Snipershide Cup 2015

[robojet]

Just got email that registration is open.

Robojet and Treadstone are registered!

[thegiff]

I'm signing up for this...

[robojet]

I think this one will be a lot of fun.

[thegiff]

Drive or fly???

[gau17]

I think this one will be a lot of fun.

Jennifer,

I know you were having a bit of a rough time getting around the Surefire match, do you think your knee will be up to it for this match?

[robojet]

I have no idea. Going anyways.

Driving. Jeffs folks live in Fort Collins so will be hanging out there for a few days.

[gau17]

I'm sure it will be fun. Good luck out there.

[thegiff]

Signed up today!

[Gnzrme]

Watch out for the cars...

[gau17]

Lol Steven.

[buffybuster]

Watch out for the cars...

You mean big assed 4x4 parked trucks......

[GforceJunkie]

Watch out for the cars...

Watch out for impaired drivers!

[peerless]

Steven ,
Here we go again ,
But I'm seriously considering to do this match, will
decide soon,

[thegiff]

Latest info is that the match is full.

I got plane and hotel reservations set. Plane flights are with United Airlines, using mileage, total cost is 37500 miles and $11.20 out and back not including any extra baggage fees. Rodeway Inn there had decent reviews and low price. I booked a room using AAA discount that has 2 queen beds for 5 nights (Wed through Mo, flying in on Wed and out Monday morning) hopefully can split with someone and drop the cost a bit more for both of us but if that doesn't happen not too bad. I need the room to sleep and shower and store some stuff since I don't want to sleep in the car and I like showering 2X a day. Last thing needed is a car. Another thing is that the max limit is 11 pounds of ammo on the plane. They recommend 300 rounds rifle and 100 pistol, this will weigh around 20 pounds, meaning I need to ship some out, Mile High Shooting will accept ammo shipments for competitors so I'll do that later on.

[autoessentials]

I like to use rentalcars.com
They usually have the best prices, or the Priceline popup that comes at you off of their site does.
Most times I pay between 18-22 per day for a "fullsize" vehicle.

[nevertipsy]

I used to do a lot of traveling to trade shows, the best thing I used was the costco car rental website (if you have a membership). It consistently beat out a few of the other rent a car websites, at least ... it used to, ymmv Good luck!

[robojet]

Email regarding squading came out today. Who all is going and wants to be in the same squad? Aaron?

[thegiff]

Squadding with you two sounds like a great idea to me! I'm wondering if any of the team Rhino guys are going, I'd like to squad up with them to.

[robojet]

Can u check on that? We just need to send in our names

[thegiff]

At John Wayne airport waiting for my flight. Check in was smooth.

[robojet]

We are in silverthorne, co having lunch

[autoessentials]

Have fun guys, and make every shot count!

[nevertipsy]

Good luck and good shooting!

[Gnzrme]

Have fun....Be safe...

Burt Gummer for President 2016

Steven P. Rogers, RN CEN
KK6OTA

[thegiff]

2015 Sniper’s Hide Cup AAR, Thegiff (Aaron)

What an awesome match, big thanks to Frank, Trigger Time, the many sponsors, and all the RO’s who put out huge amounts of effort to set up and run this match. To my knowledge, this was the largest number of competitors ever run in a precision rifle match, with 238 competitors starting. The match was held at the T3 Ranch near Weldona Colorado over the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

I flew in from Orange County on Wednesday with all my gear, except for 70 rifle and 100 pistol rounds that I had sent to Mile High Shooting, who had generously offered to receive ammo shipments ahead of time. I flew in on United, using airline miles gathered from work trips for my flight. United has relatively high baggage fees, so in addition to the $5.80 each way I paid an additional $35 for my second checked bag. Flew past my hometown of Lake Elsinore, CA.



Thursday arrived and I made my way to the ranch around 10:00am, was greeted by some churned up mud at the gate and decent weather. For the time being anyway.



I checked out the LRI grand prize rifle and Mausingfield action (works really smooth…), Kahles, AI, Mile High, Rifles Only and everyone else at the demo day.



Eventually the 100 yard sight-in line was opened up, and having been advised by one of my gunsmith friends to remove the scope and take it as carry-on I reattached it and rezeroed. I had changed my load slightly, and loaded my 6mm Creedmoor another .010” longer than my last batch, and couldn’t get a group better than ¾”. Grr. I gathered 1000 yard dope on the Turkey with the help of my shooting buddies Jennifer and Jeff and someone who was spotting at the time (thanks, but I forgot who this was), and running through the numbers settled on a velocity of 3170 fps.

Then, a portable pizza kitchen showed up. Really awesome!



Around 6pm, Frank held a shooters meeting. He covered the location of the ranges, safety, match rules and the other normal stuff. We were to start shooting at 7:35am, and by mid-day Friday he said that he (and we) would know if the match was running well or if stage adjustments would be needed to accommodate the huge number of shooters. It took me about 40 minutes to get from my hotel in Fort Morgan to the ranch, so I picked up some breakfast food at Walmart and prepped my gear for the first day of the match.



Friday, the first day of the match. Rain. It just kept falling. The parking lot turned into a giant mudpit, Jennifer, Jeff and I were in squad 13 and headed to our first stage at C1. I brought 60 rounds for the morning. This was a mistake. We walked up to C1 from the tent, and met our new shooting buddies. Gathered and shared dope, first stage for us was a spinner, and a mover. Jeff was running a 308, and was eventually able to spin the spinner. It moved sluggish though. Jen went next and couldn’t spin it. My turn, I took 3 mags with me, and counting that I had 5 rounds left I shot at it 25 times. I hit it perfectly 3 times in a row and couldn’t spin it, and zeroed the stage.

Here is one of my squadmates shooting the spinner and mover.



Frank stopped by, and change the stage up because of the sticky spinner, but by this time I had made my way to C2. So Jen, Jeff and I went back to C1 to reshoot it. Now it was hit the spinner bottom plate, then top plate, and then the mover with unlimited rounds. For some reason I couldn’t hit it when it was moving left, and managed 7 hits. I hear the high score was 26 hits on the mover. I shot 18 rounds at it total, + about 5 to hit the bottom and top of the spinner. I only brought 60 rounds for the morning shooting, and now only had about 10 rounds left.


C2 was some targets around the old ranch house. There were some plates hidden in or near the trees. If I recall correctly I cleaned this stage.



C3 was hostage targets around the corral area of the ranch house. We had to shoot from a barricade, first through one port, then any other port. I zeroed this stage, hit a hostage and ran out of time. I was out of ammo, 3 rounds left. Cliff, Jeff’s dad, came along to support Jeff and Jen. He was Jen’s pack mule, so he made his way back to our cars for more ammo.



C4 I don’t even remember what it was. Targets just south of the ranch house. By the way, did I mention it never stopped raining?


Returning back to base camp, the parking lot turned into an incredible mudpit. I parked in the parking lot area, and drove around the mudpit. I didn't want to drive through that. My rental was a little Nissan Rogue, 4WD midsize suv. Perfect for my needs. Just the same, I wasn't driving through a foot of churned up mud.


So anyway we had lunch, turkey sandwiches with drinks and cookies and condiments. Onward to the next segment, we headed to the D segment.

D1 was the tower. Some of the targets were pretty far away, I messed up my wind call and missed a few before I got it figured out. This one (like most stages) was 3 minutes. Time started when you touched the step on the way to the highest landing on the left. Engage targets. Then move to the top landing and engage the targets again.


Moving a few more yards to the north was D2, D3 and D4. I left my notes at work, I'll add an update to this tomorrow.

This completed the day, I stopped by the tent to see if anything was going on. Then made my way back to my hotel and set all my stuff up to dry. Awake at 4:30am to get prepped for day 2.

[khw9mm]

Nice write up Aaron! Heard about the crazy rain on the first day. Looking forward to reading day 2.

[nevertipsy]

Sweet report Aaron, I think a lesson I've pulled from this to always bring extra ammo whenever possible!

[thegiff]

Saturday Day 2 started with more rain. We gathered up at Segment E, which was about a mile west of the tent. This was on the other side of the road from the tower from D1. I didn't get a pic of D1, which was a really cool stage. Starting with a loaded pistol on the center console, unloaded rifle in the backseat and hands on the wheel at 10 and 2 o'clock position, shoot 5 pistol targets near and in another car, then transition to rifle. Shoot targets from under the front bumper then the same targets from the hood of the car. I hit all but one rifle shot (ran out of time, 3 minutes sure goes by fast...) and I think I missed one pistol target.

D2 was the Sgt. Robinson stage, honoring Bronze Star Medal winner for his heroic actions in engaging the enemy in combat. This was shot off a tripod and hog saddle, through a loophole, at 5 targets, 2 at 590 yards and 3 at 627 yards, in order near left, near right, far left, far right, and the far center diamond representing an enemy officer. I missed one of the easy shots on this stage, though at the time I ran through this I was the stage high score. Owning the exact same setup that I had one from a previous match, I found that the best way (for me anyway) to run the rifle is to set it in the hog saddle, pull the rifle down and into the hog saddle, and shoot the rifle free-recoil, actuating the trigger by pinching the trigger and trigger guard rather than muscling the gun around. I have to say it was nice to see a HOG saddle mounted tight to the tripod, the other times I've seen a HOG saddle stage they were mounted so loose that they were useless. Props to the Huber "thetriggerguy" for running this stage, it was really cool.

D3 was the Mile High Shooting AI AW with iron sights. 5 targets, 1 shot per target. I zeroed this stage.

D4 was some diamond targets on hangers up a road pointed south. The wind changed direction, then picked up quite a bit from the beginning of our squad running the stage to when I ran it near the end. I spotted my misses to the left and got hits on the farthest target, but didn't hit any of the near ones.

So lunch came and went, this time I parked on the road rather than going through the mudpit parking lot. Frank said that thunderstorms were on the way so the plan was to shorten up lunch and get going on the afternoon shooting to minimize exposure. We headed to the A segment, sponsored by JC steel. Here is some of our squad hanging out at the A range.


I'm the skinny guy on the right.



We had a couple hours of misty rain, and saw and heard a thunderstorm headed our way. One of the stages had nobody on it, another was packed with 2 squads, so we talked with the RO's and split up to be more efficient in getting through the stages. A1 on the far left was some targets on the hill. 4 targets, 2 shots each. Standing 2 shots at target 1, kneeling 2 shots at target 2 (sling only, no gaming), 2 shots each at target 3 and 4 in any position except prone. I screwed up and loaded 6 rounds instead of 8, got 1 standing free-hand, 1 kneeling free-hand and 1 each of the following 2 since I shot the wrong target on shot #5. So the mini-lesson is pay attention to the instructions...

And A2 was 3 shots prone from a position on the left side of the barrel at the left hand left eye, 3 shots from the top of the barrel strong-side, and 3 shots prone along the right side of the barrel right hand right eye.

If I messed up the order of A3 and A4, I'll correct it later, One was KYL and the other was targets at 900 and 1000 yards.



A3 was the long-range stage in this segment, going to about 1000 yards. Standard prone position. I held .5 mil wind to finally connect with the bear at 1000. The targets were against the rocky skyline in the picture below, and since it was raining and hazy the flashing target indicators proved to be really awesome at showing hits. No question if the target was hit or not, they flashed or didn't. There were a couple other targets that were closer, oval shaped.

A4 was shooting from the barrels in this prop. The barrels spin easily in the wood frame. One of our guys didn't get his muzzle out the far end covered himself in mud spray from blasting all the standing water in the barrel. To get to the barrel (pre-staged rifle in the lower barrel) you had to knock the 4 steel targets on the wood posts down with your pistol first. If I remember right this was a KYL stage also, with a rack at one distance and a turkey farther out, You had to confirm your KYL hit with a hit on the turkey, any miss reset your score to zero. I liked the RO on this stage, good New Yorker dude (not good ole country boy, my bad...) who had to smack down the gamer squad the day before.



There was lightning and thunder all around us, we gathered up our stuff and booked it out of there. One more segment to go.

[thegiff]

Sunday, the last day and 1 segment and 4 stages to go. And great weather, warm, mostly sunny, a light breeze...


We headed to B segment, and started off at the house. We started on B1. I forgot to take a pic of the house, it had a small room with a couple of windows to shoot out of, and a roof. I did pretty well on this stage. It was 9 rounds, shoot 3 rounds 1 each from the left port using left hand and left eye shooting the left targets, then from right port with right hand right eye shooting the right targets. Finally move to the roof and shoot the middle targets from any position. Targets randed from 410 to 915 yards on this stage, minimal wind since it was at our backs.


Next was B2. 8 targets total, 3 targets using a "dropped rifle" AR, and 5 engaged with your precision rifle. The AR targets were 116, 174 and 275 yards, and you had to take all your gear including the AR from position to position climbing about 40 feet vertically. Easy to do at sea level, sucked at altitude. I hit the first 2 targets with the AR 1 shot each, huffed and puffed and strained my way to the 3rd AR position, decided I was running out of time and blasted 3 towards the target to empty the AR and move on. Made it to the top, and hit 4 targets and was about to send the last and timed out.

One of our guys shooting the AR off the second haybale



This is one of my squadmates on the way to the top of the hill on precision rifle.



And on the hill shooting at the 5 targets across the valley.



Most of our squad resting up waiting for the last of our squad to make it up to the top.





Stage B3, loophole through haybales. I blew this one, didn't have my tall bipod on and hit the bale a bunch of times. In retrospect I should have slid back a foot or two to climb up the hill and get my muzzle up high enough.


And finally, the last stage, B4 for us. Shoot across the valley at targets at 440, 500, 600, 680 and 775 yards. This one required a lot of elevation change in position, I used my pump pillow then transitioned to my SAP Run n' Gun bag.



We were done, and called it a day. But, before heading back to the tent, some prairie dogs needed to be shot. I shot two. I can say that you don't want to be on the wrong end of the AMU team, with a couple spotters and a whole squad of shooters, I heard something like this... "there's one, move left." "Got it, boom." "Hit .5 left, correct and send again." Boom. "got it!" "Another one!" Boom. "Got it." Boom. And on and on.


Costs:
Match Entry $275

Flight: Using airline miles on United, and one extra bag. About $83.

Hotel: $431.7

Car: $327.75

Gas: $49.78

Food: approx $75

Lost 71 pieces of rifle brass and all pistol brass.

Shot 169 rifle rounds total.

Total $1,159.23 not including cost of ammo. If I paid full price for the flight I would fly Southwest, probably about $350 total.


Equipment and stuff I brought:

Rifle is a 6 Creedmoor chambered rifle. Surgeon 591 action, coated with diamondblack. Has American Rifle Company 34mm medium rings, Vortex 4.5-27 Gen2 Razor with EBR-2C reticle. Bartlein medium palma barrel cut to 26.5" from the boltface, JEC brake, Manners T4A stock with adjustable cheekpiece and adjustable butt spacer (all spacers removed, I'm small). I have pigskins on it now (acquired from the Bushnell Brawl about 3 months ago) and a SAP 2 round holder. Sling stud I made myself with a 1/4-20 thread (soon to be replaced with a rail) and short and medium harris bipods.


Stuff in my pack: 5-11 Rush 24 pack, SAP Run N' Gun bag, SAP sling, kestrel, binos, 3 paper copies of my dope to 1000+ yards, gloves, shemaugh, had, ear pro (MSA sordin), medicine (I have a type of muscular dystrophy where I can get and have been totally paralyzed if my chemical balance is off), advil, sunscreen and sunblock chapstick, a pump pillow, two rolls of 2" wide velcro (this has been really useful a couple of times), and tons of other wierd things that seem to collect in my pack.


Equipment failures:
My trigger got gritty, it's a Timney 510, it didn't go down but to be safe I cleaned it Saturday night. Pulled the action, sprayed it down really good. My R&D bottom metal release lever got sticky, sprayed that down to and worked it back into shape. One of our squad's rifles had a trigger go down, stock remington tuned to a lighter pull. I cleaned it out and it came back to life. In all cases I had a small can or Hornady one shot lube in my pack, seems to work fine at blasting grit out, and perhaps rust and mud too. If I remember right it is tap HD but I got a tiny can about 2 ounce or so as a sample and have never seen one for sale. I brought my brother's leica 1500B rangefinder, it was not up to the task of ranging targets at the Cup. Our squad had a couple of Vectronix units, those worked great. All my notes got wet, it was difficult to write anything on wet paper. One of our guys used a Sunrise Tactical wrist dope holder, and wrote on it with a grease pencil. That worked really well, I'm going to copy the grease pencil idea for future outings in the rain. I kept my paper dry by bagging everything and being careful about keeping things dry.


I stole the idea of a dopeholder using a couple of roach clips on a wire from somebody, that works well. I can place my dope as a picture with ranges and numbers on my rifle, and see it while looking out towards the targets at any time.

[thegiff]

Prizes:
So they called out the top 25, then top 50 or so shooters (whoever was on page 1 of the printout). While doing that, Frank set aside a couple rifles and scopes that were not available to those shooters, for special consideration. He called out a few, then gave a GAP rifle to a worthy upcoming shooter. And a S&B Scope to the top 308 shooter. And prior to calling out names he also had some card decks passed out, and everyone got a card.

So for an AR rifle, he drew a card, 8 of spades if I remember right. And 4 guys came up. They wrote their names on their cards and were drawn again to find a winner.

Then, suddenly, free-for-all. I had my eye on some rifle/scope covers, but changed my mind and went for some certificates. I managed to get a GDI cert for a P-ROM-L Rifle Optic Mount, really cool! I'll call them up tomorrow, turns out they are in Temecula.

I also got 11 t-shirts, some patches, stickers, and other such items. Oddly, I grabbed a Vortex shirt (gotta have one, I'm running a Vortex Gen 2 now...) and snagged one. Put it on, found that the printing is backwards (front medallion is on the back, the back logo is on the front...) Doh!

There was a bunch of noise about cheating and such, I think it was minimal and blown out of proportion about 50X what reality might be. That being said, I wouldn't put it past some of them...

I placed 150th out of 238 shooters, and had a great time!

[Mudlol]

Good read thanks Aaron

[Capnjon]

Enjoyed reading Aaron!

[trailtundra]

Picture from usmcscoutsniper.org

[thegiff]

To the best of my knowledge…



SHC 2015 Course of fire:



Stage C1

Spinner and Mover

Spinner at 350 yards.

Mover at 530 yards (approx. 10” wide) approx. 1.8 mil lead with my 6 creed at 3170fps.



Stage C2

4 targets in the treeline at 360, 340, 365 and 384 yards. One on the hillside 450 yards. One on top of the hill 520 yards.



Stage C3

Barricade hostage targets. Shoot from a designated porthole, then pick any other porthole and re-engage. I don’t know what I did with my notes on this stage. On the order of 300 to 600 yards or so.



Stage C4, longer range stuff, prone if I remember right.

2 shots each, 5 targets.

1030 yards, 1090 yards, 1120 yards, 1236 yards, 1210 yards.



Stage D1

Tower, 12 shot max 6 from lower platform, 6 from top platform, miss you move on (one shot per target there are 6 targets out there).

470 yards, 550 yards, 575 yards, ??? missing, 956 yards, 1059 yards. If you hit any target from the platform, then you were given 2 points for this missing target. An earlier round of shooters broke it.



Stage D2 Sergeant Robinson stage (hog saddle through a loophole)

Two targets near (rectangles)

Two targets far (rectangles)

1 target far (in the middle) diamond representing an enemy officer.

3 minutes, tripod and hog saddle are moved to a starting position, rifle port of arms. 1 shot per target, miss you move on. You need to grab the tripod/hog saddle, move it to see the targets through a loophole, then with no part of the rifle touching or extending past the loophole shoot the enemy. My notes show:

Near targets at 360yard.

Far targets at 550 yards

Officer (diamond) at 840 yards. Or was this misranged and was 550? Don't remember, though I did hit it.



Stage D3

I didn’t write down the D3 position or course of fire (probably prone). Yardages and comeups:

380 yards E 1.2

420 yards E 1.5

540 yards E 2.2

590 yards E 2.6

630 yards E 2.9

730 yards E 3.7

810 yards E 4.4

Wind at our backs, half value or so (like a 5mph crosswind)



Stage D4

Again didn’t write down the D4 position or course of fire, but here are the yardages and my comeups.

5400’ DA, temp approx. 50-55°F

690 yards E 3.4

730 yards E 3.7

920 yards E 5.4

1009 yards E 6.2

1118 yards E 7.4

1190 yards E 8.3

1210 yards E 8.5



Stage E1

Car to car pistol 5 targets 2 hits = 1 point, if hit twice move on. Rifle at 4 targets, rectangles hanging on sawhorses.

337 yards straight ahead

575 yards out to the left

705 yards straight ahead

850 yards out to the left past target 2



Stage E2 (AI with iron sights stage)

Targets set to the turret on the AI which is in meters. Target 1 aperature 2, Target 2 Aperature 3, Targets 4 and 5 Aperature 4 if I remember right.



Stage E3 Pistol and rifle. Starting on the left side of the line with pistol, shot 1 shot each at 5 pistol targets, miss you move on. Then, rifle on diamond targets 5 shots miss you move on.

DA 6000’

415 yards

490 yards

560 yards

675 yards

750 yards



Stage E4, 6 targets mostly following the road uphill towards the south (target 3 way to the left to throw you off).

320 yards

360 yards

400 yards (way left)

435 yards

550 yards

570 yards

The wind switched directions on us in this stage, and was a 90° crosswind about 5mph.



Stage A1 Plate rack with 6 plates, must knock over each plate to go to rifle, unlimited pistol rounds (not unlimited time though). Then transition to rifle 2 shots each.

Rifle position 1 standing with sling only 260 yards

Rifle position 2 kneeling with sling only 295 yards

Rifle with any position other than prone 295 and 340 yards.



Stage A2 rock outcrop, left and right side shooting around and on a barrel and a haybale.

3 minutes. 3 targets, left 870, middle 730, right 870

2 shots from left side of barrel prone, left hand left eye. 870 yards target

2 shots from top of barrel 730 yard target (strong side)

2 shots from right side of barrel prone, right hand right eye 870 yards

Repeat at haybale.



My notes are screwed up between A3 and A4.

If I remember right one was targets from near to far, the two near targets were ovals, the two far targets had flashers. These were JC steel targets, farthest one was a bear.

I’ve got notes saying 870, 730 and 930 yards but otherwise don’t have this one written down.



A3 or A4 KYL + Confirmation on turkey

KYL rack 340 yards

Turkey 600 yards

10 rounds max (though RO was cool and would let a couple extra rounds slide…)

Hit target 1, confirm on turkey, Hit target 2, confirm on turkey, and so on. Miss anywhere, reset to zero and start over. Stop when you want or run out of time.



B1 the house. 9 rounds total, 3 rounds from lower left window left hand left eye. 3 rounds from lower right window right hand right eye. 3 rounds from the roof any way you want. Targets arranged in 3 lines, one on the left pointing left with 3 targets, one in the middle pointing mostly straight away with 3 targets, one on the right pointing right with 3 targets.

From position 1 left hand left eye, lower left window shoot the left targets.

From position 2 right hand right eye lower right window shoot the right targets.

From the roof, shoot the middle targets.

1 shot per target, miss you move on.

Target string 1 on the left 460, 540 and 690 yards.

Target string 2 on the right 410, 520 and 612 yards.

Target string 3 in the middle 640, 805, 915 yards.

5600’ DA, wind at our backs.



B2, dropped rifle (an AR) and you and all your gear and a hill.

8 targets total.

3 AR targets at 116, 174 and 275 yards.

5 rifle targets at 312, 353, 400, 516 and 600 yards.

Starting from the bottom, time starts when you touch the AR. Your precision rifle pointed downrange close by. Shoot AR target 1, a hit = 1 point.

Move to haybale with all (ALL) of your gear. AR on-safe. If you have AR rounds left, shoot at target 2, a hit = 1 point. Move to position 3 if you want (or blast away to empty the AR, your choice) with all of your gear. Shoot AR target 3 for 1 more point.

Move to the top of the hill leaving the AR behind. Shoot the 5 targets, hit = move on first round hit 2 points, second round hit 1 point (2 points max per target).



B3 loophole through haybale.

DA 6200’, temp a nice 70° or so with a light breeze and mostly sunny.

Targets on hanger

330 yards

402 yards

523 yards

624 yards

Shooting from a designated prone position, engage the targets through the loophole.

Then, transition to the top of the haybale and and engage the targets through a different loophole. If you aren’t high enough, you hit the hay. If you aren’t low enough, you hit different hay.



B4 targets across the valley.

440 yards ahead

500 yards ahead

600 yards to the right

680 yards to the right



775 yards way left near the top of the hill on the other side of the valley.