Range Report: Shooting Competition 12/20/2020

One of the nicest things about the Internet is that you can connect with like-minded people you are never likely to have met any other way.  My friend Nicholas and I discovered a common fascination with and appreciation for cap and ball revolvers of the Nineteenth century, and, both of us being competitive sorts of people, naturally we decided to have a shooting competition in spite of the fact that we live in different parts of the country.  The specific impetus for this competition was my post on the String Test method of scoring for target shooting, since that method makes it easy to give exact comparisons of shooting success.  A detailed discussion of the process as it was used in the period, and in this competition, can be read here.

The rules for the competition were simple:  We were both to shoot ten rounds offhand at a fifteen-yard target using reproduction Remington New Model Army revolvers with loose (i.e., not paper cartridges) .454 roundballs using any powder load and lubrication.  The winner was to be the one with the lower String Test measurement.

I normally shoot .44 roundballs over thirty grains of Pyrodex "P" (FFF equivalent) with a lubricated felt wad, but I chose that powder load simply because many of the people I have seen in YouTube videos shoot that charge.  Since this competition was to provide that highest of all possible rewards--bragging rights--I felt it was important to test various loads since it is widely known that different pieces respond differently to different loads, and I'm glad I did.

My best efforts at that range using those conditions (with one exception, see below) and thirty grains of powder had resulted in a score of 3.4 in./rd. (see the Range Report for 14 October 2020 here).  As a warmup on The Day, I shot three six-round groups, with twenty-five, thirty, and thirty-five grains respectively.  With twenty-five grains my score was a respectable 3.5 in./rd.; with thirty it was an astonishing 2.4 in./rd.; and with thirty-five it was 2.5 in./rd.  Even though the thirty-grain score was slightly lower, I felt that I had pulled one round of thirty-five grain string, and that it was actually a better group, so I elected to shoot thirty five grains for the competition.

The difference between these scores and my previous best of 3.4 in./rd. I attribute to the fact that for this day I was (by agreement) shooting with a two-handed grip (which I have used for many thousands of rounds using modern weapons), whereas previously I had always shot one-handed (to which practice I am entirely new) when firing offhand because of my historical shooting focus.  I have long believed that one can shoot as accurately one handed as he can two handed, but one-handed shooting is just slower because one has to take longer to get a good sight picture.  While today's testing would seem to contradict that belief, I still think it is reasonably true, and that the fault lies with my one-handed technique--something I am new to doing.  Look for more on this subject in blogs to come.

Thus prepared, I fired my competition table of ten rounds using a two-handed grip and thirty-five grains of powder.  The string test measurement was a stunning (to me) 24.25 inches, or 2.43 in./rd.--by far the best shooting I have ever achieved with a cap and ball revolver at this range.  My results can be seen below.

The "common wisdom" of the Internet shooting community is that lighter loads tend to be more accurate than heavy ones, and I strongly suspect that to be generally true, always remembering the caveat that every piece is different.  In this case, however, I suspect that the thirty-five-grain charge did better for me this day not because of the added speed of the bullet, but because the larger charge brought the bullet closer to the forcing cone when in the chamber.  The high-end target shooters usually use a filler such as cornmeal in their cylinders in order to bring their bullets closer to the mouth of the cylinder (and thus to the forcing cone) when loading because they feel that this causes the bullet to engage the rifling sooner, which leads to better results.  I achieved the same effect simply by using more powder--thirty five grains is close to the maximum that my chambers will hold using these balls.

In the end, my score turned out to be the better one, but, to be fair, I have more experience with the NMA than does my friend, and his score closely matched what my older numbers looked like when I was starting to learn the piece.  The real importance of this competition, however, was not the win (although, damn, but I am a competitive cuss, and I do love my bragging rights), but rather, the impetus it gave me to study my technique and procedures in order to drive myself to perform better.  In general, I will not be using a charge this heavy for my regular shooting out of a concern that it may stress my revolver, and I will not be using a two-handed grip when shooting offhand because I really am more interested in historical shooting practices.  Every time we push ourselves, however, we learn more about our art and ourselves, and ultimately, that is the real goal here.  That, even more than the win or the bragging rights, was the real victory here.

The idea for an Internet shooting challenge in the first place came to me from watching some videos of a regular yearly competition called the Cabin Fever Challenge in which several people I follow on YouTube participate.  Having tried it, I hope I can arrange more friendly competitions of this sort.  One of the nice things about this kind of competition is that there's little pressure about winning, and so less reason for unscrupulous people to cheat, and while I often enjoy high-stress, high-pressure competition, something more casual can be more fun and relaxing.