By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
At our “Buffalo Camp,” where we compete with black powder cartridges, the main shooting event is called the “Little Quigley Match” because it uses targets shaped and patterned after those targets used at the Matthew Quigley Buffalo Rifle match which is held annually near Forsyth, Montana.
While our targets are the same shape as those at the Quigley match, they are not the same size. We use scaled down targets which are then set out at shorter distances. Shooting our black powder cartridge rifles, from the sitting position while using cross-sticks, at those reduced size targets still takes care and concentration because the challenge isn’t reduced at all.
There is one more similarity between our “Little Quigley Match” and the Matthew Quigley Buffalo Rifle Match; neither of these shooting matches has been “aced.” No one, as yet, has hit all of the targets. But this year at Buffalo Camp one of our shooters came close.
Skilled marksman Allen Cunniff used his favorite Model 1874 Sharps sporting rifle in .45/70 again, but with different loads. This year he was using paper patched bullets and wiping his rifle’s barrel between shots. Let’s not conclude how that was the reason he did so well this year, instead we can suggest his good shooting is more of a product of his continued practice.
Five years ago, Cunniff did rather well in the Little Quigley Match, winning it with only 13 hits on the hanging silhouettes out of 20 shots. And there was nothing “only” about those 13 hits, after all, nobody did any better. Then the next year he got the same score, 13 hits, and this time he was beaten (by Jerry Mayo who set the range record with 17 hits) so his 13 were good for second place. And three years ago, Cunniff repeated his score by getting 13 hits once more and, again, that was good for second place.
Last year Cunniff changed his habits and his score climbed. He began using his Old Reliable C. Sharps 1874 rifle in .45/70 but firing a 525-grain Ballard paper patched bullet over 73 grains of Olde Eynsford 2F. (That much powder in the .45/70 case usually requires a drop tube for loading but it is not hard to do.) He began to favor paper patched bullets and his Little Quigley Match score zoomed up to 17 hits, equal to Mayo’s record which was set just the year before.
This year Cunniff’s score climbed again and he scored with 19 of his 20 shots fired, missing only one of the offhand shots at the “bucket.” Very outstanding shooting, for sure.
Following Cunniff was Mike Moran, a new participant in this match. He used another .45/70, a Model 1874 Sharps rifle, to hit the silhouettes 15 times with his 20 shots. Moran used grease groove bullets from Lyman’s #457124 mold, weighing about 400 grains, over 65 grains of Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F powder. Placing third in the match was Mayo who, like Cunniff, was using paper patched bullets in his .45/70.
Moran and Mayo tied with 15 hits each but the tie was broken in Mike’s favor because he had more hits with his offhand shooting at the “bucket.”
Going down the line for two more names, just to mention the top five shooters, we come to me and I managed 13 hits with my much-used .44/77 Sharps. No excuses but I did miss my first two shots at the buffalo. In practice I was hitting rather well and had my sight setting figured to ½-minute for elevation. However, I had practiced my shooting from a benchrest while we shot the match from a sitting position. That might make a difference and, like I often say, any difference can make a difference.
Our fifth-place shooter in the Little Quigley Match was Joel Miles, who came from Idaho to use his .45/70 Gemmer-Sharps (a Model 1874 Sharps action that looks like it was stocked and barreled by J. P. Gemmer, giving the rifle a Hawken style) at Buffalo Camp. Miles was our only shooter to use open sights, a buckhorn.
So, “hat’s off” to Allen Cunniff for setting a new record for the most hits on silhouettes at our Little Quigley Match. Now we’re waiting to see how long that record will stand and, of course, Allen is hoping he’ll be the one to break it.
For the new low and this takes us to the Meat Hunt at Buffalo Camp. The Meat Hunt is a match which is shot “down the trail” at hanging silhouettes in the shapes of various animals, hanging out at unlisted distances. Very much like hunting, you don’t know how far the shot will be. This is also an interesting and challenging match.
Unlike the Little Quigley Match, the “Meat Hunt” has been aced. In fact, the Meat Hunt has been aced twice, by two different shooters but both of them were using muzzleloading rifles. The Meat Hunt is an event which simulates a buffalo hunter foraging for something other than buffalo meat for dinner and all of the targets are animal shaped gongs or silhouettes hanging at un-marked distances. Shooters encounter those 15 targets much like a hunter would while walking through the woods and all shots are taken from the offhand position.
For this match, I used my Model 1866 Short Rifle by Uberti in .44/40 caliber. This rifle was talked about not too long ago (The Gun Mag, March 2022) and it was performing very well with the open sights. I had already gotten a Lyman tang sight to fit to it but decided to use the open sights simply because they seemed to be working so well.
Previously I had taken a second place on the Meat Hunt (2019) and the following year I took first place, both times while using a copy of Winchester’s Model 1873 in .44/40 with 13 hits. So, this time I had great expectations of doing rather well. On top of all that, the sun was shining brightly which simply added to the smile of all the shooters and we headed to the Meat Hunt trail in a fairly large group.
The first target is a steel profile of a raccoon which is always rather hard to see. Several shooters miss this target which seems to spur remarks such as, “I don’t like raccoon meat anyway.” That didn’t have any influence on me or my shooting until I stepped to the firing station; not only could I not see the raccoon, I couldn’t see my rifle’s sights!
The bright sunlight was working against me, making shadows that were practically black. In such harsh contrast I could not see the rear sight and it is my thought that I was holding the front sight too high just to be sure it could be seen. As a result, it put all my shots high, shooting over the often rather small targets.
This problem plagued me through the entire Meat Hunt trail-walk. I even missed the big full sized black bear which was at 80 yards. It was all very depressing and at the end of the 15 target Meat Hunt, I was “going to go hungry” after hitting only three of them. That was a new “low” for me and it doesn’t add to my bragging at all.
My score of three hits on the Meat Hunt were added to my 13 hits on the Little Quigley Match for an aggregate score of 160 points which put me fairly well down the list for the aggregate prizes. What I selected was a tube of bullet lube, BPC by C. Sharps Arms. And my Uberti Model 1866 Short Rifle in .44/40 got the tang sight mounted the very next day. I’ll be using that rifle again with certain expectations of doing better with it.
Others did not have the aiming problem I did. The top score was shot by Cunniff with 14 hits, followed by Moran with another 14 hits. Third place was taken by Bob DeLisle shooting an original Winchester Model ’92 in .32/20 with black powder loads for 13 hits.
There was one more “high” at this year’s Buffalo Camp, a new record score shot with a revolver using black powder loads. That was on our “Revolver Trail” which also uses hanging gongs for targets, from 10 to 80 yards. Previously the record score for this match, where we fire just 10 shots with those sixguns, was eight good hits. That record was shared by me and Cody Mehr (who competed while using a muzzleloading pistol).
This year Kenny Witt borrowed a Colt .44 replica revolver and scored nine hits and that is the new record to beat. I took second place with my S&W #3 New Model copy in .44 Russian with 8 hits and Cunniff trailed just one point behind me for third place with seven hits while using his Colt flat-top by Uberti in .44/40.
Those were the new highs and lows of our annual Buffalo Camp. The next Buffalo Camp will be held in May 2023 at the Capitol City Rifle & Pistol Club just south of Olympia, Washington. Maybe you can gather your gear and loads, and join us.
