloudy both days. Day 2 (any sights day) saw slightly higher wind velocities. Both days saw winds from the south (from behind the firing line) that would switch quickly from left to right.
Nevius’ Championship Rifle and Winning Ammo
Kevin Nevius used Lapua X-ACT and Midas+ ammunition in the Walther-based prone rifle he built last winter specifically for Lapua ammunition. The gun features a Walther KK300 action (won at the 2008 National Matches) and a 1:17″-twist Hart barrel. NOTE:The above photo, taken at the 2008 National Championships, show Nevius with a different rifle.
July 26th, 2010
Shooting at the Original Pennsylvania 1000-Yard Benchrest Club (Williamsport), Frank Weber, set a new Light Gun Williamsport Record Score and World Record Score this past weekend, a 100-6X (4.237″) for ten (10) shots. Our Assistant Editor Jason Baney witnessed the new record while working the pits. Jason reports: “Frank’s 100-6X beats my Williamsport Record and Andy Murtaugh’s World Record. It was an incredible group. Frank almost got a group record as well — nine of Frank’s ten shots measured about 3.4″, all falling well inside the 4″x4″ white square. This was a great achievement for Frank. He has been shooting at Williamsport since 1968, and this is his first-ever Light Gun group under 7 inches.”
Weber’s Record-Setting Light Gun
Frank Weber set his 1K record with a BAT-actioned 6mm Dasher smithed by Mark King. The Broughton 1:8″ twist, 28″ barrel has a 0.266″-necked Dasher chamber, with 0.155″ freebore. The Broughton barrel is nearly new — it had roughly 100 rounds through it when the record was shot. For optics, Weber used a Nightforce 8-32x56mm NXS scope.
Record Recipe: Varget, BR4s, and Custom 105gr Bullets Jumped .010″
Weber’s record-setting load was fairly typical for a Dasher, except for the projectile. Frank loaded 33.5 grains of Hodgdon Varget and CCI BR4 primers behind a custom 105gr bullet, seated 0.010″ OFF the lands (i.e. he was jumping the bullets ten thousandths). Ironically, Frank was using this relay to test seating depths. It certainly seems that he found a load that worked! Later, in the shoot-off, Frank tried IMR 8208 XBR powder.
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