The gun owner next door

The Daily Camera (Boulder) ^ | 1 December 2002 | staff

[CWRWinger]

Thousands of tires, piled on top of each other and hand-packed with dirt, demarcate each of the four open-air ranges. Earthen berms, intended to stop the bullets, back each one.

Interesting use of old tires.

[tnwalker]

I shoot a Ruger #1 in 270 when deer hunting, does that count? Have not shot in competition.

[toddst]

. . . a great business idea would be a combo golf driving range / underground shooting range.

Yours is an excellent idea. The two would be compatible - no problem IMO. Worth considering.

[dansangel]

LOL!!! "If you build it, some moron will use it."

[Shooter 2.5]

There's a mandatory reload so you would do better with any semi or bolt action with a magazine or clip fed. Iron sights only.

A fifty round match is:
200 yards-standing-single load-10 shots/10 minutes.
200 yards-standing to sitting or kneeling-10 shots with one mandatory reload/60 seconds.
300 yards-standing to prone-10 shots with one mandatory reload/70 seconds.
600 yards-prone-single load-20 rounds/20 minutes.

For reduced ranges, reduced targets are used.

My average is 460-465 and I have shot a couple of 99's and 98's in the sitting rapid.

[Monitor]

I've shot highpower - F-class.

What residents probably don't realize either, Letkemann says, is that it's your doctors, lawyers, teachers, government workers and police officers who use the facility.

I belong to a private outdoor range in Racine, WI, and the vast majority of it's members are blue collar union workers. I have yet to meet a doctor, a lawyer, or a teacher there.

[Shooter 2.5]

I looked through the rules and I think you shoot in the 3.2 Any Rifle Rules. I have never seen anyone shoot who had a scope. In fact, I have only seen one match rifle lately. We're using the NRA High Power Rifle Rules.

I shoot with Doctors, Nurses, and people who have a little bit of disposable income. The only reason I know the people were doctors and nurses was they all worked at the same hospital and they talked shop a couple of times. We don't talk a lot about our jobs. I shot with a guy for about a year and I found out later he worked a few feet from me but on another shift. I may have even met him at work a couple of times but since I retired, I have forgotten a lot of people.

[Monitor]

I looked through the rules and I think you shoot in the 3.2 Any Rifle Rules.

Could be. I don't have a copy of the rules. But, I understand that F-class is unsanctioned by the NRA, and it's up to the club putting on the match if they'll allow F-class (fun-class) rifles.

Generally speaking, F-class allows non service weapons, scopes, bipods, sand bags, and all shots are done prone.

[Shooter 2.5]

That makes sense now. Your club sanctioned the match.

I used to shoot at matches at a club that called their matches Garand Matches. All of us didn't have Garands but by shooting the match, it entitled us to qualify for a Garand from the CMP. It wasn't until years later, I learned we were really shooting sanctioned NRA High Power Matches.
the club I'm shooting with now has tightened the rules up so much that I have only seen one Match Rifle. That's by choice. It's much easier to see how well I do if I shoot the same classification.

[Shooter 2.5]

Our juniors shooting NRA High Power Rifle

Even our Juniors know how to adjust a sling better than algore.

[Tailback]

What? I shoot High power, I'm on my state National Guard Service Rifle team. It's a lot of fun. My wife is a recovering "moderate" and is the child of two public school teachers. I took her to the state service rifle championships and she said "I've never been around so many friendly people in my life. Everyone was so nice to me, it wasn't anything like I expected." Needless to say, she's been very supportive of my hobby since then.

[Tailback]

I go to a range here in Oregon to shoot High power matches and two of the best shooters are tenured university professors. Many of the other better shooters are machinists, i guess because they get cheap homemade parts or something!?! Seriously though, most of the hardcore match shooters I see a lot are very wealthy professional white-collar types.

[Shooter 2.5]

My computer crashed so I lost the names of the Freepers who shoot High Power. After a long time and asking a lot, I only came up with three other people and I wasn't sure about the third. I think he only shot High Power Silhouette which is a different game altogether.

[DmBarch]

My computer crashed so I lost the names of the Freepers who shoot High Power. After a long time and asking a lot, I only came up with three other people and I wasn't sure about the third. I think he only shot High Power Silhouette which is a different game altogether.

I needed three matches to get the required 120 shots in the early 90's to qualify for the Garand. Was helping to run Smallbore Rifle Silhouette at our club after that so I only shot a few HP matches. Went to a John Garand match for the WWI and WWII rifles and had a fun time. BTW, shooting Silhouette matches also qualifies you for the CMP M-1 Garand.

[Shooter 2.5]

Well, the rules have changed and today it's only 50 rounds. Also if you're old enough to have been trained on a Garand and can prove it, that's all you need. On the other hand, they aren't 65 dollars anymore. I think you can also buy four Garands and ten .03's a year. I'm on the e mail list for the CMP. www.odcmp.com

I wish I could somehow persuade every Freeper to get a Garand or '03. It's a piece of history. I haven't even shot my '03 yet. I cleaned it up and stuck it in the toybox.

[Shooter 2.5]

I can answer that one. I'm a retired machinist and only three things can go wrong when you're shooting High Power. You, the rifle or the ammo. A lot of people can see where the ammo can fail because if failures to fire and jams. they can also see where they themselves can fail by screwing up a shot, going too fast or slow and not reading the wind. Not too many people can understand when their rifle fails. Loose sights, loose bedding, the barrel finally wearing out.
I shot this one match rifle and I could never get it to work right and I noticed the rear sight was loose. It was like that from the factory. I had to send it back to get it replaced. The front sight on my AR loosened up and I had to set-screw it into place. A friend had a 2000 dollar rifle that never shot as good as he thought. He sold it and the guy who bought it immediately noticed a wrong lead angle to the barrel. It cost less than a 100 dollars to get it fixed and my friend never shot High Power after that. My friend could have sent it back to the maker but he just didn't have the experience to know better. If you practice as much as you can without getting better, have someone check out the rifle.

[Grantvon]

This is not so much a reply to Shooter 2.5 as it is a little more info. There were several inaccuracies in the Boulder Camera's article, but not too important. First, the last name is Von Letkemann, not Letkemann. He got it right once but that's more than can be expected usually in Boulder. He quoted my comment about red necked, beer swilling Bambi shooters but did not repeat what I said about our club being more representative of the community as a whole than any other single organization in the county. Yes, we have a good number of doctors,lawyers, bankers, etc. but we also have electricians, carpenters, construction workers, students and you name it. We discriminate only to the point that we try to keep out anyone too dumb to handle a firearm safely. The club was not "designed" for 250, it was "intended" years ago to try for as many as 250 members. That number was hoped for when we had around 100. At 300+ plus, we set a limit of 500 which filled as soon as we announced the limit. It's a good club with hundreds of great members, unfortunately we can't handle all the people who would like to belong - it would be a case of loving it to death. We hold over 60 matches of various types each year which are open to all. We are an anomaly in an area where the politics and media are definitely not pro-gun. Visit our website boulderrifleclub.com for more info.