The Hunter Marksman Challenge - use your hunting rifle!

geologist said:
Does a 1907 sling count as "supported"?
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How I think about "supported" is that you are resting the forend/magazine of the rifle on something. My philosophy on a sling is that it is fine to wrap yourself up for your unsupported positions as this is super-quick to do and highly likely you could accomplish this for many many hunting scenarios. So feel free to sling up!

B
 
Brobee said:
Would love to read about your .243 experience in contrast to your GSR (suspect this will sound like the ultimate Ruger ad :)), and maybe if we're super-lucky we might get to see a pic of your rifle in the setting of your range?

My buddy ran one of his challenges with his GSR...he had mega-grief with his mag and it cost him a lot in the time department (I think it flustered up his hits too)...neat to see that you have yours totally ironed out and were able to just crank away on the bolt. Also liked reading about your multi-tasking position changes...:)

B
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Lol... "Ruger Ad".....

In this case, my "range" is an open field with an old dilapidated abandoned barn in it...... I stapled my target to the broad side of it, that way I was sure to hit something :)

I should actually be able to video the next one, as it will be a sight in trip and I won't be hunting I could carry my little video camera and a tripod in with me.....
 
Well I just loaded up 50rds for my 30-30. I think I will have to give this a try tommrow.
Can I fill the mag or do I have to single load?
 
Superbrad said:
Lol... "Ruger Ad".....

In this case, my "range" is an open field with an old dilapidated abandoned barn in it...... I stapled my target to the broad side of it, that way I was sure to hit something :)

I should actually be able to video the next one, as it will be a sight in trip and I won't be hunting I could carry my little video camera and a tripod in with me.....
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The dilapidated barn - ha! That made me laugh-out-loud, would make for an awesome pic to see. Excited to see your video of the .243.
 
regulate34 said:
Well I just loaded up 50rds for my 30-30. I think I will have to give this a try tommrow.
Can I fill the mag or do I have to single load?
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Can't imagine you would be single loading when you go out hunting, so have at her and plug that tube right full!

Cheers, and thanks for participating, can't wait to read/see how you make out.

Brobee
 
Brobee said:
Can't imagine you would be single loading when you go out hunting, so have at her and plug that tube right full!

Cheers, and thanks for participating, can't wait to read/see how you make out.

Brobee
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I got apatute sights on th 30-30. I'll bring along a scoped rifle as well.
 
Brobee said:
The dilapidated barn - ha! That made me laugh-out-loud, would make for an awesome pic to see. Excited to see your video of the .243.
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Oddly enough, I have one..... One of my favourite places to be..... Have actually shot coyotes out of it...... It's the leaning over thing on the left..... There is actually an old abandoned school bus behind it as well..... Both have seen lots of .224 and .30 cal...... Lol

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Just curious on the share root scoring idea Brobee... Obviously if you take longer, the square root would be bigger.....

For the record, this was a awesome challenge and I plan on using this going forward..... It completely helps me practice with a hunting rig, and while i will never take ten shots on a game animal, it sure helps simulate the heavy breathing / rush you could get in that situation......

Really tempted to try this before work again tomorrow with my .223.......
 
Superbrad said:
Just curious on the share root scoring idea Brobee... Obviously if you take longer, the square root would be bigger.....

For the record, this was a awesome challenge and I plan on using this going forward..... It completely helps me practice with a hunting rig, and while i will never take ten shots on a game animal, it sure helps simulate the heavy breathing / rush you could get in that situation......

Really tempted to try this before work again tomorrow with my .223.......
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The idea on using the square root of your time rather than just your raw time is as follows:

1. shrink the divisor in the equation (make you divide by a smaller number)
2. Make the time relationship non-linear.

For example, using the square root approach, someone who booms off the challenge in 10 seconds through their semi would be dividing their (hits x 100) by 3.16, and someone taking 100 seconds would be dividing by 10. There is only a 3.16x difference between the two. Compare this to just using the raw times, where there is a 10x difference between 10 seconds and 100 seconds. IMHO, this approach would create a better balance in weighting between speed and accuracy.

.223, .243, .308, 30-30, 300winmag...all your guns are welcome! Also agree that a real hunting situation would never require the complete 10 round string, but it might require you to make a couple of shots and change position in-between them with your heart pounding while you do! Glad you found it fun and useful, and thrilled you will be practicing it more as that is my total motivation...get folks practicing up and off the bench.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
I agree that the time factor is too heavy...... But what a great test!....

Hell, if you get the divisor locked in, I would love to do it with my black powder..... But it is great as it is and certainly challenges the hunter.....

My score looks impressive at this point, but I wager it gets beat soon enough...... I also wager that the furthest rounds, especially the barely touching one were fom sitting unsupported.... Seriously, who would shoot that way?..... Lol..... I learned lots....
 
Superbrad said:
I agree that the time factor is too heavy...... But what a great test!....

Hell, if you get the divisor locked in, I would love to do it with my black powder..... But it is great as it is and certainly challenges the hunter.....

My score looks impressive at this point, but I wager it gets beat soon enough...... I also wager that the furthest rounds, especially the barely touching one were fom sitting unsupported.... Seriously, who would shoot that way?..... Lol..... I learned lots....
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Glad to read you are learning lots, reading that puts a big smile on my face. I would not wait at all for me to get my cr@p together on the ultimate scoring formula...run the challenge with as many different guns as you like with the objective being to shoot as well as you can as quickly as you can and finding that good balance between the two that makes you feel competent. Send me your number of hits, how long it took, and what kind of gun you used and I'll gleefully add another row into my big spreadsheet.

If I can get some traction with folks on the challenge, I'd also put it out there that running the challenge multiple times with the same gun on different days might also be revealing. It would help shooters develop a true understanding of the variability of their capabilities....for example on this specific test I grind out targets ranging form 6 to 10 hits with my average being about 9 to 9.5. I have a pretty good idea about what types of internal (within myself, such as "I'm really tired", "I don't feel well", "all stressed out at work", "I-just-ran-2-miles-and-feel-like-I'm-going-to-die") and external (windy, cold, sunny, raining, I-just-got-a-new-gun-and-it's-not-quite-set-up-right) conditions will effect my shooting and how.

Hope to build a big data set, and I'll happily share some results!

Cheers,

Brobee
 
Run a separate category for muzzle loaders with time included. Will have to see how fast I can reload my flint lock!
 
Slimbo said:
Run a separate category for muzzle loaders with time included. Will have to see how fast I can reload my flint lock!
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Oh I long to see a video from that exercise, as 10 rounds through the muzzle loader would make for AWESOME smoke and flame! Would love to grind some statistics for the muzzle loading crowd, so please bring it on.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
Far too many questions (thread in general not this page), far too little shooting, just shoot and tell us the caveats after. :)

Brad, nice work. I'll have to do this when I go back north in a couple weeks. I'll be doing trades shows until then and while there are plenty of 100m sight lanes available, shooting is discouraged.
 
I was able to copy a target from the latest link, but it is only 19cm diameter. I will use it anyways. After watching Brobee's video, I am not sure
that I can sit cross-legged like that anymore. How about if I sit on a block of wood or would that be unfair to the others who have already posted?:confused:
 
Robert Nicholson said:
I was able to copy a target from the latest link, but it is only 19cm diameter. I will use it anyways. After watching Brobee's video, I am not sure
that I can sit cross-legged like that anymore. How about if I sit on a block of wood or would that be unfair to the others who have already posted?:confused:
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Re target diameter - some printers scale the original file so it can fit within their printable margins. :( If you want a super-accurate 20cm bull I am totally ok with a hand drawn one, a cut down pie plate, cut out construction paper, an extra 0.5cm drawn all the way around your scaled down printed off target, whatever it takes to get you out to shoot one!

As per sitting - I am pretty (make that really) flexible with respect to what should 'be allowed'...how about we use a dictionary-ish definition of sitting which only requires that your weight be put on your butt. So if you want to sit in a chair or sit on a log that is a-ok. This would make shooting from a traditional zeroing bench ok for sitting supported, and for sitting supported all you would need to do is not have your elbows or rifle resting on the bench.

The spirit is to get as many folks as possible to try shooting their guns (and then maybe even practice!) from some field positions something akin to what they would experience in a variety of hunting conditions rather than the idea setting of the sandbagged, bipod-ed, lead-sledded bench exercises that we see so much of in all our "0.5MOA prove it!" challenges.

Would love to read about the results of your effort.

Cheers, and thanks!

Brobee
 
Ardent said:
Far too many questions (thread in general not this page), far too little shooting, just shoot and tell us the caveats after. :)

Brad, nice work. I'll have to do this when I go back north in a couple weeks. I'll be doing trades shows until then and while there are plenty of 100m sight lanes available, shooting is discouraged.
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Agree that there is a somewhat disappointing low level of participation, and I suspect my poor timing (february) might have something to do with this.

I also wonder if there might also be somewhat of a psychological effect working against "participation". I would speculate that a lot of people like to think of themselves as good at something, and it's deflating to the ego to go out and prove to yourself that your skill is not what you would like it to be. It might also be generally difficult to admit/present evidence of low skill level in a public community venue.

Because of this I think my "challenge" will suffer poor participation despite my efforts to get people to buy into the great news that once they shoot the challenge and uncover where skills could use improvement, a bit of practice can upgrade these skills considerably. Ultimately that's what I want the challenge to really be about - celebrating improvement.

It's also going to present a fascinating study of selection bias. I've drug a bunch of my friends, all gun enthusiasts who shoot reasonably regularly, out to shoot the challenge and am amassing a pretty good sample set of folks who I've personally witnessed their scores. When compared against the sample set that comes from the great anonymous internet, it will be really interesting to see whether or not there is noticeable variation between the two populations (scores I have seen shot vs scores submitted on the internet).

Anyway, enough of me ranting! I'm grateful that you might have time to participate once your trade shows are done, and would love to see a couple runs with your different guns that I've enjoyed reading about so much over the years. I'm going to get out this weekend and run the challenge again, this time with my new CZ550 Ebony in 30-06.

Cheers,

Brobee
 
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