Heffley Creek Black Powder Silhouette and gong shoot.

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gunlaker

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Hi,

Last weekend was the Heffley Creek Black Powder Silhouette and gong shoot. It was a great time. For any of you guys that have the chance to attend next year I'd highly recommend it. There were a lot of great people there and plenty of great shooting. Thanks to Neil and Don for putting on a great shoot.

I've been sent a bunch of pictures to post on the web which you can find here. The layout is a bit ugly but I'll improve the aesthetics of the site over time ;)

http://www.bcsingleshot.com/HeffleyCreek2013.html

If you have additional pictures of the event I can add them, just send me a "pm" on this site.

thanks,

Chris.
 
Many thanks for the photos. I wish I had time plus a place to practice for those sort of ranges. (plus I am a lousy offhand shot :>( ) I have always been to Heffley at the end of August and it is certainly striking how green the range is right now

cheers mooncoon
 
That was my first time at longer ranges. Those chickens were pretty tricky little guys for sure. My offhand shooting was definitely better on Friday and Saturday. I was completely chickenless on the last day :). I plan on a lot more off hand shooting this year. I've been neglecting it while teaching myself how to shoot prone.

Chris.
 
ruger22 said:
Thanks, nice photos...

What are the distances?

Is it all black powder?

Be nice to know the rules, popular rifles, and popular calibers....

thanks again...
Click to expand...

Yessir, all black powder. The silhouette portion uses the rules made by the NRA for BPCR silhouette. Chickens are off hand at 200m, the rest are shot from crossed sticks. The pigs are at 300m, turkeys are 385m, and the rams at 500m. For the gong shoot there is a square gong at 500m which was shot off hand, and the 600m, 700m, and 800m gongs are shot from a sitting position over cross sticks.

It is a pile of fun. The targets get larger as they get farther away so are easy to see in the aperture sights. I think the 800m gong is about 6 feet in diameter :). We had very clear air, good enough that I could watch bugs on the turkeys with a 20 power spotting scope. The main thing with increased distance is the wind. On day one, later in the day when the wind picked up, I had about 10moa of windage for the rams on my .45-70. Th next day I shot rams first thing in the morning and had zero windage for the first few targets.

The matches are shot with a shooter and a spotter working as a team. I think the spotting job is at least as demanding as the shooting. I came without a spotter and was paired up with a really nice couple who taught me a lot about spotting and managing my equipment in general. There are a lot of little details that matter when you are limited by time.

For silhouette you get 7 minutes for as many sighter shots as you want and then 5 consecutive shots for score on the first bank of 5 silhouettes. Then you get 5 minutes with no sighters for the second bank. Yo have to keep careful track of which silhouette target you are shooting at. I hit a ram out of order the first day ( I'd missed a ram and then shot at it again with my next shot rather than moving to the next ram) and as a result that one didn't count and I'd wasted a shot.

With respect to rifles and calibres you'd have to consult the rules as it gets a bit complicated, but mostly there were 1874 Sharps, 1885 Winchester, Remington Rolling Blocks, and Trapdoor rifles. I suspect that the most common cartridge was the .45-70. There were .45-90's there, I think a .40-65 or two, and a couple of .38-50 Remington Hepburn ( I want to give that cartridge a try one of these days ). Pretty much everyone had something a little different than the next guy. The "Money bullet" seemed quite popular though.

I used a Shiloh Sharps 1874 in .45-70 for the silhouettes, using 69gr of Goex Express FFg, and a Buffalo Arms 535gr Money bullet. For the gone shoot I used a C. Sharps 1874 in .45-110 loaded with 105gr of Goex Fg and a paper patched Buffalo Arms Money bullet.

I'd been meaning to get out to this shoot for years and I'm glad that I did. I can say that if you are a new guy there are plenty of friendly and helpful people there that'll help you get started.

Chris.
 
mooncoon said:
Many thanks for the photos. I wish I had time plus a place to practice for those sort of ranges. (plus I am a lousy offhand shot :>( ) I have always been to Heffley at the end of August and it is certainly striking how green the range is right now

cheers mooncoon
Click to expand...

It was a bit too green for my liking I think :). We had some really heavy rain the night before the gong shoot and it was tricky to spot the bullet splashes from a miss at 700m. We used two spotters per shooter to increase the odds.

Chris.
 
I haven't shot in that match but have shot the same range in August. I remember one year, the ground was quite damp from a recent rain and it was extremely difficult to spot misses on the rams. I shoot a 38-56 with a 300 grain bullet (faster than normal twist barrel) and they were more or less not visible on longer range targets while the 45 caliber bullets could be seen in the spotting scope (the moving bullet as opposed to where it struck). Also in my limited experience, you need a 300 grain bullet to be certain of a ram falling over at 4 or 500 yards. I shot a 32-40 with a 210 grain bullet one year (again a fast twist barrel) and hit one hard set ram twice without knocking it down You could hear the strike and see the mark so it was a definite hit. What I found really difficult about spotting was when a bullet went just under the pig or just over the back. More or less in both cases I could see the bullet arching down towards the pig and a spray of dirt but it was really difficult to tell if the bullet was slightly high or slightly low; the low strikes still sprayed dirt and debris above the back of the pig

cheers mooncoon
 
I imagine that "hard to see" misses must be the biggest disadvantage with the 38's eh? I would like to try a .38-50 Remington Hepburn in a 1:12 twist barrel one day ( actually I have a #4 Green Mountain barrel for it ). The misses on my .45-110 were very easy to spot fortunately. I was using a 540gr bullet at 1360fps so it moves a lot of dirt :). My first shots at the 500m gong didn't need a spotter. I just watched the impact and dialed down the elevation.

How do you like your .38-56? I have a Winchester 1886 chambered for that cartridge and it sure is pleasant to shoot. Not much rifling left in the old girl though :). I imagine it'd make a dandy single shot cartridge and brass is easy to form.

Thanks,

Chris.
 
gunlaker said:
How do you like your .38-56? I have a Winchester 1886 chambered for that cartridge and it sure is pleasant to shoot. Not much rifling left in the old girl though :). I imagine it'd make a dandy single shot cartridge and brass is easy to form.
Click to expand...

I like the cartridge; it is a necked down 45-70 and holds around 60 or so grains of powder compared to about 45 - 50 in a 38-55. I deliberately put a long throat in my gun (remington rolling block) so that most of the bullet is in the throat. I use a round nosed 300 gr slug with lots of narrow grease grooves. I like it because there is minimal recoil and the bullet weight is still enough to knock over a ram at 500 meters. I keep saying that I am going to make a 40 cal rifle soon but the usual shortage of round to-its. One of my first BP cartridge rifles was a 45-120 but I sold it after a couple of years. It was a Farmingdale rifle with very shallow rifling for paper patches and very well made and accurate with PP bullets but just too much recoil for my liking. Also the shells were expensive $2 each at that time and hard to find vs 45-70 shells which were and are cheap like borscht

cheers mooncoon
 
Hi Chris !

Thank you for the pictures !

Some day I will go and bring my Shiloh Sharps 45-90 to shoot besides you !

For the time being, I use to shoot as often as I can at a military base near Quebec city (600 yards).

I also shoot one a year at the DCRA BP annual competition at the Connaught ranges near Ottawa (up to 1,000 yards) !

Some day I will ride my RV up to BC.

Have great shooting times !


Gerald Bergeron m.d Quebec city
 
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