Interesting day at the range

[RJW NZ]

I escaped my chores for an annual day off shooting, so I grabbed a buddy and enfields and off we went to a club range out in the countryside, a few miles north of Auckland, Riverhead Deer Stalkers Association. I've always liked it because as you drive down into the little green valley they have it looks like one of those 19th century British ranges, white picket fences around the fields and a few tents and deck chairs where shooters were having a 200 yard contest, all it needed was a few parasols and gin and tonics, and take away the gumboots.
We were there mainly to sight in on a 25 yard range, and to make things go bang. I had four different target patterns, and we took along a .22 Lithgow hornet, a 1918 stock standard no1mk3, a1907 no1 target rifle with H barrel and plus5 aperture front and rear sights, and a fultons no1mk3 target rifle with a PH5a aperture rear sight. None had been seriously out to play before so most initial shots were up to 18 inches off target at 25 yards. No wonder we couldn't hit the tin cans down on the farm!
I'd been scrounging up ammo for the last year, and the quality went from cleaned up green corroded cases to some of that fine south african stuff marked from the 1980's. I picked out the average clean surplus 1940's CAC mk7 ammo, save the rest for later.
This was mostly just a fun day to introduce my buddy to proper organized shooting at targets. Although he's a bit of a novice shooter, I'd noticed he is a fierce concentrator when shooting and has a tendency to be a bloomin good shot, which he proved by putting all the bullets inside the 2 inch bull over and over, once we knew where they were going! Big grins all around, so my aim of a good day out, and on a beautiful blue crisp winters day too, was achieved.
After we'd got them dialed in, Tony commented that out of the four patterns we were using some were easier and others harder to get clear views of. We did this next; we put each of four targets out there, and with one rifle put 5 rounds in each one, changed rifles and targets and then did the same again, until we'd put all enfields through each type of target pattern.
What we found was that certain rifles, with the different sights on each, gave more accurate shooting depending only on the target pattern changing.

The .22 hornet with scope and duplex reticle gave best results on the archery type multi ringed bulls eye, but less so on the others.
The Fulton with PH5a gave best on the one I've called fillets (see pics)
The 1907 with plus5 front and rear aperture was best on the one called squares
and the stock enfield sights were also very good on fillets.

Now I don't know yet if this is conclusive of anything, except that perhaps when I'm inaccurate on some types of targets that I should be hitting, like 24 inch gongs at 400, perhaps its the way my eyes work with the sights on certain shapes, more than me being a crappy shot. It might be a way to build my own confidence to choose certain shapes initially for distance shooting to have a better chance of getting hits.

I've put the targets here in case others want to try this out, we tossed all the used paper, it was shot to bits, but I wonder if anyone has has similar results to report. I wonder if we'll be able to say conclusively that ' aperture sights works best on target type XX', or that stock sights work best on XXX.
The best average was fillets and the worst average was mildot.
.22 hornet= bullseye
Fulton/5a = fillets
1907 aperture front and rear = squares
Stock no1mk3 = fillets
I called the targets as you see them here, squares, fillets, mil-dot and bullseye.
by the way, I got all of these target shapes from image/google search for targets, EZ, and enlarged them at the local library from A4 to A3.

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[smellie]

A real fun read there; sounds as if you had a great time.

I handload, of course, because I can turn out my own stuff that shoots better than factory and do it half-price, too. There still is some War Two stuff around here but none made since '45; once a nasty case of peace broke out, production went 'way down and the Government factory reverted to those awful corrosive primers. The wartime Defence Industries stuff is good but, being honest, it is a bit past its prime. We have found that we often can improve it by bumping the bullets back about 1/32 to 1/16 of an inch; just enough to break the casing seal and give better shot-start. But most of those primers are older than I am and the Gummint is so worried about my health that they send me a cheque every month just for not dying. I figure the primers might not be all that healthy after that length of time, although they still would be just fine for area shooting and, likely, for combat. But for real precision they are a bit past it. So I handload.

Have you tried a single black 4-inch square at 100? We find that you can shoot these two ways: put the whole square on top of your front sight, or just use a single corner of it. IF your ammo is good enough, you can shoot a couple of groups on each target (theoretically four, of course) and still keep things straight. I use the same idea for the Garand, just put the backsight out 2 clicks (1 MOA each) and aim at the corner of the target with the opposing corner of the front sight: nice group right in the middle. This is using bottom LH corner of target, top RH corner of front sight. Garand in competition also shoots very well if you do it like this because you are not aiming at the target, but at an infintesimal point beside the target. Tightens things up.

But you sure had a good time! I'm planning on stealing some of your targets and giving them a try here.