high velocity sb ammo

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rr1220
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high velocity sb ammo

Post by rr1220 »

Wii cci mini mags cause target damage if used for all animals, are they allowed?
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by OldRanger »

They are one of the most common rounds used at our matches and I haven't seen any target damage. So at our match, yes they would be fine.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

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When our shooters can find CCI Mini-mags, several of them use them. I'd guess that the most common ammo used for smallbore cowboy is CCI Mini-mags (both solids and HP, but I prefer solids) and Federal Automatch. We have a couple who try to use standard velocity target ammo like Eley/Lapua/etc., but they sometimes ring rams. The rest use whatever bulk back high velocity ammo they can find. After a couple phone conversations with CCI engineers, I'm going to try CCI Tactical when our cowboy silhouette matches start back up in a month. If it's not noticeably better than Mini-mags or Automatch, I'll probably just go back to whichever of those shoots best in the gun I decide to take to a particular match.

The ammo that is not allowed is the "hyper" velocity ammo. There is a bit of gray area on what the velocity limit is where ammo goes from high velocity to hyper velocity, but the general consensus is 1300fps or greater is hyper velocity and that is based on the velocity as printed on the package, not through a particular chronograph from a particular rifle. That means that ammo like Velocitors, Stingers, Aguila Super Maximum and some others are not allowed for smallbore cowboy rifle silhouette.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by BrentD »

FWIW, I use only subsonic ammo and I have never rung a ram. Nor have I ever seen it happen with subsonic ammo. Even at 200 m in the .22 bpcr game, I have not seen a ram rung. I think it is important that the rams be made correctly and placed correctly. If they are, they should fall. If they are regularly being hit and left standing, there is something wrong with the targets, not the ammo.
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Jason
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by Jason »

That was my initial assumption, also. Inspection of the targets and the stands proved it to be incorrect, though. The targets were regulation size and thickness. The stands had flat, level, clean pads the size of the feet of the targets. Since then, I've also seen this at more than one range.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by Bob259 »

Jason wrote:That was my initial assumption, also. Inspection of the targets and the stands proved it to be incorrect, though. The targets were regulation size and thickness. The stands had flat, level, clean pads the size of the feet of the targets. Since then, I've also seen this at more than one range.
Ditto....
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by BrentD »

Well, I guess some of us are just plain luckier then. knocking on wood here as I'm about to leave for Raton, where the rams have always fallen like old leaves whenever I manage to tag one with a subsonic.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

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Just to make sure I'm not scaring you more than necessary, when I say that we see rams rung with standard velocity ammo, it's only an average of one or two out of ten. With that said, scores at our range for cowboy are often very high, so those one or two rams being rung can easily be the difference in who wins and loses a match. I remember losing a match where I rung two rams with Eley ammo and still shot a 36/40. The winner, who shot a 37/40, was using Federal Lightning ammo that at least a decade or two old from the looks of the box he was pulling it out of. That was a pretty clear indication to me that the cowboy targets are big enough that I can sacrifice a bit of ultimate accuracy for more certain knockdown on rams. It's not like I'm shooting a custom Anschutz rifle for smallbore cowboy anyway...
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by OldRanger »

I've never rung a ram, nor seen one rung here. I have seen everything rung when shooting the PC targets with SB subsonic ammo, but thats expected.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

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Jason wrote:That was a pretty clear indication to me that the cowboy targets are big enough that I can sacrifice a bit of ultimate accuracy for more certain knockdown on rams. It's not like I'm shooting a custom Anschutz rifle for smallbore cowboy anyway...
This is why shooters really need to take a class or three in probability theory. The issues of variance, and additivity of variance are directly applicable here. And in the end, you may very well realize you made exactly the wrong choice BECAUSE you weren't shooting the Anschutz. :)
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Jason
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by Jason »

There's a reason that we aren't allowed to shoot the Anschutz rifles at the cowboy targets. All of my cowboy silhouette trophies were won with a gun that cost under $450, counting sights.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

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rr1220 wrote:Wii cci mini mags cause target damage if used for all animals, are they allowed?
I've never seen them damage thin half scale targets, and at some ranges on some days you'll need them.... Just don't use them on 1/5th scale cast smallbore rifle targets as they WILL damage/break those, especially the chickens. For the half scales, make sure they're the 40gr bullets too... CCI makes them in 36gr and those will very frequently ring a half scale ram. However, I've come to realize that there's nothing that is 100% reliable every day on every range... 98-99% is about as close as we can come, IMHO. Just gotta live with an occasional rung target (I've even seen pigs and turkeys not fall with full bullet HV hits).

At our local range, especially on the newer 1/2 scale small bore thickness targets, center punch hits from standard velocity ammo frequently leave a ram standing... I've seen it even ring 3 rams in a row on the ram line one day. It happens more frequently if there's any breeze at all on the backside of the target. I'll occasionally see a high velocity hit not take one as well (I had one in practice this past weekend not fall, even w/40g MiniMags).

Each year I've been to Raton I'll see at least one not fall for someone, even using HV. My son had one years ago not fall with Federal 510 Champions. I rang one last year at Raton in the final relay of Hunters Pistol using 40gr MiniMags. This was a day when the wind was so bad they had to reset all 10 targets several times just so the shooter would have 5 to shoot at during a 2 minute time period. Hit him low center body, he did not fall... And he was STILL standing 2 hours later after shoot offs and awards were passed out, even though every other ram on the entire line had blown over due to wind. So I've come to accept 98-99% reliability as the nature of the game and TRY to not stress out over it. :-o X(

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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by glen ring »

Tim...The only time I have seen a target rung is with a not so perfect hit on air reset targets like ours or the kind that are reset with pull ropes. We use subsonic ammo and have never rang a ram that is free standing. A leg hit with subsonic ammo on our air reset targets sometimes just rings them.
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

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glen ring wrote:Tim...The only time I have seen a target rung is with a not so perfect hit on air reset targets like ours or the kind that are reset with pull ropes. We use subsonic ammo and have never rang a ram that is free standing. A leg hit with subsonic ammo on our air reset targets sometimes just rings them.
Although I've seen a few get rung with high velocity, I see them more frequently with standard or subsonic velocity. Usually dead center or low center body hits.

- Tim
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Re: high velocity sb ammo

Post by Tlee »

Tlee wrote:
glen ring wrote:Tim...The only time I have seen a target rung is with a not so perfect hit on air reset targets like ours or the kind that are reset with pull ropes. We use subsonic ammo and have never rang a ram that is free standing. A leg hit with subsonic ammo on our air reset targets sometimes just rings them.
Although I've seen a few get rung with high velocity, I see them more frequently with standard or subsonic velocity. Usually dead center or low center body hits.

- Tim
We're holding the TSRA Texas State Hunters Pistol match this weekend and I personally observed 2 separate cases of a high velocity 22LR ring Smallbore thickness Rams during the initial SmallBore practice session this afternoon. One was using a CCI 40gr MiniMag and the other with Federal Champion 510 ammo. Dunno if it had anything to do with it, but there was a light drizzle at the time. No mud on the target's feet (yet) as they'd just been set out.

- Tim
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