The Aged Shooter

A while ago, I went to my doctor and his diagnosis was that I needed more pills, physical therapy, lose some weight, and not drink alcoholic beverages. As a follow up, I needed to come back in a couple of months so he could quantifiably measure the results. I arrived home, feeling rather dejected with the outcome, when an old friend called and asked how I was doing. He listened to my tale of woe, carefully analyzing each word. The worst part of the whole deal was not being able to have a sip of whisky. I asked, “Tom, how can anybody get through a winter in Montana without drinking whisky?” He said, “How old is your doctor?” I replied, “About 40.”

Now, Tom was a retired internist and pathologist, who could get cranky without much provocation. He retorted, “Look, dummy, you don’t go to a doctor younger than yourself, especially at our age! They don’t have a clue what it’s like to get old.”

Some of the readership is probably wondering how I am qualified to write an article on shooting. Well, I am 73 years old, have had most ailments common to “Geezers” and I’m still trying to stay in the competitive shooting game. In other words, “I feel your pain!”

So, this is my story as an aged shooter who took a 26-year hiatus from BPCR Silhouette and has been trying to reenter the game for the past five years. It has been painful and humiliating. Below, I have written down some helpful tips that have worked me.

The photograph, I Bring You Fire, is quite special to me, as I’m touching off 113 grains of 3Fg powder behind a 535-grain Lyman Postell bullet in my 45-2 7/8 Sharps. I was at my lowest point, health-wise, and told my son, Stan, I could not go to the invited shoot, as I simply could not walk or get around. Stan said, “Dad, we will take care of you, but you need to shoot.” More importantly, the photo was taken by my son on February 2, 2020. Later that week Covid-19 was unleashed on the world, changing it forever.

A banner year for “Yours Truly” was in 1992, where I won the second Quigley Match at Forsyth, Montana, and proceeded to go onto the BPCR Silhouette National Matches in Raton, New Mexico. My sole goal was to win the C. Sharps Arms trophy – a print of L.A. Huffman’s Packing Out the Old Mountain Ram – awarded to the contestant that shot the most rams with a Sharps rifle. It was a good match, and I tied for third overall with Kirk Bryan (Mr. Shiloh Rifle Mfg.) and Brian Gregorich. My friend and nemesis, Steve Garbe, finished second, and Dennis Bruns won the match. What intrigued me was that second place through fifth place, were all won by Big Timber, Montana, boys. I did win the Packing Out the Old Mountain Ram print, but if there is one shooting achievement that is the highlight of my life, it was tying Dennis Bardon for the “White Buffalo Trophy”, which was given to the shooter with the highest ram score. Some of you are probably wondering why a tie would be the standout. Dennis was my shooting partner and spotter, as I was his. When the last ram went down, we looked at the scores and realized we had tied. I looked at Dennis and he said, “Lon, we are not shooting it off!” Doc Carlson did not bring the subject up, and that night at the awards banquet, they presented both of us with the “White Buffalo Trophy”. Doc apologized for only having one trophy, but promised to send a duplicate to the other shooter. He handed the trophy to Dennis, and Dennis turned and handed it to me saying, “Lon, you earned it.”

Now, you are probably thinking, “Nice story, Lon, but what does this have to do with an aged shooter?” Here is what it has to do with an aged shooter. Get over yourself and quit trying to live up to your memories! You are adding frustration to a most frustrating game, and frustration is not a friend to the aged shooter.

Shooting Position

Other than offhand, I believe in BPCR Silhouette you are limited to prone or sitting. If you can shoot prone comfortably, shoot prone. As an aged shooter, I find the sitting position much more comfortable than prone. Unfortunately, I cannot under any circumstances shoot prone. Oddly enough, this painful outcome was forecast by my doctor when I was riding bucking horses on a rodeo scholarship to get through college.

The basic difference I have found between shooting prone and sitting comes down to this; prone minimizes your bad habits and sitting maximizes your bad habits. The big one is “follow-through”. For some reason, when I shoot sitting, I want to jerk my head off the stock and see where the shot hit. The other area where prone is better is that you can lay all of your ammunition, blow tube, and other paraphernalia needed to shoot the match at ground level, within easy reach. Sitting requires that you reach down to an uncomfortable level to find your equipment. Usually, your blow-tube gets lost when you change your feet to another location. Ammunition gets spilled over into the dirt and things can become very frustrating at exactly the time you need to slow your heart rate down!

If you are going to shoot sitting, you need to manage your ammunition, blow-tube, and anything else required on the line to be within comfortable reaching distance. To this end, I built a new blow-tube to shoot 45-70, 45-90, and 45-100 utilizing a 45-2 7/8 case and copper tubing. The long case allows me to push the tube into the chamber to the case stop on all three of the mentioned cartridges. This keeps the moist air in the barrel and not the chamber. Blow a bunch of moisture into the chamber with your blow-tube, shoot the next cartridge and you will eject half of the cartridge case (case separation). I bent the copper tube into something of an “S” and soldered it in place with the end of the tube right at the case mouth, which allowed me to get all the moist air into the barrel instead of inside the blow-tube. The “S” shape is long enough so I can have the blow tube in the chamber, and very comfortably look down range and watch the wind flags while I blow in the barrel. Furthermore, I made a lanyard to hold said blow tube and sight setting card around my neck.

If your bullet lube is working correctly, you can use three breaths on the blow tube without additional moisture to chamber a cartridge. I do not usually clean the rifle during a match but just use a blow tube. Since my return to the game after a 26-year absence, the only thing that hadn’t changed was everyone is still convinced that they can still brew up a better bullet lube. Unless you have a Chemical Engineer degree, take your homemade lube made up of organic bee’s wax, cut with triple rendered Musk Ox lard, and mixed with 17 specially blended herbs and spices, to the nearest toxic waste dump! Instead, I highly recommend calling Larry Baker at SPG Sales (660-988-4099 or spgbaker@yahoo.com) to order some SPG Bullet Lubricant. SPG Lube has been time-tested for more than 40 years with outstanding results.

To aid my reach while shooting, I concocted a cartridge holder that straps around my leg just below my knee. This holds the required cartridges at very close proximity and allows me to use my left hand to get a cartridge, while I am blowing in the gun. The rifle never leaves my shoulder while I’m watching the wind flags. The first time I used this equipment was at the recent Shiloh “Big Whisky” Match and I took some serious ribbing. Ribbing aside, this was the first shoot that I really felt organized, didn’t lose my blow tube, or spill ammunition, which in turn enabled me to shoot somewhat faster, without the frustration level going up. This is called “time management.”

In the sitting position, it is money well spent to invest in a longer than normal set of shooting sticks, with a sliding adjustment. Stout sticks will have a definite advantage, and you can take it from there.

The sitting stool is more important than the sticks. A wide seat is better, and four feet to stabilize the stool is a plus. You need the wide seat, as the sitting position requires you to be aligned with the target, and seldom do you get it right on the first try. The wide seat allows you to move around to get aligned, without falling off the stool. This recently happened to me, when a well-meaning friend said, “Why don’t you use mine, it is all set up?” Over I went, and of course there were a lot of spectators to verify the event, mostly muttering, “Why is Lon rolling around on the ground with a rifle?” My stool was purchased from Harbor Freight (HarborFreight.com) and is made of heavy aluminum, the legs lock to the frame when in use and it folds up. I “velcroed” a stadium seat to the sitting platform, which fits me well and seems quite satisfactory. Remember – wide and stable.

Sights and Scopes

If you can clearly see the targets, I believe iron sights are a lot less frustrating than scopes. There is the “frustrating” word again, and frustration is not a good thing at a rifle match. If you can clearly see the targets, I don’t think you magically gain hits by using a scope over iron sights. At a gong match, under the right conditions, I would rather shoot iron sights than deal with a scope. However, there are ranges and conditions when scopes hold all of the cards and clearly have an advantage.

In my opinion, one of the largest problems in using long scopes is many of today’s gunsmiths do not understand the technology surrounding long scopes or the accuracy they produce. My gripe is they do not get mounting blocks on the correct 7.2 inches (center to center) spacing that allows these scopes to operate as they were designed, with ½ or ¼ MOA adjustments. Why have to do the math if the gunsmith had just set the spacing right in the first place? This is not the largest part of the gripe, but improper spacing can affect eye relief, which can turn optical quality into a fishbowl, and parallax adjustment becomes problematic on an otherwise perfect scope. If your gunsmith does not understand the concept, and does not use a scope block mounting vice, find another gunsmith.

For BPCR Silhouette, I do shoot scopes, but they can be extremely frustrating, especially in the middle of a match when our old nemesis “Murphy” shows up. Murphy is especially fond of Malcom-style scope mounts. If you have Malcom mounts, it is easy to send him packing and eliminate a bunch of frustration. Simply take the rear mount off your scope, and replace it with a Unertl-style mount from Montana Vintage Arms, Steve Earle or Dan Zimmerman. In my opinion, the Unertl-style mount is much simpler and easier to adjust, keeping that frustration at a minimum. Make sure you get those mounts that are “click-less” so they are legal for NRA competition.

Rifles and Cartridges

As for rifles, I do not think anyone can go wrong with any of the BPC rifles in production today. My suggestion would be to select a Creedmoor-style pistol grip stock with a high comb with no more than 1½ inches of drop. The Cody Ballard No. 7, Shiloh 1874 Creedmoor Silhouette, and 1877 Heavy Creedmoor are good examples. I have a C. Sharps 1885 High Wall that appears to have been ordered through their custom shop and its stock meets the previously stated criteria. These stocks are much easier to use with a scope from an eye relief basis, plus straighter stocks have a softened recoil effect. Additionally, a pistol grip stock makes it easier to control the torque of rifle during follow through. For older shooters, I highly recommend using double set triggers rather than single, or single set triggers. They are easier to adjust to a perfect let-off for the individual shooter. Single set triggers are just another source of frustration on the firing line under pressure. In my opinion, double set triggers are more “user friendly” and have generally better ergonomics than single set triggers.

Cartridge choice is a matter of preference, as long as they are legal within the discipline you are competing. Some of the smaller cartridges suffer from vertical dispersion at the distances we are shooting. Vertical dispersion relates to a bullet in flight slowing down to the point it becomes unstable. My Shiloh 45-70, shooting a 540-grain Steve Brooks Creedmoor at 1,132 fps, which is just under the sound barrier at my altitude, is amazingly accurate out to the turkeys but completely falls apart on the rams. For two years I fought this phenomenon and finally set up a target board, a portable bench, and utilized a “Lead Sled” with a 50-pound weight to test my ammunition on the chicken, pig, turkey, and ram lines. This target was a full two-foot square. The gun shot incredible to the turkey line but when I switched to the ram line, I could not get any semblance of a group, with most shots missing the target board completely. I called a good friend who is a Master Class shooter and asked him what was going on. He explained vertical dispersion and told me the bullet’s velocity needed to be increased, to stabilize the bullet to that yardage. He said change to a faster powder, load up my kit and try again at the ram line. He also mentioned if it was grouping to an acceptable level, to also analyze the bullet holes in the target, making sure they are cutting the target like a wad-cutter and not tipping. I did what he said and…it worked!

Spotting for several shooters using 40-65’s and 40-70’s, I noticed they would be deadly to a certain mid-range target and then begin shooting all around the target, typically when at rams. Vertical dispersion is the culprit. By switching to a 3Fg instead of 1½ Fg, which added 60 to 70 feet per second to the velocity, I fixed the problem. You can verify if vertical dispersion is the issue, usually by only changing to 3Fg powder. If it works, why not just have a ram load? That’s a good question and here’s the problem; I have shown up at the line with the wrong ammunition, which is compounding that “frustration” issue. Keep it simple and use a load that stays stable to rams.

I will relate a little story that lends credence to my opinion. In 1989, I was shooting a Shiloh 45-70 Long Range Express that had been re-barreled by Shiloh to a heavy 30-inch octagon in 45-70. Mike Venturino was shooting a 40-70SS, Steve Garbe was shooting a 40-60 Maynard, and Dan Phariss was shooting a 40-70 BN. They were all making life miserable for the rest of us with their .40 caliber rifles. Upon this observation, I decided then that if you can’t beat them, why not join them!

So, I dropped by Shiloh and talked to Wolfgang Droege about re-barreling my .45 to .40. As it happened, he had just been turning out some barrels in .40 caliber with 16-inch twists. He fit one of the new barrels to my rifle, chambered it to 40-65 and also cut it with a .500 throat so that I could seat a bullet out, increasing powder capacity. Dave Farmer cut a 430-grain bullet mould to Wolf’s specifications. I used 65 grains of Goex 2Fg powder with no compression in a Winchester Case, a Federal 210-M primer and cut my wads from a .060 sheet of Mylar. I did not chronograph the load, but I believe the 430-grain bullet was making 1,250 fps. It shot very well indeed and Wolf inscribed on the new barrel the words “Black Magic.” You can easily do a permanent correction if you shoot a 40-65. Call Dave at Manson Precision Reamers (ph: 810-953-0732, MansonReamers.com or support@mansonreamers.com) and ask to rent or purchase a 40-82 Crossno reamer, as specified by Lon Morris. Re-cutting the chamber is not a big deal if your gunsmith can get the reamer. Obviously, you can take the same course of action with a 45-70 by reaming it to a 45-90. Now to the sad part of the story; when I gave up BPCR Silhouette shooting, I consigned the gun, cases, bullet mould, and custom dies to a gun broker. If you have information on the whereabouts of this rifle, please let me know!

Fatigue

This is a big one. When I had my hips replaced, the orthopedic surgeon required that I wear full-length support socks for a month to help prevent blood clots and to continue to wear them for another six weeks after the operation. Upon doing so, I didn’t get any blood clots, and soon figured out these support socks eliminated fatigue and pain in my legs. To help with the ease of putting on my boots, I bought a pair of military-style boots made of rough-out leather and nylon with a side zipper. Once the laces are set, you do not have anything to lace up, which is a big deal to a Geezer. They have great support, are very stable, and comfortable. Wearing the support socks and boots to a match, really made a significant difference in the way I felt by the end of the match. These items are a must have for any aging shooter.

And finally, I suggest buying a Crossno 22-rifle adaptor (can be purchased at Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing, or Buffalo Arms Company), for the caliber of your silhouette rifle. This allows you to practice year-round and is fantastic to work with on your follow-through. At 50 feet, I was truly amazed at how accurate they were. Out the back door of my shop, I shoot mine at a ¾-inch gong and I don’t have to wade through two feet of snow to set up a target just to get a few rounds of practice. Buy a cheap chronograph and use the thing to monitor your ammunition. However, don’t fall into the trap that “standard deviation” is the only measurement of the best accuracy. It isn’t so! The chronograph is another tool in your toolbox but not the total answer.

Another item that is worthwhile and doesn’t cost much is a phone scope. This little adaptor allows you to mount your cell phone directly to your spotting scope. It allows you to use the phone in its photographic mode, using the controls on the phone. You use the video function and slow it down to see the exact frame when the bullet hits the target. I used mine the first time I went to see if I had corrected vertical dispersion on my 45-70. Much fun was had whacking rams and then watching the videos. My son was impressed when shown the video and audio of me hitting three rams in a row. (I really didn’t think it was any of his business that I shot the string off the Lead Sled.)

As I am finishing this article, I appreciate you reading it to the end and I hope it gave you a worthwhile tip or two that you find useful. Furthermore, I hope it made you laugh! I believe the world we live in would be better off if there was a little more laughing, especially at ourselves.

We have to realize, as aged shooters that yesterday is gone, and tomorrow is promised to no one. Which leaves us today! We try to improve ourselves with each shot, even if we are only shooting against ourselves.