Shooters with a collection of rifles, how do you decide...

[Vince24]

Which rifles you are going to shoot, and what kind of shooting?

That's probably a stupid question.

For me, I have a number of military rifles, and I have a precise agenda, I was wondering if I am the only maniac like this!

First thing is that, other than when shooting at the military club, I shoot all my rifles ON THE EXACT SAME TARGET, so as to facilitate comparisons.

This is the "official 50 metres slow fire target". Why this one? Because it is exactly the same as the target I used in France.
If shooting with a scope, I add a white patch in the middle to better see the crosshair.

IMG_4355.jpg (65.01 KiB) Viewed 1252 times

Second thing is that I am running a kind of competition between all my rifles, with a ranking of all of them, to see which one does the best score, on a 10 shot group at 100 metres on that same target.

The ranking so far:
=> Best one in my collection, my scoped CZ 452 with SK ammo: 100/100, no effort, 1 attempt!.
=> Worst one: my family owned Gewehr 98AZ: 74/100, after lots of efforts and mucking around!
=> Most other rifles with iron sights between 85/100 and 95/100

(this poor G98AZ has a nice history: taken from the Germans by my great grand-father who was a communist militant, who then converted to christiasnim post-war: he threw the bolt in a bin and the rifle under the roof - yes, that's never good for a barrel! I legalised it nonetheless and imported it to Australia when I moved over here).

Third thing is the order of shooting: I start with the rifles which have the lower ranking, and try to improve their ranking, then I move to the next one in order of low ranking. So I end-up doing more shooting with the bad rifles than with the good ones!

But at least I shoot all of them at some stage, unlike many shooters with tons of allegedly unfired rifles in their safes .

So for each rifle of my collection, I follow the same procedure:

- Do the load development,
- Get a nice 10 shot group on the slow fire target at 100 metres
- Try to shoot them a 100/200/300m (at least one of those distances) on the bigger target at the military firearm club.

Given I shoot only once a month, that will keep me busy until retirement!

How about you, do you follow a methodology or just your heart?

(and end-up shooting always the same rifles?)

[northdude]

Whichever one I have ammo loaded for when I go out. One of my 22 hornets always seems to be in the mix tho

[mchughcb]

I don't shoot competition anymore so all rifles except the rimfire, 200yard SSAA centrefire target at 200m zero in and that's it. Anything more is just wasting bullets.

[No1Mk3]

I like to have my collectibles speak, but some don't and I haven't the time to get them shooting yet, some are in poor condition and will never shoot well again ( my Metford MkII has only about 14" of rifling left in the middle of the barrel) and my Polish KbK Wz98 has a very poor bore and 1 of my Fulton Regulated No4's needs the draws redone just for example. Of the rest, I am very active in the Club and focus on the rifles I use most for comp (K31 for 3P, No8 for 22 Trainer and a Greener Cadet, M82 for F2 Sniper, m/41B for F1 Sniper and a Ruger M77 VT in 25-06 for Military Tactical & Development), add to that twice monthly handgun in 5 Club classes as well as Collectors shoots 6 times a year and the rest of the collection are lucky to see daylight once every 5 years. Add to that the Mrs shhots the same comps and I supply and care for her firearms as well, then reload for everything.
PS: I use the same slow fire target for Cap & Ball revolver, 13 shots with 10 to count, lots of fun, Cheers.
.

[dnedative]

How about you, do you follow a methodology or just your heart?)

I run in a circle that measures in years; I'll pick something out, work on a load, shoot it a few times and put it back into storage.
Rinse and repeat.


Never really worried about accuracy with military rifles provided they shoot about what they should.

[bladeracer]

I don't shoot at any clubs or ranges, there aren't any near me, and others are open very limited times that just don't fit in with the random lifestyle of farming. I don't follow any regimen other than doing _a lot_ of offhand open sight practice. I enjoy shooting "competitions" similar to what people are shooting at clubs, but I mainly enjoy field shooting at paper or steel targets placed at random distances across the paddocks. I consider all shooting to merely be practice for hunting, but most of my hunting the last few years has been walking the paddocks with the .204 or a .22LR looking for foxes. Occasionally I go looking for deer but rarely find them. Like you, I prefer to practice the stuff I'm not good at rather than just keep doing the easy stuff over and over again. Wind is the biggest thing I try to study.

I mostly shoot .22LR in lever-action iron sights offhand, usually on half-scale Metallic Silhouettes - 40m, 50m, 75m and 100m in 150rd or 180rd sessions. I shoot at either the steels or at paper cut-outs of the steels stuck to MDF boards. And I shoot a lot of medium-range .22LR scoped usually at steel gongs at random distances between 100m and 335m with the Ruger Precision, Ruger American Target and JW25A. For variety I'll grab something different for a play, like an older .22LR or a subsonic centrefire. I try to get through a few thousand rounds of .22LR every month.

Every couple months I'll confirm zeros with the .204, .223, .243, .44Mag and 7mm-08 to keep my eye in, usually on paper at 100m or 200m, sometimes to see if a particular bullet shoots well. The .204 and 7mm-08 are my primary hunting rifles.

And randomly I'll take out a milsurp of some kind for a play on paper. Recently I've been concentrating on the .303's with a mate but I want to bring out the Swedes, M1903-A3 and Carcano very soon - they are all great fun to shoot. I cut back all my centrefire shooting when the shortages started and concentrated on burning as much .22LR as I could, but I'm getting back into it again now that primers are back on the shelves. I've never enjoyed shooting the .303's but I'm having fun trying to get them to shoot well now.

On paper I primarily shoot at squares of insulation tape rather than pre-printed targets, but I do have piles of different target types I use when I remember to take them. I always have tape and scissors in my pocket and it's easy to have blank A3 and A4 paper on hand. With tape I can make diamonds to suit iron sights at whatever distance I'm shooting at, with the scopes I just aim at one of the tape corners. I don't know what those cardboard SSAA targets cost but I would need dozens of them every month. I use a lot of A4 and A3 copier paper which then gets used for lighting the fires at home. I did get an official target from the local smallbore club in town a couple years ago and ran off a pile of copies, but I don't think I've ever actually used them. They're the ones that have about a dozen small circular targets that you fire a single round at each one - Benchrest I think, shot at 20m. A neighbour was doing it for a little while, I found it mind numbingly boring. This year I've been setting up to shoot the military style competitions, generally at 100, 200 and 300 metres or yards, with the actual military targets, here at home. As soon as we can get a load that works in my mate's SMLE we'll start practicing the competition shoots. I have no interest in the competitions but I might be able to accompany him to some of them, if only to half his fuel bills.

I put new axles and springs under the cattle trailer this arvo, a very good workout trying to manhandle heavy things in cramped spaces while lying on my back in cold mud. I was hoping to do my usual offhand practice afterward as I like to try to shoot well while my pulse and respiration are up. But Rose lost her phone while setting up the electric fences, so we had to walk out there to look for it, and didn't get back until dark. We'll be out at dawn to move the cows, and I'll have to stay with them for a few hours while they graze the road verge to ensure they don't get onto the road, then I want to finish the wiring of the electric brakes on the trailer, but I should hopefully be able to fit in an hour for some shooting.

Which rifles you are going to shoot, and what kind of shooting?

That's probably a stupid question.

For me, I have a number of military rifles, and I have a precise agenda, I was wondering if I am the only maniac like this!

First thing is that, other than when shooting at the military club, I shoot all my rifles ON THE EXACT SAME TARGET, so as to facilitate comparisons.

This is the "official 50 metres slow fire target". Why this one? Because it is exactly the same as the target I used in France.
If shooting with a scope, I add a white patch in the middle to better see the crosshair.

IMG_4355.jpg

Second thing is that I am running a kind of competition between all my rifles, with a ranking of all of them, to see which one does the best score, on a 10 shot group at 100 metres on that same target.

The ranking so far:
=> Best one in my collection, my scoped CZ 452 with SK ammo: 100/100, no effort, 1 attempt!.
=> Worst one: my family owned Gewehr 98AZ: 74/100, after lots of efforts and mucking around!
=> Most other rifles with iron sights between 85/100 and 95/100

(this poor G98AZ has a nice history: taken from the Germans by my great grand-father who was a communist militant, who then converted to christiasnim post-war: he threw the bolt in a bin and the rifle under the roof - yes, that's never good for a barrel! I legalised it nonetheless and imported it to Australia when I moved over here).

Third thing is the order of shooting: I start with the rifles which have the lower ranking, and try to improve their ranking, then I move to the next one in order of low ranking. So I end-up doing more shooting with the bad rifles than with the good ones!

But at least I shoot all of them at some stage, unlike many shooters with tons of allegedly unfired rifles in their safes .

So for each rifle of my collection, I follow the same procedure:

- Do the load development,
- Get a nice 10 shot group on the slow fire target at 100 metres
- Try to shoot them a 100/200/300m (at least one of those distances) on the bigger target at the military firearm club.

Given I shoot only once a month, that will keep me busy until retirement!

How about you, do you follow a methodology or just your heart?

(and end-up shooting always the same rifles?)

[Vince24]

Bladeracer i am very jealous I must say!

From the shooter’s perspective, being able to put your targets wherever you like at home, that’s like heaven!
I have to go to the range, and shoot well less than 100 rounds a month.

And on my initial question, I seem to be the only one to run a methodical championship between my rifles!

A bit like Jeremy Clarkson in Top Gear, he had the whiteboard with the best lap of all the tested cars on the racetrack. Have the same but with the best score on a 10 shot group on the same target.

I find it interesting and overall my rifles rank according to their reputation- with some exceptions:e.g. I have managed the same 92/100 score with 1941 Portuguese Mauser than with my K31 lol, think it was just a good day with the 98K.

[bladeracer]

Bladeracer i am very jealous I must say!

From the shooter’s perspective, being able to put your targets wherever you like at home, that’s like heaven!
I have to go to the range, and shoot well less than 100 rounds a month.

And on my initial question, I seem to be the only one to run a methodical championship between my rifles!

A bit like Jeremy Clarkson in Top Gear, he had the whiteboard with the best lap of all the tested cars on the racetrack. Have the same but with the best score on a 10 shot group on the same target.

I find it interesting and overall my rifles rank according to their reputation- with some exceptions: e.g. I have managed the same 92/100 score with 1941 Portuguese Mauser than with my K31 lol, think it was just a good day with the 98K.

I agree, I'm thoroughly spoiled, and I really feel for those that can only shoot at ranges under other people's ideas of how they should be shooting. In Victoria you need to get out into public land and find a spot where you can shoot, but such spots can be hard to find, and can be a real slog to get in and out of when you do find them. Much better to find a friendly farmer.

I sort of compared my three Ruger .22's over a long period but they essentially shoot the same. I can see value in trying to shoot better every time you go out with the same rifle, I can't see any value in trying to shoot the Carcano or SMLE's as well as the M96 and M38 Swede, it's just not going to happen. It might be possible to shoot the M96 as badly as an SMLE, on an SMLE's really good day, and a Swede's really bad day, but I don't think I've managed it. I've shot them enough to know already how they rank

Like the Top Gear chart, and firearm tests, the numbers are specific to the test. Put the cars around a different circuit layout, or use them in a different situation, like towing a caravan from Lancashire to Spain for a week's holiday, or commuting every morning and afternoon in peak hour London traffic for a week, and they would stack up very differently. The test where they put different drivers in the same car is a better one I think, but it still favours drivers that drive on, or as if they're on, racetracks, or drive in similar cars to the test vehicle.

I was looking at my ammo last night and discovered a batch of test loads I made in 7.62x54R for testing in the M91/30, but never got around to it. The 150gn Hornady SP on increasing charges. I must've had some idea of doing a proper load development for it for some reason and I guess covid derailed it. I might bring that out next time we're shooting the SMLE's. Might be worth trying it with the 174's as well, but the rifle really kicks my shoulder around with anything approaching full-noise loads.