definition of magnum

[silhouette13]

hi every one ,this is not intended to be jerkish-but with the advent of so many new calibers of late - what does no magnums really mean?

does it mean no more powder than standard, if so AI cartridges may be out, what about 375 ruger, magnum energy w/o a magnum name. i breifly looked through the rule book,i may have missed it.
what makes a magnum a magnum as far as rules go ,is there a velocity/ caliber index availible? a 243 wssm really is just shorter than a 6mm rem, and so on and so on. a 270 win shooting hornady light mag ammo is still a 270 win so on and so on......

just an interesting thought i thought may warrant discussion.

dave

[Jim Beckley]

Dave, I do not now, but when I was running the HP matches at a small range in Mesa, if it said Magnum on the barrel it was not allowed to shoot in the match, there was one guy who said that he loaded his 7 something mag down to 7-08 velocity and wanted to shoot the match, but I said no! Our club operated on a real small budget and couldn't afford any target damage!

[Bob Mc Alice]

The no "magnum" cartridges allowed per the NRA rules is primarily to reduce target damage from the faster, hard hitting rounds. If the round is a factory named magnum , it is not allowed in approved or registered competition, regardless of how much powder capacity. There is no formula that I am aware of being used to determine what round is considered legal for silhouette other than what is stated in the rulebook: no magnums, nothing smaller than 6mm. So, an Ackley Improved version of most any case is not thought of as upping it's former case to magnum status. Many competitors are using AI cartridges. Also, nothing smaller than .243 / 6mm are allowed. It is a well known fact that high speed .22's such as the .22-250, .223, 220 Swift etc. damage targets excessively.

Some comparisons:

6.5-06 140 gr. 2860 MV........... .264 Win Mag. 140 gr. 2970 MV

.280 Rem. 140 gr. 2975 MV...........7mm Rem mag. 140 gr. 3100 MV

.30-06 165 gr. 2800 MV..............300 Win. mag 165 gr. 3150 MV

Only about 200 fps seperates the performance of these cartridges. The ones on the left are legal for silhouette, the magnums are not. A few people are using the above named cartridges in silhouette. But I am sure you know that most are using the smaller 6.5 and 7mm's. There is no point to getting beat up by recoil when the smaller cartridges do just fine.

Again, target damage is the prime consideration as to why magnum power cartridges are not allowed to be used.

The match director at each club has the final say as to what limit of cartridge power is acceptable. Unless when firing an approved or registered match, in which the rules must be followed. At our club we have a mix of hard and soft steel targets. All of our ram and turkey targets are A500 plate, but we do have a mix of both hard and soft steel pigs and chickens. A few of those chickens are in pretty poor shape. The fast 6-6.5mm's really crater the softer steel. The larger diameter fast bullets can create stress cracks in the weaker areas of the A500 targets.



Target repair is just part of the game. We have on site welding capacity when they get broken.

[silhouette13]

Thanks for the input, of course it would be rediculas to use a 308 lazzaroni warbird due to recoil and whatnot but according to the book it would be ok where as it would be woefully undergunned to use a 44rem mag carbine it would be illegal.

i am not one for updating the book and micro managing the rules whenever a yahoo(like me ) points out a short comming, just bored and looking for conversation.

[Bob Mc Alice]

Quote: just bored and looking for conversation.


Happy to oblige....I am just killing time waiting for the wife to get home soon. Will be on the road by 2 pm to head to western Co. to hunt elk. I will report the results when I return.

[Innocent]

Bob,
Happy New Year and good luck to you and Sara.
M