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Boomershoot report

Wow… Now that was a fun 3 days of shooting. I went through 450 of my 500 handloads, I probably shot 400 of them and other people probably went through 50. The Black Hills Match was not needed as my handloads shot very well out through the 700 yard mark.

The Clinic started on friday morning with an overview by Gene Econ who was our principal instructor. Gene also brought four assistant instructors to the precision rifle class, three of who were soldiers. All of the soldiers had served in either Afghanistan or Iraq, two had been wounded in action. Meeting and talking to soldiers that have been over in sandy land shows you just how much the Main Stream Media is lying, but this is about boomershoot not the MSM, I have a post for them later. Gene also brought another civilian with him who was also an excellent instructor.

I had a few goals in mind for the shooting class. The big goal for me was learning to dope the wind (the term “read the wind” is for the uninitiated), and we had a bit of wind out there. The wind got to about fourteen MPH max the whole three days. The other big goal for the shooting class was learning how to see bullet trace in the spotting scope.

The first day of shooting went quite well, I learned a lot about long range shooting. I was usually able to get the bullet on target in 5 shots or less on the first day. The wind gave me a fit the whole time the first day. Ben was my spotter and we spent the day rotating from spotting to shooting. I was a bit frustrated at the end of the day due entirely to the shifty wind at the boomershoot site. We went out to eat with a large number of the crew and fun was had by all. I wussed out and wend to bed early, believe it or not 8 hours of shooting is quite tiring. You spend a lot of time concentrating on either watching for bullet trace from your shooter or trying to hit the targets with every shot. At the end of the day we each got 3 boomers to put at the 380 yard line and shoot. Unfortunately the mix for them was off and only 2 were detonated, I got solid hits on all of mine but none went off. I am sure that this gave Joe a very sleepless night trying to figure out what went wrong.

Day two went much better. I was able to get a pretty good handle on the wind most of the time. I started getting my shots on the steel targets in 2 shots most of the time instead of the 5 it had been taking me. The wind was still a pain most of the time but I was getting better with doping. I used the target knobs on the scope for the making the large windage adjustments to get onto the targets, so if I had to hold off the target it was just by a little bit. By the end of the day I as pretty comfortable with the wind and scope adjustments to compensate for the wind. Joe put out boomers early for us to try and detonate as fridays boomers were recalcitrant, the early afternoon boomers were also a bit on the uncooperative side. Needless to say Joe went back to work and by the end of the day he gave us a second set of boomers to shoot at. These boomers went boom… I had two booms on my smaller 4 inch targets but the larger 6 inch target was a no go. It seemed to me that the thicker smaller targets would detonate easier, but the thin larger targets would just get shot through with no detonation (at least from my .308).

Having a 2 day class is probably a good decision. On day two of the class you get a chance to use more of the shooting skills that you learned on day one, it definitely helped build confidence and made the boomershoot event a snap. Shooting the steel targets was a great way to get feedback at ranges where seeing the shot on paper is quite difficult.

Day three (the actual event). We started out the event with a few demos (I have a video done but have not yet posted it) which were very cool and fun to watch. After the demos were over the event started in earnest. The 380 yard line was awash with smoke from exploding boomers (including two of my own). After I popped two boomers at the 380 yard line I moved up the hill to the 700 yard line. I had definite hits at the 700 yard mark but no explosions on the targets. I only saw one explosion at the 700 yard mark and it was from a .50 cal round, so this years mix at the long distance needed a very fast round to do the trick, by the time my round got to 700 yards it was traveling at 1652 fps and it seems that was just not enough to detonate a distant boomer.

I did not want to spend much more time shooting closer boomers because there were plenty of people out there who did not have equipment that was capable of an easy hit on a 4 inch boomer at 380 yards. I gave a few of the boomers in the 400-600 yard range a few shots, solid hits did not give me a detonation so I moved up to the steel gong at 635 yards and made lots of hits on the gong in lots of varying wind conditions. So I was very happy with my improved wind doping at varying distances.

I was fairly impressed with the large turnout at Joe’s event. With right around 100 shooters and probably another 50 spectators it was a well attended event when you consider that the event is held in a fairly remote location. The Media was also out in force over the three days and I even got interviewed (don’t worry Joe I did not step in it) and the reporter noted that I was from Maryland.

I am pretty sure that my rifle was one of the most photographed rifles at the event. I got lots of comments on the paint (all good by the way) and had more than a few people want to look through the NightForce scope. I also had one of the soldiers shoot it quite a bit, as his injury is most likely going to make him start shooting left handed. He was quite pleased with the accuracy of the Savage rifle, especially when he found out that there was no gun smith work done to the rifle.

All and all it was a very well run event. Being a well run event contributed quite a bit to the enjoyment of the event. I had a great time and will definitely be coming back next year for both the clinic and the boomershoot. My only suggestions to Joe would be to make the prone berm about 3 or 4 feet wider as it is a bear spotting while standing on the slope (sliding down the hill while shooting prone is not much fun either), and add a few more steel gongs for the main event just in case things are not detonating reliably past 400 yards as shooting the steel is fun and you get instant feedback when you get a hit.

I will have a post up about the people that I met a bit later, as well as the video.

Posted by Kirk on 05/04 at 06:37 PM
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Sounds like you had a great time! Looking forward to your pictures!

Posted by cowboy blob on 05/05 at 07:28 PM

hey..uh, do you trade links?

Posted by joey on 05/08 at 06:00 PM

hey..uh, do you trade links?

pictures should be soon right?

Posted by joey on 05/08 at 06:00 PM

Saw the pics over at Kims ... are you really really really sure about that stock?

Posted by Mr Free Market on 05/19 at 07:08 AM

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