Thread: I encourage you to give Club Target Shooting a go

As many of you may likely know, I do a reasonable amount of shooting, all revolving around hunting of various descriptions, from longer range rabbit shooting with the 17 Hornet to deer hunting at mostly medium to longer ranges, the average range of deer I shoot these days is over 500 yards. I also do a bit of longer range shooting practice out to 1000 yards and a little beyond for validation and practice for the LR deer hunting, and because it's fun.

So all in all a fair amount of trigger time, however, I've never done any sort of proper target shooting of any type barring a couple of school trips to the indoor small bore range back in the old Palmy North school days.

My Father in law who i do a bit of LR hunting with, recently got into some F Class LR Target shooting with his home club in the Wairarapa, which he has been really enjoying and likes sharing the details with me. A couple of months ago he came up to visit us here in the H Bay and he went along to shoot a Club day here at the HB Rifle club (was a 600 yard shoot) so he dragged me along with him and I shot a couple of 10 shot rounds with two of his rifles, and I didn't embarrass myself, from memory i shot a slighter better score than he did that day (beginners luck) and I quite enjoyed the shoot and a bloody good bunch of fellas there too and very welcoming.

Anyway at short notice end of last week, my FIL said he was coming up for a long weekend and he was going to shoot the last club day of the season at the HB Rifle Club again on the Sat arvo, this time it was a 300 yard shoot. The are set up to shoot either 300, 600 or 1000 yards on a seperate range out there.

This time I was quite keen to have a shoot with one of my own rifles, in this current environment of powder and component shortages I wasn't keen to burn up my good powder or projectiles that i normally use for my main hunting rifles, so after looking at what spare components i had sitting unused in the cupboard I decided to use what I call my 'bitsa' which is Rem Model 7 6.5 Creed, made up from a bunch of old 2nd hand parts purchased very cheaply.

It started life as an old and somewhat tired Rem model 7 260 rem, that was purchased off the forum many years ago now, it's now fitted with a 24" Rem 700 takeoff barrel in 6.5 Creed that I also purchased off the forum for bugger all. Me and my FIL did the barrel swap ourselves in his shed with very limited proper tools, but it ended up headspacing perfectly. The barreled action is fitted into an old B&C hunting stock also purchased cheaply off the forum. I threw an old 3-15x42 Weaver Superslam onto it, which was the very first dialing LR scope i ever purchased a few years back.

The ammo i used i only threw together very quickly the week before when i took my 8 year old son and a good mate to the local 400 yard range to do some plinking over the school holidays. I had a couple of boxes of old Sierra 120gr Prohunters, which are soft lead point, flat-based bullets, great hunting bullets, but in this day and age of high BC sleek wind-cheating ballistic tip fancy pants target type bullets, these things are dinosaurs ;-)

I had a a bottle of 2208 here which i havnt used for years, it was the powder i started handloading with for my very first hunting rifle, a cheap plastic fantastic Marlin XS7 7mm-08.

So after looking at some load data in Ref books and online i decided to load 1 gr under book max and simply seated the bullets to where they looked right in the neck. I got lucky and they shot reasonably well at 300 and 400 that me and my mate were plinking at a couple of weekends ago, so i deceided to make up some more of that load and use at the 300 yards club shoot weekend just gone. I wasnt feeling that comfortable turning up to a shoot like this with a load i knew i'd just thrown together with no development knowing i could likely get it shooting a bit better, but i had no time for that, it'd have to do.

Upon arriving at the club shoot and seeing all the very fancy looking rifles, scopes, wide target bipods, front rests, and proper target shooting rear bags i was feeling slightly out of my depth knowing what i was about to pull out and use, but all the guys are down to earth good buggers so it was no biggie.

So after sitting back and watching nearly all of the others shoot first it was my turn to pull out my underwhelming looking banger and get setup on the shooting line. I had my normal harris bipod with its spikes like i normally use when shooting prone when hunting, for a rear rest i used what i normally use if shooting off the bench at the range, which is an old bank cash bag filled with cat litter with a cable tie to close the bag off, which an old mate round the corner gave me and ive continued to use, always thinking i should probably get round to getting something more fit for purpose but never have.

All setup and time to shoot, the range runs along a gully with various other little gullies running off it, the wind can be a bit tricky i think, there are 4 wind flags at various points between the shooting line and the target, and they can all be doing something a little different at times, im sure the good guys can really work out whats going on, but i just tried to work out an average of the winds effects, and apply a wind correction, you are allowed two sighter shots, then 10 scoring rounds, if any of your sighter shots are good you can use them for scoring shots.

They have an electronic target system fitted to the targets, and you can link your tablet up to the wifi network and IP address to display the target directly onto your screen and see each shot get plotted via the electronic system, all very clever and common for this type of shooting it seems. It's pretty cool.

So with each shot you can see where you hit and make scope adjustments or hold off for wind etc to suit, all good and well in a constant wind, but as we all know wind is often up and down like a yoyo, it not only effects your horizontal but vertical as well as it blows up a slope.

My shooting didn't seem to go too bad, once I got in the grove and the impacts in the centre I tried to shoot pretty quick before the wind conditions changed too much. I ended up shooting a score of 58.6 which by all accounts is not too bad, and as it turned out only one other shooter shot a better score, which i of course was quite happy with considering my equipment.

For my second round, I used my bog stock 18" barreled 223 with 55gr hunting loads, with only a 10x scope. I wasn't going too bad with it until the now switching wind gave me a sharp lesson in paying close attention to ALL of the flags, the wind had been left to right the whole time, partway thru my 2nd session one of the flags had started to flick back the other way and i missed seeing it, and I ended up flinging a couple out to the left dropping points.

I can see how even very small shifts in the wind can well and truly sort the men out from the boys, even at just 300 yards.

I thoroughly enjoyed the shooting and the social side of yarning with the other guys and can see why my FIL and another mate down south both enjoy this type of target shooting, the challenge of beating the wind and striving for that 60 score.

So to conclude my story, if you have even thought about giving this type of target shooting a go, but may have been concerned about not having the right gear for the job etc, don't worry about it. Use what you have and touch base with your local Target Rifle Club and get out there and give it a go. Sounds like many of these clubs have 'club rifles' that you are able to use as well, the local HB club has one for newbies to use, where you just pay $40 for the ammo, plus your range fee of $10, all sounds very reasonable to me.

For anyone local to the Hawkes Bay here is more info and contact details for the local club https://www.sporty.co.nz/hbrc/ Most clubs have just finished their season now and will be kicking off again in September, so you've got the winter to prepair and get organised.

It's bloody good fun and will no doubt improve skill levels for your other shooting activities too.

A couple of pics from the HBRC shoot on Sat arvo.





My 'Bitsa' and my cat litter filled cash bag rear rest

Most of us like flash gear as much as the next person, but usually it's the nut behind the trigger as you have demonstrated. I'd love a custom action in a MDT chassis with a Nightforce scope but that won't help my score much!

It's also one of the reasons I like .22LR and air rifle... put in the the fundamentals of being a good multi positional shooter at a low cost. I am always humbled when seeing the paper target scores, and it's a declining skill - so if I don't practice regularly, my scores go down.

The other thing I forgot to mention, is with all the new shooting regulations coming in affecting ranges etc, and where and what we can shoot, it seems obvious to me that at some point in time we may have to further justify why we have a FAL and firearms etc, being a member of some kind of club/national body may well help with this.

I think that if all of us FAL holders were to be either a member of either NZDA or some type of legit shooting club it may well somehow help with a bit more weight of numbers of people getting behind the cause to retain as many of our shooting rights as possible.

Food for thought

Yep, GWH far from disgraced himself with the ole' Crudmore He does however need to experience 1000yds when the wind gets up..

For those that haven't seen electronic targets in action, it's quite educational and enjoyable. Gone are the days when you have to bugger about with manual targets.

Originally Posted by 6x47

Yep, GWH far from disgraced himself with the ole' Crudmore He does however need to experience 1000yds when the wind gets up..

For those that haven't seen electronic targets in action, it's quite educational and enjoyable. Gone are the days when you have to bugger about with manual targets.

How much margin of error do you have with the electronic targets? I'm worried if I fudge a shot I'll end up with a humoungus bill.

You'll be fine as long as you have a half-reasonable elevation and don't make a total hash of the wind guess. The corner mics are a good three mins offset in elevation -and- windage from the centre.

This may be the kiss of death but we have yet to shoot a mic on our range.

Originally Posted by 6x47

Yep, GWH far from disgraced himself with the ole' Crudmore He does however need to experience 1000yds when the wind gets up..

For those that haven't seen electronic targets in action, it's quite educational and enjoyable. Gone are the days when you have to bugger about with manual targets.

From you, I will def take that as a compliment ;-)

Both Lou and I really enjoyed shooting with you guys and really look forward to a shoot on the 1,000 yd range, it looks a real hard case shooting from inside those boxes. I've had a play in some pretty windy conditions before out to 1,000 and it sure raises the complexity level that's for sure.

I got lucky with this first-round hit on this little rock after really thinking hard about the strength of the wind coming down this gully, this was with my 28 Nosler pushing 195's at 3,100 fps though, so a little easier than say a 284 win at 1000, trying to do this 10 times in a row with a up and down wind would be a whole different story i bet.

Greetings All,
Thanks for your post @GWH. I have been trying to push range shooting comps for some time but with little success. I went up to Taupo on Sunday to shoot a 200 metre match. Regrettably the body triumphed over my good intentions and I was unable to shoot some of the positions. While I was there there were considerably more people wanting to zero their rifles than for the shoot. Some of them did not look like hunters. I would dearly love to shoot F class but unfortunately for me shooting prone is out of the question. Some of the clubs have benches to allow some of the aged and infirm to shoot but currently, in HB to my knowledge, only the gravel pit has a bench much over 100 metres but for how much longer. It would seem that there are large number of empty nesters and seniors like me would like to shoot some sort of competition but not much is available. I will try and make contact with the Hawkes Bay Rifle club over the off season to see if I can help.
Regards Grandpamac.

Most target shooting clubs welcome visitors and will help the visitor with their shooting.

For NRANZ affiliated clubs there a hunter class which generally accommodates the hunting rifle.
Visitors often out shoot the locals at their first attempt.

You don't have to have the lastest greatest most expensive kit.
You're competing against yourself in the first instance.

Originally Posted by Cyclops

Most target shooting clubs welcome visitors and will help the visitor with their shooting.

For NRANZ affiliated clubs there a hunter class which generally accommodates the hunting rifle.
Visitors often out shoot the locals at their first attempt.

You don't have to have the lastest greatest most expensive kit.
You're competing against yourself in the first instance.

I see it as competing against the wind ;-) with wind conditions obviously being variable and often being different for the various shooters, it's not totally a level playing field. I'm picking i shot my first 10 rounds in more favorable wind conditions than others may have had. Whereas my 2nd session when i moved to the 223, the wind started switching direction on me and my lack of experience i missed seeing that on one of the flags, so thats something for me to work on for next time.

Is the Hunter class what they call F-PR?

I shoot at the Otorohanga NRA club, 300 to 1000 yards.
Good bunch of guys and girls.
Bring what you have and have a crack.
Equipment helps but practice and familiarity with you firearm helps more in my experience.


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Look up NZNRA rules for info on the various classes. Pretty well all hunting centrefire would fit FPR as front and rear bags are allowed. However true Hunter Class has a rifle weight limit 9.2lbs I think including max scope power 10X and sling. Shoot off pack is ok but no rear bag. FTR is different again. The main thing to keep in mind is go test yourself and enjoy; then think about being competative a bit later.

Thee is NO issue in most fullbore clubs with someone who needs to shooting off a bench. We have one HB member who does this. Hell, I can even supply something suitable if it comes to it Grandpamac

Originally Posted by GWH

I see it as competing against the wind ;-) with wind conditions obviously being variable and often being different for the various shooters, it's not totally a level playing field. I'm picking i shot my first 10 rounds in more favorable wind conditions than others may have had. Whereas my 2nd session when i moved to the 223, the wind started switching direction on me and my lack of experience i missed seeing that on one of the flags, so thats something for me to work on for next time.

Is the Hunter class what they call F-PR?

You're right about the wind.
It is the shooter versus the environment, that's the first competition.

I started with a 223, in light to moderate winds the 223 is similar to a 308 (with 80gr handloads for the 223).
In heavier winds the 223 will struggle.

It is a challenge, especially for shooters like me who are nearly blind.
But it is great when you get it right.

F-PR and Hunter class are different.
NRANZ shooting rules are available of the NRANZ website NRANZ Shooting Rules

Originally Posted by 6x47

Thee is NO issue in most fullbore clubs with someone who needs to shooting off a bench. We have one HB member who does this. Hell, I can even supply something suitable if it comes to it Grandpamac

Thats awesome, i look forward to meeting you at a club shoot from September on @grandpamac