I have watched two National matches in Raton and talked with several competitors about various choices. It seems a CPA built rifle makes up close to half being used. No doubt an excellent choice configured to suit the user. I like the looks of a low wall but know just enough to know I don’t know enough about the finer details. Like the pro or con of various Low Walls such as a flat mainspring of a C Sharps or a coil spring in Winder musket action or the modern Browning and Winchester options. Is one more reliable or conducive to a better trigger or any positive or negative attribute one should be aware of. Any help fact or opinion will be helpful. I am looking for a rifle but I don’t know enough to make an educated choice.

I think the 1885 Winchester is the finest rifle, bar none, ever made, but I have been beaten many times by CPA. In the end, the make of rifle is not very important to your score. They will all shoot just as accurately as the next if it has been properly barreled and chambered with a good quality barrel.

When it comes to Winchester low walls, there are a could of variants that I greatly prefer for targets in particular. What is best known as a "thick tang" lowwall (sometimes considered a Winder), has a thicker wrist that fits my fairly normal sized hands much better than the more common thin tang version. I use both coil and flat springs - often at the same time - and will only choose the single set trigger from among the f trigger configurations that Winchester made.

A lot of people have thought they could improve on the 1885, but the only such improvement I consider an upgrade is the Zimmerman 2-piece ejector for the .22 rimfire.

As for where to get a rifle, I had my own built with many modifications, but they are personal preferences with unusual barrel configurations, counter weight, shortfall hammers, etc. You will not find another like it anywhere (except the one my shooting partner uses). Were I to build another, I might start with an MVA action or another original, vintage action. However, CSharps makes a fine gun a well. The other alternative is to try and buy one from another competitor.

I would not walk away from a nice Ballard either.