As you lay on the ground in a tight fitting shooting coat, cuddling with your rifle, you clutch a single round of ammunition in your hand, you go over a mental check list: Sling on tight? Rifle sights “zeroed”? Correct number of rounds to be shot at hand? Just then your concentration is broken by the range officer barking out “Ready on the left! Ready on the right! All ready on the firing line! You may fire on my command…fire” As you shoulder your rifle, the air is filled with the sounds of 223,308 and 30-06 rifles firing, but you hardly notice, looking through your sights, squeeze the trigger and you grin as the shot breaks because you just know you shot you first “X” of the day, now just 19 more shots to go, this is what you live for.
On July 28th, 10 competitors gathered at the Antwerp Conservation Club, to try there shooting skills in a 50 shot high power rifle match.
The course of fire is easy, from 150 yards,using reduced sized targets to look like 300 yards, you have 20 minutes to fire 20 shots ,slow prone (laying on the ground), then you fire 10 shots in 80 seconds, rapid prone,starting from standing, we moved forward to the 100 yard line, and fired 10 shots in 80 seconds rapid fire sitting,the match ends with 10 shots in 10 minutes fired offhand (standing unsupported).
With a best possible score of 500-50x (there is a small circle inside the 10 ring with an “X” in it, used for the tie breaker) several competitors shot in the “400’s” for there combined score.
This 50 shot rifle match is very similar to the matches held by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) With increasing firearms ownership, these rifle matches are growing in popularity at both the club level and at the National Match level.
Please visit antwerpconservationclub.com for more details on up coming matches.
