Iron Sights at 800 Yards: New Mexico Milsurps Match!
Forgotten Weapons
•
10m
While traveling through Albuquerque, I was invited to join the New Mexico Milsurps club for one of their long range rifle matches. This is no typical shooting challenge - the course of fire is 20 rounds (after the spotting shots to figure out your hold) on a 21" x 43" silhouette target at 800 yards. It is open to unmodified military firearms only, with a heavy focus on iron sighted bolt action rifles. I was loaned an Eddystone M1917 rifle in .30-06 to use - one of the best military bolt actions ever made, in my opinion.
The club has a very cool system set up for spotting hits on the target. A bracket on the back of the target holds a piezoelectric accelerometer connects to a bright strobe flash on a tripod about 10 yards off to the side. When a bullet hits the target plate, the accelerometer triggers the strobe to flash, and that light is readily visible from even 800 yards away (as you can see in the video).
The match was a lot of fun - both the shooting challenge and the company of the club members. My thanks for their hospitality and a great time!
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Shooting the RSC-1918 and RSC-1917 Fr...
The day has come to do some shooting with an RSC-1918 - and an RSC-1917 as well! The 1917 was the first selfloading rifle to see substantial combat use, with just over 85,000 manufactured in 1917 and 1918 and used on the frontlines by French troops. The 1918 pattern is an improvement of the desig...
-
Knight's Assault Machine Guns at the ...
Knights Armament introduced their "Assault Machine Gun" a couple years ago, and I had a chance to take both versions (5.56mm and 7.62mm) out to the range recently. The gun is the spiritual descendant of the Stoner 63, but is more directly mades on Eugene Stoner's Model 86 light machine gun. It ut...
-
Original Vietnam-Era M60 at the Range
The M60 was the first modern American military machine gun, developed from the operating system of the German FG-42 and the feed system of the German MG-42 in the years after World War Two. It has a rather schizophrenic reputation, being loved by many who used it in Vietnam and hated by many who ...