[cparker]

Hello everyone,

I apologize if this is the wrong forum, but I want to run this by you all since I know we have many members who shoot reduced course Highpower and service rifle. I am trying to stand up a program at our local club essentially from scratch. We have 200 and 300 yard facilities but no pits. I think that we would get some interested shooters, but also some who do not know anything about across the course and aren't equipped for it. We have no equipment to loan out.

Can anyone give me guidance on how best to begin? We'd like to have a relaxed but well run match program. All help and advice is much appreciated!

Thanks

C Parker

 

[Lennyo3034]

We recently started up these matches at my club, which is limited to 100 yards. They called it a sporter rifle match instead of service rifle and basically anyone with a rifle could shoot in it. They did at least seperate the irons shooters vs scoped rifles, although the guys with irons always beat out the scoped rifles. Scoring was done by simply walking down and scoring the targets between strings.

 

[andyh1956]

that's the way we do it also, "target detail down range!" but i can tell you, the center of that 600 yd reduced target sure is small!
andy

 

[Ted Brown]

Way back in the 1970's the 100 yard course was given a lot of emphasis by Dean Alley, the west coast NRA rep. We used the 100 yard HP program to generate interest in service rifle shooting and it is still going strong today.

I've fired 200 and 300 yard reduced courses and they can be a lot of fun, but they do require a pit. The 100 yard match can be shot without a pit and the course can be shot streight through with all targets on one board. Most set ups have a sighter target and a record target set up for each stage. It's easy and fun and most times can be shot within a very short time frame.

The NRA has all the info and 100 yard reduced targets are cheap.

 

[Bamban]

To facilitate easy shot resolution, cut out the center of the boards, about the size of the SR target black. A few feet behind target frames set up poles a few feet apart (in between target frames) and string two paracord lines parallel from end to end of the targets. On those lines hang some old nef sheets directly behind each target.

This arrangement served out club well and it did the other club where we shoot 300 yards. The holes shining with white background allows the shooters to spot their holes even at 300 regardless of the quality of their spotting scopes.

 

[sac troop]

I ran a reduced distance Highpower course at my local range for about three years.
I would recommend using the 100 yrd. course of fire.
a. You said you will be attracting new shooters
b. You have no pits. Yes you can run a 200/300 yrd. reduced match without pits but the time it takes to complete the course will drive people away. As you get the matches established it becomes possible to run some special matches where you take advantage of the 200 and 300 lines but I'd stay away from trying to conduct a 50 or 80 round match beyond 100 yards without pits.

Lennyo3034 started out his matches the same way I did. The NRA sporting rifle match is less complicated to run and people are less intimidated about trying it. Once we got a following we expanded the matches to run two different ones. It got to the point where some very good HighPower shooters would shoot our 100 yard reduced course because the MR31 target can be good practice and the wind isn't much of a consideration in working out problems at 100 yards.

 

[rscalzo]

We run our CMP matches at one hundred yards. while we have a 300 yard range, the target frames allowed no more than a few targets to be hung at any one time.

Travel to and from the frames added to the time. We returned to the one hundred yard format since then.

 

[Ezekiel]

At 300 yards you have 3/4 of the true match distanced covered, not too bad!

Contact the NRA and they have info for running reduced course matches. What you will be doing is hosting a walk and paste match. These matches may take a little time but are fun and good exercise. If it's a full 800 agg, this will take some time. If it's a national match course of fire, it should be a reasonable amount of time.

If the NRA does not help, contact the CMP. The goal of the CMP is to teach and support citizens how to shoot.