Happenings at Castlemaine

[Guest]

At our Australia Day shoot on 26th Jan. we included a field class. We got two entries. Not what you would call encouraging,however we went with it and afforded those two the best of Castlemaine hospitality.
Result was we got one new member and a possible second. We believe he is purchasing a TR to shoot F Class.
During the week following I received a phone call from a mate of the person who Joined up asking if I could fix a trigger on a falling block Ruger. I said bring it around and I will look at it, which he duly did on Thursday last. While he was there I showed him our F Class rifles, he was more than interested and turned up yesterday at the range for a shoot.
Using the club rifle and with a bit of help reading wind he proceeded to score 57/60 at 500 and 61/66 at 600.
We signed him up at the end of the day.
So, in one week with very little effort we gained two new members and a possible third, simply because we diverted a little from convention and sacrificed a little time and effort to help. It's that easy.
Both these new members are SSAA who were looking for something other than short range shooting. Like I said on another topic, there are literally hundreds of like persons out there, you just have to make the effort.
No effort, no gain.
Barry

[AlanF]

Great going Barry. We are getting some new F-Class members at Rosedale too.

I want to try to do a similar thing here to what you did with hunting rifles - we need to capitalise on the large number of deer and fox shooters in Gippsland. 500yds seems to be the right range for this sort of event - would suit most hunting scope setups don't you think?

Alan

[Guest]

Yes, 500 yards is about right. Usually they have "small " calibres and short barrels and usually have absolutely no idea what their rifles are capable of ( distance wise ) . To some it is a real eye opener just how far their rifles will shoot accurately. Once this registers they then want to have a go at longer distances,---as one of our new members said " it's addictive " and that's after one puff.
I would call a success rate of 25% rather good. The important thing is to not be put off by the failures, as curiosity is the number one reason they come in the first place.
Above all someone or someones have to be prepared to maybe forego their days shooting to concentrate on the visitor(s), big deal, one or two days in a lifetime is not much to give. This is where many clubs fall down badly, seen it many times, a prospective new member turns up and is virtually ignored, finally leaving, totally p'd off never to return.
The worst thing one can do is tell these prospective new members that they have to spend many thousands of dollars on equipment to be competitive---BS.
The club rifle we have is a stock standard omark with a 26" hammer forged barrel, a $400 tasco scope, good bipod, and good handloads. Will shoot well under a MOA. Cost less than $1000 to set up.
Once they ( the prospective members) realise that they can be competitive for around $1000 they are even more interested.
Not all can afford 4 0r 5 thousand dollars for a rifle so why frighten the s--t out of them first up.
Contrary to what some say, there is nought wrong with an Omark, and there are literally thousands of them out there waiting for some enterprising person to resurect them.
Barry

[John E]

Alan,
300yds would be a better choice of distance for those people. Talk to Bruce about it. By all means let them try the longer ranges to see what their rifles are capable of, as Barry says, ---- they will be surprised at how much higher they need to aim to hit the target, but they won't want to alter their zeroes which are set for much shorter range. The smaller calibres that fox shooters use will really be up against it at 500yds.
Bruce has deer and fox rifles ---- the two of you could do some practical experimentation, and work out the most suitable distance for newcomers to shoot over and still get a decent hit.

John

[AlanF]

John,

Is that mainly to avoid discouraging them or because of scopes? I am assuming they will be helped to get on the target, possibly by sighting in at 300.

Alan

[John E]

Most of them will have their rifles zeroed at 100yds or 1" high at 100yds, and they will aim off at 300yd rather than changing their zero, which is already set for the job for which it is intended to do.
We entertained 3 of these people a couple of weeks ago, and they had a ball, to the extent that they have said that they will join up.
At 300yds, they found that they had to aim about 3/4 of the way up the black aiming mark, and at 400yds they had to aim above the black aiming mark, and their windage zero began to change significantly. They then had a couple of shoots with the club .223 and could immediately see the difference. It was a real eye-opener for them.

John

[AlanF]

Hmmm that might be the go actually, at least for their first visit. We have a great new member who is a builder, and he's making a full set of 6 new 300 targets.

Alan

[stu_bear2002]

Speaking from my experiences (i was one of the newbies at castlemaine on Australia day), I don't believe that 500 is to far for the try out days, Most newbies are intrigued as to "what they can get out of their gear" and if the club members are forthcoming with their experience and wisdom such as the case was at castlemaine then you will have newbies fighting to sign up.If you are concerned that you may scare someone off because they've missed the target or got a low score then help them and offer subtle advice and coaching, alternatively you could try what they did at Bendigo during the commonwealth games for example, they used a larger centre target at 500 (was the 600 centre from memory) i shot on that day using an f-class rifle and scored 5-4-5-4-V for a total of 23.1. I had a ball on the day as did every other volunteer there.
Just my two bobs worth. I'll go duck for cover now

[John E]

Alan,
get Bruce to bring his fox and deer rifles to the range and conduct your own experiments with them at 1/2/3/500yds, and use your own judgement as to what distances you should conduct induction courses for newbies, using their own hunting rifles. I think that FCTS only shoots back as far as 300, anyway, and for good reason.
It doesn't matter what range you start a newbie off, if an F Class rifle is being used under instruction, even if it is at 9/1000 yd, as Stu_bear said, he'll have a ball, and it will be an eye-opener for him.
Do us all a favour and conduct the experiment, and you can give us the benefit of your informed opinion as to what ranges a newbie should shoot his hunting rifles over.

John

[AlanF]

I'll see if Bruce can spare the time. Another shooter at the club has a few Weatherby Mark Vs in various calibres. He might want to get the cobwebs out of some of those - I've never shot one so might try to have a turn myself .

Alan

[John E]

I'll see if Bruce can spare the time. Another shooter at the club has a few Weatherby Mark Vs in various calibres. He might want to get the cobwebs out of some of those - I've never shot one so might try to have a turn myself .

Alan

That's the way to go, Al, shoot them yourself at 100,200, 300, and then 500, and you will appreciate the logistics of it.
As Barry and Stu_bear have said, there are plenty of people out there who want to shoot their hunting rifles at the range ---- we have had enough interest shown in it lately to get us talking about starting up field class, perhaps once a month, to see how it pans out ( that should bring a smile to Ken's face ).
I'll be interested to see what you think about the Weatherbys.

John

John

[Ken L]