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Fabien and Sabastien from New Caledonia at The Rookie up on the ridgeline.  Their shooting is over and their grins show they've had a lot of fun.  Tracy Short is on the firing line, supported by Jason (blue) and Andrew (burgundy) spotting.  The targets here were on the valley floor at the bottom of the spur on their left - a 42" high pepper popper (with a 12" round) at 940m and a 28" pepper popper (with an 8" round) at 890m away and about a 10 degree angle.  Sabastien hit the smaller smaller target three times out of five shots for a score of six on this stage.

Introduction

As I was flying from Auckland down to Christchurch I noted with some trepidation the thick cloud covering the whole country.  Even on the drive from Christchurch a heavy cloud covered our route, but as is often the case coming over Burkes Pass the cloud was gone and it was clear blue sky over the McKenzie basin, with Mt Cook and the alps keeping other cloud at bay.  For most of the week, apart from a few hours of rain early on Saturday morning, shooting conditions were good.

Practice Day was held on Friday 22 April, with the Gunslinger Challenges held on Saturday 23, and the ReShoot on Sunday 24 April.  There were four competitors who had driven down from Auckland, four others from Wanganui and Levin, one from Dunedin, and as usual most from Christchurch or Canterbury.  Of particular note was two competitors who flew in from New Caledonia – Fabien and Sabastien - primarily for the competition but also hoping to bag a Tahr on the Sunday or Monday.

The Gunslinger weekends are a real challenge of shooting ability, but they are also very social in nature with people often congregating in small groups to shoot, spot, and share ideas with each other during the Practice Day and ReShoot Day.  The location was the Dead Man's Creek valley, once again on Sawdon Station - about 10km along the road from Lake Tekapo village or Burkes Pass.  The marshalling area was about 1km up the valley for the competition, and 2km up the valley for the Practice Day and ReShoot days.  This year the Range Officers were based in the Shearers Quarters which provided plenty of space for shared meals at the start and end of each day.

For the first time these Gunslinger Challenges were spread out over several kilometres, including up a ridgeline enabling some high angle shooting.  It required a significant effort to make the 200m high climb, but the views were magnificent once up there.

As usual they was plenty of previously unseen gear – of particular note was Sabastien’s .338LM PGM, and a few took a keen interest in Fabien’s .338 Edge.

 
The match was operated by Gunslinger PLRS Limited, and there were four range officers present for the three days:

• Shane Cossar (Match Director / Chief Range Officer)
• Darryn Haffenden
• Tony Stewart
• Bill Terry
• Lake Sinclair
• plus Simon Percy (a trial of a squad self scoring)

Tony has just had a shot with Sabastien's PGM .338 and is admiring some of the smart features and workmanship in the rifle.  For example, the base of the mono-pod doesn't rotate (ie doesn't shift the POA) when the height is adjusted.

Course Test and Live Fire Walk Through - Thursday

All Gunslinger Challenge courses are tested including a live fire walkthrough, and this event was no exception and was completed on the Thursday.  So while the course is challenging it is always achievable!  In this case the original plan was to have participants climb up to the ridgeline from the Edwards Stream valley, with equipment to be carried up in one 4wd per squad.  Driving the track on the Thursday highlighted the long distance involved, plus while the track was quite well graded some of the drop-offs gave me the heebee jeebee’s.  So the first change was that access was rearranged to have everyone start the Gunslinger Challenges from the second fenceline in Deadmans Creek, and Aaron would ferry the RO’s up to the ridgeline. 

Both Tony and Darryn shot most of the stages, and as usual this involved some minor adjustments to the planned location of the firing points to accommodate the lay of the land and safety margins between stages.  The second change was on the Absolute Power stage where it was agreed that if competitors shot from prone most would have difficulty acquiring the targets due to the long grass.  So it was decided to move the bench to this firing point, which got people up above the grass. 

While sunset occurred at about 5:45pm, the sun actually dropped below the ridgeline about 4:30pm and caused a very heavy shadow to fall across the valley floor in Deadmans Creek.  It was agreed this made finding targets very difficult so the third change was to drop one of the planned stages, and cut one hour from the schedule.  The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was sacrificed, but was still left out for squads to shoot if they were waiting to move across the valley floor.

Practice Day - Friday

On Practice Day the range opened about 8:30am and about 20 shooters showed up throughout the day.  At Clyde there were sight-in targets at 100m and 100yds,  Big Joe enabled shooters to fire on Tony’s 1m x 1m metal target placed out at 1580m – it had a Flash Target attached which made hits very apparent.  Crapgame enabled shooters to fire at half a dozen targets set out northwards along the track to about 1000m.  Kelly’s Heroes was a stalk along the creekbed using the 12” and 8” targets on wooden poles and were only out to around 300m (this stage only operated when Clyde was closed).

During the morning the weather was sunny and calm, and in the afternoon a stiff breeze started up.  The range was closed about 4:00pm and some of the targets placed back on the competition course.

Competitions - Gunslinger Rifle Challenge, and Gunslinger Extreme Long Range Rifle Challenge - Saturday

A leaden sky and light rain saw 28 shooters, 8 non shooting spotters, and Range Officers gathering outside the Shearers Quarters at 7:00am for the first safety briefing and squadding, before driving away into the marshalling area in Deadmans Creek.  Competitors were organised into six squads - two starting at 8:00am, two more at 9:00am, and the last two at 10:00am – moving west across the valley floor and then climbing up onto the ridgeline and moving northwards up the ridge with the course firing points across some three kilometres with most squads then also having to retrace their steps to get back to their vehicles.  Each stage was to start on the hour with all squads rotating around the course in sequence.

The examples below are from Shane’s squad – one of the Gunslinger Extreme Long Range Rifle Challenge squads - including Fabien R (.338 Edge) and Sabastien (.338 LM PGM) from New Caledonia, Tracy S from Levin, with Andrew carrying Tracy’s .416 benchrest rifle, and Jason carrying their optics, plus also David P from Christchurch (.338 LM Sako TRG).

Starting on the Unforgiven stage the squad washed out with no hits.  By now the rain was constant, and while the target was identifiable the combination of reduced visibility with the rain and the wet ground and grass made spotting bullet impact nearly impossible.

On the Any Which Way You Can stage the result was the same with no hits.  This was another stage where the firing point and targets were on the same plane making it very difficult to spot impacts of the misses.  But while looking for shooter hits on the 42” high auto reset pepper poppers I did get to see the camera flash of the Flash Target as Matthew B in the squad to our right made his hit on the full-sized IPSC at one mile on the Unforgiven stage.

Absolute Power stage with four 15” round gongs where the target was chosen at random by pulling a card from a deck.  By now the rain had stopped and the sky was clearing.  Fabien was at the firing point.  Hearts – miss.  Spades – miss.  I pull a Club – hit.  I pass the card to David who also pulls a Club – hit!  I pass the deck to Sabastien who pulls another Club – hit!  As Napolean said when appointing his Generals “ I know they are good – but are they lucky?”

Onto The Gauntlet with a full sized deer target and three firing points.  Tracy nails the first two shots on the heart vitals.  A quick discussion with Andrew and Jason and they decide to leave the .416 on the first firing point and take their lighter second rifle to the second firing point.  Then a miss – way off to the left.  The windage knob is set wrong.  Another shot – another miss way off to the left.  They think the knob is a complete turn off.  Another quick discussion and they decide to bring the .416 up to the third firing point.  Andrew runs back, picks up the .416 and runs forward to the third firing point.  With time almost up Tracy gets his fifth shot on the Lung vitals.  8 points total and a good score, but could have been even better.  Arguably the key to their success here wasn’t so much their shooting and teamwork (which was great), but they were one of a few to successfully range the Deer – thanks to the pair of Vectronix Vector 21B laser range finders they were carrying (each pair of the LRF binoculars cost about $13,000) – but they could range anything they were pointed at. 

Sabastien started with two misses, moved forward to the second firing point and brushed against his rifle scope and “click”.  He touched it again and it went “clack”.  It was very loose.  Fabien raced back to their bags and grabbed an Allen key and ran back to the firing point.  Sabastien tightened it up, and fired.  Hit! At last.

At the Magnum Force – one of the sudden death race stages where it’s fastest time to hit all four targets – and if you fail to hit them all it’s no score.  The targets have to be in the order of left to right and they are at staggered distances so the shooter has to change the elevation knob up and down.  To keep it interesting the firing point is on a steep slope that favours south paws.  Fabien with Sabastien spotting misses on his first shot, and with no margin for error now, he hits each target first time in the right order.  Sabastien moves to the firing point with Fabien as spotter.  First shot misses.  The pressure’s now on but he knows it’s still possible to finish.  Second shot – hit!, third shot – hit!, fourth shot – hit!, and for a brief moment I believe he thinks he can finish.  Then I call “wrong target!  That’s target four.”  With two targets left and only one round available he rolls onto his back stares at the sky and puts his head in his hands.  It’s over – no score.  He doesn’t say anything but his expression shouts what he’s thinking, and no translation required.  They pack up and separately they start the steep climb up to the ridgeline for the next stage.

Aaron (my brother) was ferrying the RO’s around the back of the hill and up to the ridgeline, and I was at the top by the time Sabastien walked over the top to the Heartbreak Ridge stage.  Upon seeing me there and realising I’d been driven up he told me he loved me (I’ll assume it was a French thing).  I didn’t believe him.  By now the squad was on game.  There were two 28” high pepper poppers (with 8” rounds) about 200m altitude below at about a 10 degree angle down.  Tracy, Sabastien, and Fabien all hit both targets, completing the stage with good times.  By the time David lay down at the firing point he was being encouraged with a bit of gentle sledging.  No pressure.  But with a bit of spotting assistance he also hit both targets in a good time.

At The Rookie the shooter had a choice of two targets.  A 28” high popper at a closer range for two points, or a 42” high popper at a longer range for one point.  David asked my advice about what he should choose and my comment was the safer approach was start on the larger target which was about 1.2 moa compared to the smaller target at about .75 moa.  Get elevation right then nominate the smaller target to boost points.  David made some hits.  Tracy on the other hand went for broke starting with the small target and washed out with no hits.

There were two stages only shot by the Gunslinger Rifle Challenge – Sudden Impact and The Eiger Sanction.  In Bill’s squad on Sudden Impact the squad was placed some way back from the firing point so they couldn’t see the target.  John Quigley was on the firing point and had been given the instructions – in a 45 degree arc between that rocky outcrop and that pile of rocks somewhere out in the valley was the Coyote target (painted in natural colours of course) – find it and shoot it.  Bill advised John four minutes had passed and only four minutes were left.  John still hadn’t acquired the target.  Another minute or so passed and John finally located the Coyote then took five shots hitting the swing-out vitals each time scoring the maximum 10 points possible.  An outstanding achievement.

The Eiger Sanction had three firing points and a single 28” pepper popper.  This was another sudden death race stage, but you only moved if you hit the target, and most washed out with no score.  In this case at some point the target failed, as it had come out of its slot, but was still visible, but no longer moved when hit.  The nature of the Gunslinger shoots is that for safety reason’s generally no-one ever goes forward to score and patch, or reset any targets once a match is underway.  

By 4:30pm most squads had retraced their steps back around the course and were close to their cars, and the range was closed at 5:00pm allowing people to move up to the Willow Trees for the Night Shoot.

Night Shoot - Saturday

Around 6:00pm the sun had set and darkness was falling.  The sky was leaden and threatening to rain, but none eventuated.  At 6:15pm two squads of four were assembled for the Night shoot and moved to the firing lines.  The Night Shoot wasn’t scored, and was shot as a firing line with each shooter firing one shot, then the next shooter firing one shot, for a total of five shots per stage.  This was designed to illustrate the effectiveness of different types of illumination as a test for possible future events.

At stage Bloodwork shooters shot at a white 12” square metal target on a wooden post at about 140m that was illuminated by a red LED light.  To add interest Bill had them use alternate firing positions; some shots prone, kneeling and standing.

At stage Coogan's Bluff there were two fluorescent yellow 8” round metal targets on wooden posts at about 157m and 240m which were illuminated by Aaron with a handheld spotlight with a red filter.  Lake had the shooters firing from prone.  This worked well until one of the posts split unable to take the impacts on the plate.  Shooting continued on the stage with just the single remaining target.   The spotlight was kindly donated by Gun City.

At stage High Plains Drifter there was a single fluorescent yellow 8” round metal target on a wooden post at about 456m and was illuminated with a single green glowstick tied to the pole.  The green glowstick worked well with the fluorescent yellow and was clearly visible with a naked eye, and was particularly bright when using optics.

At stage Thunderbolt and Lightfoot there was a single 12” square metal target on a wooden post at about 244m and was illuminated with a single red glowstick tied to the pole.  This was much harder to locate.  Using binoculars the target was clearly visible about 50m to the left of the ‘green’ target and could be seen with the naked eye contrasted against the black of a Matagouri patch.  But two shooters were unable to clearly identify the target and withdrew from the firing line.  One shooter using night vision hit five out of five shots, and one shooter without night vision also hit five out of five shots.

During the day a bullet impact on a metal target often results in a small white cloud as the bullet disintegrates.  At night it is simply spectacular, with small orange ‘sparks’ briefly visible.

The range was closed about 7:00pm and about half of the participants headed back to the Shearers Quarters for a BBQ dinner and drinks.

Score Board

ReShoot - Sunday

The ReShoot was a very relaxed affair with the range opened at 9:00am.  The tennis balls at 300m provided the initial confidence boost, and then most people spent the morning reshooting at metal targets between about 300m and 650m away or the 1m x 1m plate at 1580m.  At 10:00am a brief prize-giving was held, and shortly afterwards Lake brought out his black powder muzzle load rifle and a few people shot at one of the poppers at 50m – a great buzz!  The range was closed at mid-day, followed by steak sandwiches for lunch.  By 3:00pm the trailers were loaded and we were back at the road ready to head back to Christchurch.

Debrief

Legal:  In consideration for being permitted to attend this practical long range shooting event, the competitor is agreeing to the following:
The competitor holds a current firearms licence, including any endorsements applicable to the firearm being used.
The competitor expressly assumes the risk of taking part in the match, which includes; instruction in the use of firearms, the discharge of firearms, and the firing of live ammunition.
The competitor agrees to indemnify, hold harmless and defend Gunslinger PLRS Limited, its staff, and the match location owner, from all fault, liabilities, costs, expenses, claims, demands or lawsuits arising out of or connected with the competitors presence at and / or participation in the event; the discharge of firearms by the competitor or other competitors; the competitors presence on or use of the event location.
The competitor understands, and will at all times abide by all event Standard Operating Procedures, Course of Fire and any other rules and procedures stated by the Match Director or Range Officer/s.

Disclaimer:  Shooting is potentially dangerous and damaged equipment can be expensive to fix.  You should confirm all changes to be made to your rifle system and shooting practices with your local gunsmith or gunshop owner.