BLACK POWDER
This buffalo gong was added to an “after-aggregate” match to keep a black powder cartridge competition spicy.
ADD 'SPICE' TO BLACK POWDER MATCHES How one club keeps their shooting competitions interesting 'is just as easy as it is rewarding.' STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT
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dding spice to black powder cartridge shooting by incorporating a little bit of variety is very easy to do. And, of course, doing so gives our black powder cartridge matches a whole new flavor and gives our shooters something new to look forward to. Please follow along while I tell you about some of the things our club, the Capitol City Rifle & Pistol Club near Olympia, Washington, has done lately
to spice it up. FIRST OF ALL, we hold our Old West Centerfire matches six times per year. These are short-range matches with bull’s-eye paper targets posted at 100 and 200 yards. The standard course of fire includes 10 shots at each target, generally fired from the sitting position while using crosssticks to support our rifles. The rifles/ cartridges we typically use are guns or copies of the rifles of the Old West, primarily the single-shot buffalo guns. Now and then a repeater might
show up on the firing line, perhaps because that’s all the shooter has, and I’ve competed a couple of times with a .44-40 rifle. The real favorites, however, are the .45-70-, .45-90- and .50-70-caliber rifles. We do require cast lead bullets in loads using black powder in those cartridges. The 20 shots fired on the two targets become the aggregate for the day and our awards are based on the aggregate scores. Those scores are added up over the year and at the end of the year, we also award prizes to all shooters in order of their total americanshootingjournal.com 83
