C.N. Double

Hi Folks -- the admins are getting a feel for what most people would prefer when it comes to the SASS Wire and the WBAS Wire. If you have another suggestion, feel free to list it here, but please refrain from debating in this thread.

Come one, come all! The Montezuma Muzzleloaders are hosting a cowboy silhouette match this Saturday (July 31st) at the Sierra Vista Shooting Range. Setup starts at 9am. This is a fun and relaxed shoot where you can practice your long-range shooting with pistol-caliber SASS-legal rifles (lead bullets only). We shoot knock-down style silhouettes at 40,50,75, and 100m. A typical match consists of 40 shots for score, with unlimited sighters and practice. If you are any good, you won't go hungry -- winners are awarded with a can of beans. Many of us use our WBAS main match rifles for this shoot. Target details (we shoot 1/2 scale targets) Following the silhouette match, several of us will be bringing other older rifles (BAMM, Teddy Roosevelt, cowboy long range, etc.) to sight in and plink with. We may have an informal BAM/TR match if there is enough interest. Bring whatever you want (no modern guns) -- we'll have AR500 steel set up at various distances to play with. We hope you'll join us!

Bump to reflect the new monthly match this Saturday (July 24th) at 9am -- we hope you'll join us.

Looking forward to it! You boys just taught me a new trick too: This fella needs one more pistol round, so he loads a full mag, drops the slide, drops the mag, then fires his one shot and discards. IMO, this is far superior to carrying a barney mag. I hope to learn more tricks like these in September :D It's also good to see so many tactical reloads.

Thanks, Dusty. I didn't figure we'd be shooting CAS-style long range, but I was wondering how it would be different than BAMM. Blazing Saddles sounds like a good time -- looking forward to it!

Howdy BBB, can you elaborate on the Blazing Saddles event? I'm guessing we'll be riding some kind of steed, but will it require any special guns or equipment? Also, is the "long range" event just for our main match guns, or will it include all guns (rifle-caliber,single-shot) as described in the Texican Rangers' Long Range Rules? 1.Lever action, revolver caliber 2.Lever action, rifle caliber 3.Single Shot 4.Open Category (may be used at the match director’s option to allow those firearms not covered by other official Long Range Categories). Thanks, CND

Application is in the mail! Looking forward to some Texas-sized fun.

Thanks for confirming, Boggus. I assumed it was fine, but the elimination of the "first charged" distinction on the pistol does seem to make it a little less clear.

Hi folks -- thanks for publishing the new rules. I thought I had clarified a question for myself, but now I'm not so sure. Can the pistol be initially staged on the firing line with hammer down on empty chamber and loaded magazine inserted if written in the stage instructions? I assume this is (still?) OK, but with the elimination of the difference between first charged and not, I'm not so sure. Page 8: • Safe to leave the shooters hand.Chamber empty of a live round. Slide may be forward or locked back. Pistol may contain an empty magazine or no magazine. Page 22: • A live round left in an inserted magazine of a 1911 once the gun leaves the shooter’s hands. (SDQ) Page 24: All handguns initially staged on a horizontal flat surface must be staged with the entire handgun lying flat on the staging surface. Thanks again.

OPSA's stages are attached for our upcoming shoot this Saturday at 9am (setup at 8am). We're folding Doughboys and Teddys into the mix again, so bring whatever you want to shoot! Local range rules limit all velocities to 1400fps. See you then. Range info: http://tombstonelivery.com/ WBAS_24July2021.pdf

Sorry, I don't have a 150gn load, but Unique seems pretty forgiving. With the 170gn bullet, I started with 16.0gn (~1700fps), then I backed it down to 13.0 (~1500fps), and now I'm at 10.0gn. For your ranges, 12-14gn might be a good place to start with the 150gn bullet, but experiment at your own risk. Our shooting bays are very shallow (25yds max), so we are shooting 4-8" targets as far back as we can get them. This certainly isn't a ballistic match, but at least we get to play with guns 8) I've been using this site for ideas on extremely light charges -- lots of charges here I never would have thought to try (and maybe shouldn't?): http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

I had an opportunity today to load for and shoot a Model 14 in .35 Remington that was built 100 years ago. The rifle seems to have original parts, but the stock has been refinished (poorly), and I think it's been cut down. It had a replacement butt plate that didn't fit. I spent 3 hours cleaning it, and I'm not done yet. It seems the previous owner(s) simply hosed it down with oil before putting it away. It's been shot a lot, but there is almost no rust on it (a little on the mag tube under the foregrip). All that oil has attracted loads of gunk build-up over the years -- I think it's been disassembled and cleaned rarely, if ever. I loaded a couple of test loads as follows. Both shot well, and I think either will work for shorter range TR. #1 5.0gn VV N320 125gn moly coated Bear Creek bullet (.358) -- yes, the very same bullet used by many cowboy shooters Grafs brass Winchester LR primer 2.22 oal avg vel 996fps max spread 27fps #2 5.0gn Unique 125gn moly coated Bear Creek bullet (.358) Grafs brass Winchester LR primer 2.22 oal avg vel 972fps max spread 48fps Observations: - mag only holds 4 rounds, oops. Should it be 5? No worries, though -- it's fun to reload, but it does require finesse. - 2 of 3 tries, the last round didn't want to chamber. It banged around inside the receiver and mucked up the brass a bit, but with a little shaking and coaxing, it chambered just fine. No issues chambering or extracting/ejecting otherwise. - loading took a little finesse too. I couldn't get a great crimp without smooshing down the neck of the brass. I think a Lee FCD will help, but I'm not sure it needs it. I don't think the crimp is a problem. All in all, I think it will be a fun and unique rifle for TR. Reloading it on the clock might be a little trippy, but it will make a fun challenge. I expect to shoot it this coming weekend as a TeddyBoy (Model 14 + 1903a3), so I'm sure I'll get some more data then.

I actually tested a .30-06 load today with 10.0gn Unique and Norm Purcella's 170gn GCSil (.310") loaded to 3.19 OAL... and it shot an average of 1300fps +- 10fps -- which was way more consistent than I expected. I'm going to try to reduce it even further, but this will be my go-to for close-range DB matches.

Wow, what a match! 44% of our shooters participated in either DB or TR, but everyone was smiling when we blew a target off its stand with a .45-70. We had one Teddy Roosevelt participant, two Doughboys, and one who couldn't decide what to shoot, so we dubbed him "Teddyboy" on account of him using both a lever rifle in .45-60 and a Krag carbine. We also had 5 shooters in the standard categories. We saw some fun firearms come out today -- we had a Remington 1903A3, Marlin 1895, Husqvarna Swedish Mauser, Winchester 1886, and a Krag carbine. If you missed it, don't worry, we'll do it again on April 24th. See you then!

OPSA will be hosting monthly matches now with extra-fun mode enabled. Doughboy and Teddy Roosevelt will be offered as shooting categories alongside the standard match. For those not yet interested in DB/TR, the main match will remain unadulterated. DB/TR ammo must be lead only (gas checks OK), and velocity is limited to 1400fps. We hope to see you this Sunday at the Tombstone Livery -- stages are attached for your perusal. I'll bring extra ammo if anyone wants to try doughboy. Remember: OPSA shoots WBAS every 2nd Sunday and 4th Saturday at the Tombstone Livery WBAS_April2021.pdf

I don't know if they are any good, but I recently found this site while looking for a Remington Model 14 buttplate -- worth a shot if you know the specific dimensions: https://vintagegungrips.net/product-category/categories-prod/vintage-butt-plates-and-grip-caps/?ap=w

Thanks, EJ -- what you sent is exactly what I envisioned. We're going to try a few targets this weekend, and we might do our first DB match in a few weeks. The two of us who are most enthusiastic about it like to do reloads, so we'll probably do a mix of 5-10 to force single reloads too. Clock be damned! Finally, a reason to load more BAMMo!

Why the requirement to stage the bolt rifle with bolt fully open? With the exception of the CAS shotguns (which are always unloaded), we don't stage any other guns with the actions open. I'm assuming there is a good reason, but I'd like to understand it better. If the open/loaded rifle slipped and fell, could the bolt get bumped on the way down and chamber a round? I believe it could. We are thinking we keep stage descriptions the same, but add a longer/smaller set of rifle targets for the DB shooters. Often, we probably won't be able to match the DB targets with the main match rifle targets one-for-one, so I guess we just write a different set of instructions for the rifle in those situations. Is this what most folks are doing? Have there been any issues intermingling DB shooters with the others, or are there other things we need to consider before starting it? We will limit velocity to 1400fps due to range requirements. Most of our targets will be at ~25-35yds. We have some 4" hanging plates, and we are considering some silhouette-type knock down plates to keep them small but reactive. It's hard to see hits on those 4" static plates. Thanks again for the help and guidance.

Thanks for all the work and for pioneering these side matches! I think we'll be starting one or both of these up really soon! That said, did they really need to add that line about Garands in the rule book? :P Maybe it was added so in next year's rule book they can delete it strike it out :)

I know there are some K31 owners out there. I need to adjust my front sight. I know there are replacement rear sights with windage (BAMM legal?), but I'd rather keep this one original. I checked a few retailers, but they all seem to be out of stock. Is there one out there I can buy or borrow until I get my adjustments made?

Thanks, GS! The last time I looked, it was easy to find PPU brass at the big online retailers, but it's all gone now. 60c/case seems fairly normal though, so I'll probably end up on GB. I started with 12.0gn of Unique with Norm's 150gn .309 GC bullet -- average group size at 100yds is about 4". I also tried the same load with Norm's 170gn .310 GC bullet, but I haven't put that one on paper yet. Trying to keep it around 1500fps to meet some local range restrictions. This will probably be a long-term project. I'm pretty fond of my 03a3, and I don't like the K31 sights nearly as much as the 03a3, but I love the straight pull on the K31.

Anyone got some to spare?

For anyone curious -- I ended up settling on 4.6gn of N320 and loading my 230gn Hi-tek bullet to 1.22" OAL. In my worn Remington R1, I got pretty consistent 168+ PF.

Looking for feedback on a starting load for a Colt 1903/1908 Pocket Hammerless in .380. I have some VV N310 on hand, so I'd like to try: 2.0gn N310 Federal SPP .984 OAL 95gn Hi-tek coated bullet sized to .356 Should this do the trick?

One final plug for this new match -- it should be a big time! Check out the attached stages. If you attended WR this year, a few of these stages should look familiar. Serenity crafted some excellent stages this year for WR WBAS, so we thought they deserved another go around. If you're on the fence, now is the time to hop down to Tombstone for some fun. See you Sunday! OPSA_WBa_Oct2020.pdf