A topic of discussion at the last club meeting was if anyone had an interest in participation in a Service Rifle/High-Power shooting event.  As we are a military vehicle club, most of us have vehicles, uniforms and firearms.  That said, the monthly shoots offer an outlet for members to get together, have some fun and shoot their M1 Garands, M1 Carbines, 1903 Springfields and AR15/M16's.

Scott S. and Herb T arrived at the Austin Rifle Club (just East of Manor) about 7:45am.  Following very shortly thereafter was Rick H, Glen V, Madison H and finally Jeff McD.  Glen and Madison are very experienced with the shoots and offered their technical expertise and gear to the rest of the guys who showed up.  This proved invaluable throughout the match.

Scott brought his AR15.  Herb and Jeff brought M1 Garand's and Rick H brought his M1 Carbine.  After a quick safety check of the firearms, Glen tore Herb's Garand apart to check some tolerances and everything was up to spec.  Madison briefed everyone on the course of fire and how the match was to be conducted.

The course of fire consisted of shooting 4 'legs' including slow-fire standing, rapid-fire sitting or kneeling, rapid-fire prone, and slow-fire prone.  Distances for leg 1 and 2 were 200 yards shooting a target with a 12 1/2" black circle.  Leg 3 was a reduced target to simulate 300 yards and leg 5 was even smaller simulating 600 yards.  It's interesting to note that the circle diameter didn't get smaller for 300 and 600 yards.  Only the scoring rings decreased in size so what might have been a 9 at 200 yards was only a 6 at 600.

The first round of 22 shots from the standing position was completed in 22 minutes.  We were not allowed to use slings, yet any way we could contort our body with jackets, elbows, hips etc was acceptable.  The lowest two shot scores were dropped.  After shooting, we went down and scored the targets then placed 'pasters' over the holes since we would use the same target for leg 2.

Leg 2 started in the sitting or kneeling position.  We had two minutes to fire two sighters and make any adjustments.  Then when the rangemaster said "targets up", we had 50 seconds to fire 10 shots for score with a mandatory reload.  We reloaded magazines and waited for the command and repeated the exercise without the sighters this time.  We then safed the weapons, picked up brass and scored the targets.  After scoring, we replaced them with the 300yd reduced target for the next leg.

Leg 3 was the rapid fire prone.  Much like leg 2, we had two minutes for two sighters and adjustments.  Then, "targets up" and 60 seconds to fire 10 shots for score with another mandatory reload.  We did that a second time, safed weapons and scored targets.  The final target put up was the simulated 600 yard target for leg 4.

The final leg was a slow-fire prone.  We had 25 minutes to get situated, fire two sighters, make adjustments and fire 20 shots for score.  When everyone was done, we again safed the weapons and retrieved the targets for score.

Everyone in attendance from the club had a blast.  This is certainly an activity all are interested in participating in again and from the comments, smiles and grins, there is no doubt we will do this again and again.  There's something neat about taking these old battle rifles and shooting 200 yards with open sights and seeing the fruits of your labor.