I see online that Mr R Davies and Mr M Paroz are sneaking down to the ACT this weekend to shoot flys, in the Heavy Gun section.
Hopefully they will take home most of the Prizemoney , and then be off on some overseas holiday somewhere to spend it, when the ACT Queens are on !! I hope they might favour us with a bit of a Report on how this "fly shooting" goes, from an F Classer's perspective. I have often wondered about it, but have never seen a match shot. What are the parameters for Light Gun fly shooting, V's Heavy Gun Fly shooting (both are entered in Heavy) ? Is it good fun, and what calibres did you both shoot ?
Tony
Extreme accuracy and precision shooting at long range can be a very addictive pastime.
Tony yes it is fun
The SSAA SA Monarto silhouette club have run a 500 fly in SA for about 6 years and I have attended all but one.
F-Class shooters do very well #1 they usually can read the wind a lot better than bench and Silhouette shooters. #2 they have developed a load for long range.
It’s also a great cross training you also get your target back that you can evaluate your load.
RB
Hi Tony
I've shot the Fly on and off since 1999-2000, it is great fun. Light gun is basically anything less than 17 pound, bi-pod if used is included in overall weight, Heavy Gun is unlimited weight, less than 40 cal, in past years the heavies have been BIG 30's and 338, I remember one year shooting my 6BR and on one side was 338 Lap Imp and the other a 30-04 Jefferies Imp, both burning over 100 grains of powder per shot !!!! but in recent times the 6br and it's improved brothers are making inroads into HG.
I'm shooting a Dasher in LG and Rod's shooting Getrude in HG and Dasher inn LG, weather forecast is 40-50 km/hr winds so maybe the 280AI may have been a better option There are only 10 rules, rule 10 being the most important, "those not enjoying themselves will be disqualified".
Matt P
This weekend in Canberra
you can shoot flys during the day,
shoot bats at night,
then the next morning shoot 1000 yards (which you can shoot blind as long as its not self inflicted from the night before).
I enjoy shooting the fly. As you can't always see your bullet hole, you really have to trust your wind reading. I've has some good scores and some 0s aswell.
You could say I've done a fly shoot or two in my time, (actually one is the correct amount) and think it would be great for all F class shooters to have a go when they get the chance. The rifle accuracy standards in the fly are way up there with the VERY BEST F Open rifles.
As I was to find out on my first attempt, having a rifle which will sort of hang in the 6 ring in F Class will put you well back in the standings in the Fly.
Some things I found which are different to F class are that having a few BR style wind flags to put in your scopes vision would be good. You can read other peoples flags for the 1st 200yds, but then you cant really see what is going on with the flags down range. Get at least 2 BR style daisy wheel flags. These will be good for load development days as well.
Having a larger calibre can help in that you can more easily see bullet holes when the mirage comes in. Next year I hope to use a 6.5x47 in light gun and a 300WSM in heavy gun. I bought a heavy gun stock while I was there which weighs more than 2 complete F Open rifles.
The Bat shoot is at night and is at 300M. Only the flags in the first 50 yds or so are visible so everyone is on similar footing here. When the insert your bolt and ready to fire command is called out, all lights except the ones at target are turned off. The course of fire in the fly is 3 sighters which you can use at any time in the string, then 5 for score. I discovered that many of the front runners would fire one or two sighters max, then start on their string, using their 3rd sighter if they saw a condition change. In the Bat shoot, you get one sighter, then 5 scoring shots. Both the Bat and fly shoots are over 5 scoring targets, so 25 shots for score. The Bat shoot and fly shoots are also similar to F Class in that you can (usually) see where your shots are going, so can correct as needed.
On the Sunday was the 1000yd BR which is usually fired blind, as in, once you start your business shots, you don't get to see the fall of shot until you have finished your 5 or 10 shots. (5 shots in light gun, 10 shots in heavy gun). I shot the 10 shot heavy gun class this time with my 6.5mm F class gun. As most F Open guns are over 7.7kg, they will have to shoot in heavy gun, which has 10 shots strings as in F class. As I mentioned previously, I have just bought a huge big heavy gun stock. With a good action and this stock, it will be possible to rattle 10 shots down range in 30 seconds with a 300WSM recoiling like a 22 rim fire. One of my previous 284 F class barrels will be getting the worn chamber end cut back a bit to get it into light gun weight and will then have a muzzle break fitted which is legal in 1000yd BR.
Though F class will remain my main passion, I think it would be good to cross train with some Fly/Bat/1000yd BR shooting to give you some variety and learn new skills. While you are there, do some preaching about F class. Having 50-80 F class guns in the event is a target rich environment for finding new F class shooters.
Chopper wrote:No results will be forwarded as they got blown away , a 50 k wind on a 45mm ten ring Chop
Chopper, you are a bastard. You talked me into doing a flyshoot, with your previous one being a record breaking sub 1" group at 500m. I thought, no problem, must be like shooting inside a shooting tunnel, nice and relaxing, sipping a Chai Latte on the bench between shots..
Christ this one was different. The NRAA range next door stopped shooting as the targets were getting blown out of the frames. I think the reason Matt nearly won was that he had an easy bench. (oops I forgot, I shared a bench with him in the fly )
The 900m shoot was cancelled on the Canberra range as we didn't want to lose targets (and couldn't find any markers willing to man the 900m targets in the conditions) - we shot 300m instead. Wow what a buffetting we experienced
Matt is a modest sort of a bloke, but if you look carefully at the "Federal Cup" and the "Pro Cal" trophies you will find Matt's name all over them. If you want to learn about the Fly, you could do worse than have Matt as mentor.
My best result was a 2nd in Heavy Gun some years ago, and Matt was my spotter.
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