Marking on Stickledown
Posted: Sun May 17, 2015 5:55 pm
There were six of use for our club shoot today, small club and not everyone likes the longer distances. In the morning we were on some sort of 900 yd salient between two lots of 1000yd shooters, and had a very good marker. I was trying out the 190gr HPS stuff from the NSRA, and it seemed to go quite well, didn't have too much hassle with the wind. Does have noticeably more kick to it though.
In the afternoon we moved back to 1000 yds with a different target and marker, and all was chaos. This chap didn't seem to know how to score, and when I was waiting to take a shot, the target dropped twice and came back up marked in different places. I did make mention to the group on our immediate left that they might be hitting the wrong target, but this was not well received, and they seemed to think they were only hitting theirs.
This carried on for the next shooters, with marking proceeding at a glacial pace, amid reminders that the target had been duly perforated. But the marking seemed almost random, and we suspected that the target had not been properly patched from previous use and had plenty of spare holes for the marker to find. I decided the HPS is too expensive to waste on "bingo" marking, and decided to call it a day.
I like shooting the longer distances, but they are not popular with other club members, and poor marking like this does not help when those who do not like longer distances clamour to have more short distance events. Hopefully the club secretary was able to bend an ear at the range office and make sure we didn't pay for marking.
It was very busy, there seemed to be an event on over toward the butt zero side, so perhaps the decent markers were all over there.
In the afternoon we moved back to 1000 yds with a different target and marker, and all was chaos. This chap didn't seem to know how to score, and when I was waiting to take a shot, the target dropped twice and came back up marked in different places. I did make mention to the group on our immediate left that they might be hitting the wrong target, but this was not well received, and they seemed to think they were only hitting theirs.
This carried on for the next shooters, with marking proceeding at a glacial pace, amid reminders that the target had been duly perforated. But the marking seemed almost random, and we suspected that the target had not been properly patched from previous use and had plenty of spare holes for the marker to find. I decided the HPS is too expensive to waste on "bingo" marking, and decided to call it a day.
I like shooting the longer distances, but they are not popular with other club members, and poor marking like this does not help when those who do not like longer distances clamour to have more short distance events. Hopefully the club secretary was able to bend an ear at the range office and make sure we didn't pay for marking.
It was very busy, there seemed to be an event on over toward the butt zero side, so perhaps the decent markers were all over there.