By Mike Nesbitt | Contributing Editor
(Photos by Mike Nesbitt)
One of the special matches conducted by the Black River Buffalo Runners at Capitol City Rifle & Pistol Club near Olympia, Washington each year is their Old Style .22 Match, which is mainly shot with .22 caliber single shot rifles.
We have had some shooters try their luck with repeating .22s but no automatics. You might say that a .22 rifle match that doesn’t allow the automatics is a real step backwards, and, in fact, that’s exactly what we were looking for.
Speaking in general, this is a fun match and many of our targets are of the novelty type. We do use one round bullseye, usually at 50 yards, but the other targets, which do change year to year, included paper targets featuring; a turkey, a crow, playing cards, and a soda can. Those are all fun targets for .22s and most of the scores proved it.
The “old style” of our shooting can stand some explanation. We do most of our shooting from the offhand position although this is not a Schuetzen match. To make it more “old style” we do shoot at the round bullseye from the sitting position while using our cross-sticks, very similar to a lot of the shooting we do with our Sharps and other black powder rifles. That, as you might guess, means the round bullseye target usually contains the highest score at one of our matches. Then there is the turkey target which, this year, was also posted at 50 yards. For ten shots at that target, the shooters could take five shots from the sitting position while using cross-sticks and the other five shots had to be fired from the offhand position, giving a real mixture of shots on the turkey plus a widespread in the scores.
Our only purpose in shooting this old style .22 match is to have fun, and it is fun. We often get a greater turnout than what we got this year, only ten shooters (last year we had fifteen), but then those ten participants really enjoyed shooting the match which means it was a tremendous success. The match director is Loco Jeff Ritter and he certainly strives to give us an interesting match with his selection of targets. The Black River Buffalo Runners have been holding this match for .22 single shot rifles for a few years now and it has always been highly enjoyed by all who participate.
One outstanding thing about this year’s Old Style .22 Match, which we shoot every July, was that we had two junior shooters, about 15 years old, among the competitors. They were Ryan Ritter, Loco Jeff’s grandson, and Ryan’s friend Ryder Harper. It was very nice to see young people participating in this event and we certainly hope to see more young shooters get involved in all of our shooting sports.
Ryan Ritter came to Buffalo Camp a year ago and he did some very good shooting on the Meat Hunt trail with my 1873 Trapper Model in .44-40. So, I know he has some shooting experience behind him, and his score in this .22 match speaks very well about that. Ryder was unknown to me and I don’t know what shooting experiences he might have had before accepting the invitation to shoot in this match. I will say that Ryan’s parents were both at the match serving as coaches for those boys and they really did a fine job of it. Both boys did some good shooting, in Ryan’s case, very good!
The rifles those boys used were both old Stevens Favorites in .22 Long Rifle caliber. One of the rifles was Loco Jeff’s and he did not shoot in this match. Instead, he was kept busy as the match director, which included scoring the targets. Jeff’s .22 rifle was one also used by Ryan. Then Ryder used the .22 Favorite which belonged to Ryan’s father, “Doc” Jeff Ritter. And, to make sure that enough rifles were on the line, I had my .22 Stevens Favorite with me too which was lent to another shooter as the match progressed.
The course of fire for this match is somewhat based upon simplicity. Keeping it simple only adds to the fun. The targets already described are to be shot at either five or ten times each, so the total match will consume just fifty shots, or one box of .22s. Actually, this year the .22 rifle match was finished with just forty shots and the remaining ten rounds from each box of ammo was use in an after-match, fired with .22 revolvers. More about the after-match in a bit.
The shooters in this match sported a greater variety of rifles when compared to some of our .22 previous matches. The old Stevens Arms Company still took top honors with four Favorites and two Crack shots on our firing line. Next in abundance were the new Hopkins and Allen copies made by C. Sharps Arms, there were two of those, both in .22 Long Rifle caliber (the H&As are also made in .22 Magnum and .17 Magnum), and they were used by Allen Cunniff and Mike Moran. Those H&As were followed by one original old Remington No. 4 rolling block and then one Winchester style Low-wall by C. Sharps Arms. That Low-wall in .22 Long Rifle, my personal gun, was the only rifle on our firing line that had a set trigger.
The ammunition used by each shooter is a matter of personal taste. My choice is simply CCI standard velocity .22 Long Rifle ammo, sometimes referred to as target loads, sometimes not. I will say this is rather quiet shooting ammo, and with the 26-inch barrel of my Low-wall, it is very quiet. Some of the other shooters prefer to use ammo from Eley or other target-rated cartridges but for me the CCI ammunition is alright.
We started our shooting with the 50-yard bullseye, sitting down behind our cross-sticks. That was as good as any target to get started on and, because we were shooting with our cross-sticks, it was also a good time to make any final sight adjustments that might be needed. My own score on that target was not particularly outstanding but I was pleased. Those ten shots had scored 96-3X, not a bad start. Two other shooters outshot me, right from the beginning…
Next, we moved to the turkey, also at 50 yards. This was our half and half target, with five shots fired from the sitting position followed by five more shots fired offhand. My score on this target was a 68 but three other shooters outshot me. Yes, the competition was certainly “in the air” and that’s a big part of the fun.
Our third target, according to the way they were arranged on the scoring sheet, was the target featuring the playing cards posted at 25 yards. In this case they were all the ace of hearts, all five of them. The cards were to be shot at twice each, offhand, and they were scored as one point per hit if just on the card but two points per hit if they touched the “heart” in the middle. So, with all ten shots, a shooter could score 20 points on this target. One of our shooters, young Ryan in fact, scored 11 points on the cards which is very good.
Next on the scoring sheet was the “soda can.” This is simply a paper target with a soda can, not quite full sized, pictured on the target. One trick about shooting at this target is that only shots hitting the can will be scored. I seem to have trouble hitting this can with all five shots and my four shots that did hit the can gave me 39 points. My score was beaten by another shooter, Cunniff, but this year none of our shooters hit the can with all five shots.
The last target on the scoring sheet was the crow. I mention “on the scoring sheet” because we had posted all of our 25-yard targets and the shooters could shoot them in any order that they wanted. I remember that I saved my “playing cards” for last, but that didn’t help me. On the crow I didn’t do too badly, in my own opinion. I did miss with one shot but the other four shots gave me a score of 37. On this target I was beaten by both Moran and Cunniff, with 38 and 39 points respectively.
That’s not quite a shot-by-shot description of the shooting done at our recent old style .22 match but it should give you a fairly good idea about our shooting and how it was done. It was fun and we were all done at about 11:00 that morning.
Our top shooter was Allen Cunniff, shooting his Hopkins & Allen by C. Sharps Arms and getting a score of 266-4X. He was followed by Bob DeLisle, shooting a Stevens (Savage) Crackshot and scoring 263-5X. We give awards, books, lead, or shooting based items, in order of the aggregate scores for the day and both Allen and Bob called Ryder and Ryan up to the prize table to select what they’d like to have. Then Ryan was called again because he took 3rd place while using his grandfather’s Stevens Favorite and scoring 242-3X. (Yes, that made his grandpa proud!)
In 4th place was me, shooting my C. Sharps Arms Low-wall, and scoring 237-5X. Fifth through 10th places were won by; Moran at 222-3X, Jerry Mayo with 220-3X, Dan Johnson at 184-2X, Ryder Harper with 117-X, Ralph Birmingham at 101, and then Mike Holeman with a rather outstanding score of only 24. Holeman wondered if his old Crack shot would shoot with the barrel it has and now he’s going to have it re-lined, so we’ll see his scores zoom toward the top next time.
But before those awards were presented, we had the after-match which was not included in the rifle match aggregate. This was simply a ten-shot match, fired with .22 revolvers at only 12 yards. It was these ten shots that finished our boxes of .22 ammo. And the after-match was also won by Allen Cunniff, shooting his shiny double-action S&W revolver. I believe Allen’s good score was an 88 while my own score, shooting an early .22/.32 by Smith & Wesson, was a 76. We charge $1 to enter the after-match and the winner takes all, so I think Allen won $8.
Our old style .22 match isn’t a big thing but it is a fine way to spend a nice summer morning. This year it was a very good match, especially with the young shooters coming and getting involved. Speaking in general about shooting, we certainly need more young shooters. Maybe if more clubs can offer some informal and fun matches with .22s, it would encourage more young shooters to take part. Of course, this old style .22 match was designed simply for all shooters to have fun.
