A Good Story

[Kentucky Colonel]

I read this and thought of you guys. I saw it on Muzzleloaders Brotherhood FB:

I went to the range today with shorty just to piddle for a couple hours and lucked into finding 5 unbroken clay pigeons so I set a couple at 25 yards a couple at 50 and the last one at 100, on my way back to the bench a couple younger guys showed up with their AR15 rifles and all the tactical garb that goes with them and one fellow looks at shorty and tells his buddy "Oh he's shooting one of those old timey muzzleloaders", so I just grinned and nodded, they set up at the same distances that I did, 25, 50, and 100 with shoot and see targets, and the first 10 rounds out of one of them had a group the size of a trash can lid, maybe 5 hits inside a paper plate, and his buddy says "pretty good man", so I picked off one clay at 25, reloaded and picked off the other, I said nothing but had a grin, then they both shot at the 50 yard target and out of 20 rounds 7 were on the target, so I picked off one clay, reloaded and picked off the other, now they are looking at me like WTF, without a word I reloaded and settled in on the 100 yard clay and one of mutters to the other "No way in hell", well, yup, I smashed it, so I stand up and ask if the range was clear and they both nodded so I headed down range to collect my target and I heard one of them say "this guy is popping clays at 100 yards with a dinosaur gun and we can't even hit a target at 50 yards what the hell", I had to bite my lip while packing up to leave, I love it when people underestimate the accuracy and ability of traditional black powder rifles, the looks on their faces is priceless when they see just how good they can shoot. - Red Beckwith

 

[Randy Johnson]

Many years ago the local club had a league that required military style semi-autos with ten round magazines to participate. When it first started most of the competitors were guys who mostly practiced seeing how fast they could empty the magazines. At the time I had a Colt H-Bar, and because I was used to making the first shot count with a flintlock, the first few weeks of the league I was winning most of the time.

 

[strong eagle]

several years ago my wife and i visited her mother in rural n.dak. i brought along a hawken 50 cal round ball gun i just built. they had a new rifle range about a mile out side of the town she lived in. a man was sighting in his 300 mag weatherby scoped rifle. i got tighter groups at 100 yards than he did. it made him quite upset at his gun and at me. i loved it. my groups went in a 50 cent size groups. his were dere size groups. i could have figured out his twist and recommended the perfect bullet so his groups could be tight. however you cant right ever wrong you run across. it was a good moment. i gave that gun to my law enforcement son. he still has it and it has gotten a few deer since that time. thanks for your post.

 

[patocazador]

 a man was sighting in his 300 mag weatherby scoped rifle. i got tighter groups at 100 yards than he did. it made him quite upset at his gun and at me. 

I imagine that half of his problem was the gun. .300 Weatherbys kick like hell and are known for producing scope cuts around the eye or bridge of the nose. The extreme Monte Carlo stock doesn't help as it slaps the side of the cheek hard too.

He had probably shot the gun before and was flinching on every shot due to his past experience.

 

[Okie Hog]

Couple years ago I was at the Ft. Sill private weapons range.   One other person was on the rifle range.  The Army S/Sgt. was a nice guy:  He was shooting a high dollar AR-15 that was very accurate.   The rifle manufacturer had a monetary prize for the owner  who could shoot a better  five shot group than the one that came with the gun.   The NCO fired four rounds into about 3/8" at 100 meters.  At the fifth shot he said "crap".   There went his chance of winning.   

i was shooting my .54 Fire Hawk  loaded with the 250 grain SST.  Told the NCO:  "i'm going to put a big hole in the middle of your group."  He replied:  "You can't do it".  

But i did do it:  What luck!!!

 

[burlesontom]

Not a BP rifle story but one day I arrived at the range and a group of officers from the local federal prison were just packing up to leave. Two guys and three girls. The girls were qualifying with their ARs and had used all of the man shaped target except for the center 10 ring. So I asked the guys if it was OK to shoot their targets. They said Go ahead.

When I drug my little Marlin 357 rifle with open sights out of the case they decided to stay and watch. The range was 50 yards and the shots were off hand. I put my 9 shots into the 10 ring and only used half of it at that. Then I looked over and asked the main officer if I qualified. "You certainly did" he replied. I smoked them and their modern assault style rifle with a throw back cowboy gun. And I did it with no warm up shots either.

 

[Buck Conner1]

Now I know why he's called "Old Fish Breath" ....... 

Watched some of these kids at the range with their semi auto handguns holding them on their sides and firing several magazines of ammo and only hitting the target a couple times. 

A guy standing next to me said "we should show them how to shoot"! I looked at him and replied "they're doing just fine - and we're safer to let them shoot like this".

 

[patocazador]

I arrived at the range and a group of officers from the local federal prison were just packing up to leave.

I put my 9 shots into the 10 ring and only used half of it at that. Then I looked over and asked the main officer if I qualified. "You certainly did" he replied.

As a special deputy during the '70s I was required to qualify periodically along with the "real" deputies. We had to use .38 wadcutters for the qualification but could carry any "approved" weapon while on duty. The only .38 revolver I had at the time was a Colt Detective Special with a 2" barrel. 
Qualifying was 3 timed courses at 7 yds., and 25 yds. both right and left handed.

I beat 3/4 of the deputies there. After that I paid attention to how cops shot and the vast majority were very poor shots.
My SIL is a prison guard and has a tough time qualifying every year.

 

[Buck Conner1]

For 18 years I was a county deputy sheriff in northern Colorado and worked undercover security for the phone company with my regular duties for 15 years. We had similar qualifications required to meet each quarter. 

We lived on 300 acres with a combat/muzzleloader ranges setup that various police departments for a 100 miles around that had their cops come to our monthly shoots, and like you say most were very poor shots, only the swat teams were worth their salt.

It wasn't hard to beat the regular duty cops only the swat team guys were the ones you had any problem beating. Several of my friends and myself would reload during the week and shoot 500 round on the weekends. Many times local swat team guys would show up to shoot with us. 

I had a Seal Team One friend that ran our muzzleloading store (right hand missing - now with a silver hook and an inner ankle bone gone from Nam). He was right handed before being shot up, now shooting left handed and harder than hell to beat or equal him even with his hand-cap. A natural excellent shot.  8)

 

[heelerau]

I was once in the Australian Army Reserve, during IET training we had a section night shoot, ambush lights on for 20 seconds, fig 11 targets at about 20 m, we were all prone and had to empty our weapons into the target as quickly a possible. We were told by the Staff Sgt that we would be lucky to get more than 3 or 4 hits on the target. I was on the far right flank of the section, as the targets were scored as the Staff had said 3 or 4 hits, 5 was good. They got to me and counted 19, I said one was a double homer, Staff blew up and swore we had to have a re shoot. I had the Corporal screaming in my ear  and I still go 18 on target. I had been shooting service pistol for some years, so 20 rounds from a SLR in 20 seconds at that range was a snap !! My section still won the comp and the Corp was happy . I did see the Staff later to find out what his beef was. I had been trained as a kid by a WW2 musketry intructor (Dad) and trained to shoot at only what I could see and identify and make each round count .

 

[Kentucky Colonel]

"My section still won the comp and the Corp was happy . I did see the Staff later to find out what his beef was."


What was the beef?

 

[heelerau]

Apparently I should not have treated it as a competition, as the ambush light would have been shot out in the first few seconds, the idea is to saturate the area with bullets, or so he told me later. We still won !

 

[Buck Conner1]

.......... the idea is to saturate the area with bullets, 

That was and still is a problem even today, take a kid that knows how to shoot (use's his sights). Then teach him spray or saturate a target. He comes home and finds after a few years of doing what the military showed him, he puts away the single shot or bolt action and now needs a semi-auto with extra magazines for hunting. So much for the forgotten marksmanship skills he learned when young. Have hunted with guys when kids and years later found they did as mentioned, can't hit a cow in the butt in the barnyard. Sad ........

 

[Hanshi]

It was quite a few years ago but I still remember it vividly.  I was at the range when a few guys came up to the shooting line.  They seemed to all be teens or in their 20s.  One kid pulled out a nice Winny 94 30/30 and sat at a bench.  They had put up a deer (life size) target at the 100 yard berm.  I watched as this duffer fired five or six rounds at the target.  Apparently satisfied with himself, he went down and collected the target and brought it back to the firing line.  He was grinning like a possum, obviously elated at his marksmanship.  I looked at his target and there was one or two shots almost off the paper, one in the hoof and all but one of the shots hitting antler, hams, etc.  The reason he was so proud is that one shot just happened to be in the heart.  He then told the others he was ready to go after deer and didn't need to shoot anymore.  "Look at that", he said, "got him right through the heart at 100 yards".  All I could do was shake my head and hope I was never in the same woods with that moron.  I can still put 5 shots in the boiler room with my flintlock at 100 even though I'm nowhere as good as I once was.

 

[Buck Conner1]

Ditto .....