Our club held NRA Rimfire Silhouette matches 25 years ago, then it died. Last year I ordered 3 sets of rimfire animals from Mr. Schafer and plan to get the game started again at our club. There is some interest in shooting rimfire from benchrest out to 200 yards. I heard of a club in Ohio that is running L-O-N-G range rimfire matches, with the rams at 200 yards, but do not know the distance the Chicken, Pig and Turkey targets are set.

On the internet, I have seen a couple of pictures of animal stands that have two levels, with 5 targets in each row. Looks like they are made from steel, but maybe wood. Do any of you at your clubs have such a setup, and could you supply information on how they are constructed?

Back in the last century we used 12"x12" timbers. Can't get 'em anymore. I like the idea of stacking the animals, and need more information.

Joe Haller

At my range I used railroad iron. Turn them with flat side up and weld 1x1 square blocks for animals to sit on. Its also and double stack setup.

Steve

There is a 50 to 200 yards or meters shooting match done mainly by black powder cartridge silhouette shooters to hone their skills with a .22 rifle. Some of them use single shot rifles like Martinis, falling blocks, lever action and others put .22 insert barrels on their center fire falling block rifles.

They shoot chickens at 50 yards, pigs at 100, turkeys at 150 and rams at 200 yards. The only target they shoot off-hand is the chicken and then they use cross sticks or buffalo sticks to shoot the other three, the positions are sitting, kneeling or prone but never from the bench. At least one shooter has shot all the targets off-hand and if the wind is not blowing very hard they seem to be easier to hit than the 1/5 size targets at least for me using my silhouette rifles.

I have seen the set up of the game at Raton, NM and also at Pala, CA. Here is a link for the Pala place so that if you like to get more information you can contact the person in charge. http://www.ncsapala.com/LONG%20RANGE%20 ... CH%20.HTML

Hello,

We use a "double stack" set-up at our range. You can see an example of it here:

http://www.hpcutlery.com/turkeys.JPG

The target stands are 1/2" threaded rods with a threaded piece of bar stock on the end for the sihouettes to sit on. The bar stock is secured to the rod by tightening a nut with a split ring lock washer under it. Over time this may loosen a bit so check them every so often, but this has not been a problem for us. The threaded rods are pushed into holes drilled into RR ties. They don't screw in, they push in. To keep debris from clogging the holes I plug them with short pieces of 1/2" foam weather stripping. It's cheap, readily available, and works well.

We use this set-up beacuse we can tear it down and store everything after a match. This is important because we share the range with high power shooters who would shoot permanent target stands to pieces. When everyone pithces in to clean up after a match it goes pretty quick. The tedious part is setting it all up beforehand. Doing 3 sets of animals (120 targets and stands) usually takes about 45 minutes.

There are lots of ways to set-up a range. Go with whatever will be easiest for you to manage.

Sincerely,

Mike Sporer
BCSA

There are many ways to accomplish this.

We use old railroad rails set on 4x4's with earth berms behind each bank of animals. I've also seen 6-8" I-beams used with pads welded on top for the animals as well as well as 2x6" with welded angle iron on top and covering the front/leading portion of the wood stand.

We use railroad ties with treated 4x4 staked to the top and the Valve stems drilled into the top for the stands

Kevin

G'Day Joe
Emailed pic to you.
Juddy

Our club shoots this in Yuma, and also we are shooting it in Lander, Wyoming. We start with the chickens at 77, pigs then at 100, turkeys at 150 and rams at 200. We just put some grader blade down on the ground for stands, welded some rod to the bottom of them and drive 'em down with a sledgehammer, they stay put!! Since grader blade can usually be found for free with some snooping around, the price was right.