Now I was rash enough to suggest I would shoot the 4/5/600 F Open with a hunting rifle at this year's Phoenix and yesterday was the day to put hours of planning into practice. Actually yesterday morning was more like grab a rifle and some ammunition and go.
I had wanted to prove to myself that shooting F Open with a light rifle was possible which of course it is, in theory I could have shown up with anything, even a .303 with open sights and shot however I wanted to shoot with a vaguely competitive spirit so my chosen equipment comprised of:
Schultz & Larsen Sporter chambered in 6,5-284
Kahles 12X 'scope
Harris 6" bipod
Rear squeeze bag
Gas mask to carry 70 rounds and some ear defenders
Light mat as it had rained in the morning
Something to write with.
Total weight was at least 25Kg down on my normal F Class rig so walking to the point was pleasant, I noticed some fellow shooters making two trips to the firing point as they could not carry everything in one go. Personally I still felt too cluttered and need to think further about what comes with me. I use A4 plot sheets, I am going to look at A5 which means I can use an A5 holder, open it and keep the score card and plot sheet top to bottom plus a slightly different range bag as putting square things in a round bag is a PITA.
The competition itself - Well nothing to write home about, the shorter bipod made for some impressive hop, I was on target 60 and every shot would leave me looking at target 55, how many MOA of hop is that! Also as expected the barrel warms up quickly which leads to vertical stringing and on occasion horrendous mirage as I was not shooting with a mirage band. One thing I noticed is the stringing development is not linear so it is not a matter of dropping out a couple of clicks every three shots either. Having put several thousand rounds through my AI I know when it is going to misbehave, not so with the S&L so I came out of the 400 with a very poor 52.1.
500 I had a better feeling for what to expect and was starting to get my head around the wind on the day which was squirrelly but doable, looking at my plot sheet with the exception of one poor call/correction which dropped me into a low left 3 I was keeping nicely in the middle, in fact the score of 64.2 does not reflect the shooting, I had so many shots scraping the edge of the 5 ring it was becoming frustrating, again suffering from verticals but I was starting to get on top of them.
600 saw me finish with a 62.3 - I was enjoying myself, I had shot a V, 5,V,V,5 so you can imagine my dismay to see them followed by a 2,3,3 - The Chap I was shooting with, a very pleasant F/TR shooter from Holland stopped and muttered No, No, No when I shot the 2, and it was him that challenged the shot with the RCO, looking at the plot sheet I had been sitting good for wind and all of my shots were in the V and moving up with a slight low trend, the three low scores were low and scattered. My last two shots were in the 4 ring high right so about where I had been before.
All a bit odd in that respect...
It was good to meet up with some F-B'ers at the point, ENS was shooting incredibly well in the F/TR class but was involved with a 'project' so we did not get to talk much, however SteveE and I did manage to catch up between details which was very great, also nice to meet M41B and Dougan with his Father and all the others that came and found me at the firing point. All in all it was a very pleasant afternoon.
