I went down to St. Louis for the 2014 ARA Outdoor Nationals a few months ago. Here's some pics.

Never seen a firing line like this before.





No shortage of flags.



My Suhl.



Got to shoot some nice new custom rifles.

Thanks for posting.

They have LOTS of wind flags lol.

Do they reload their ammo?

quote:

Originally posted by TexKD:
Thanks for posting.

They have LOTS of wind flags lol.

No shortage of flags- and they were all needed too! Wind conditions were switchy and kept us on our toes the entire time.

These videos show the flags better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC4KKJJF4Fk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdkg1uQbVmk

quote:

Originally posted by Norseman:
Do they reload their ammo?

Nope, it is all .22lr and modifications are not allowed but most shooters use ammo that is tested and sorted via lot #. I've tested maybe 20 different lots of Eley Match in my Suhl over the past couple of years. Eley Match and Tenex seem to be the top choices but there's Lapua Center-X and Midas used too. Might have been some RWS R-50 but I'm not sure.

In ARA, there are no weight or dimension restrictions on the rifles and one piece rests can be used (like the Pappas rest in the photos). 20 minutes to shoot 25 bulls at 50 yards.

Nice firing line. Blue Trail Range in Connecticut is a little like that.

Looks like fun to me...I need to go sometime, even if to watch. The range looks somewhat like our here, just not as long.

Roseburg (Oregon) Rod & Gun Club range is very much like that except it also has a solid awning maybe 4-6' longer that protects rifles & shooters from rain (maybe two out of every three days in Roseburg). Less often for the two - 2-1/2 months of summer...more often for the Fall, winter, and Spring. The awning sticks out 9 or 10 feet beyond the benches, so rain doesn't often get blown back far enough under it to dampen things it shouldn't

Your pic of looking downrange could easily be mistkn for one of the Roseburg range. The one looking down h firing line is a bit different in that the Roseburg range shooting benches only face in one direction. Opposite the benches is a nice clubhouse where we often used to serve free lunch during our benchrest matches.

It was free because as Chief Range Officer for several years, I used to cook elk stew from my own elk hunting/harvesting and make garlic French bread for the shooters and BIG urns of coffee both leaded and unleaded.

Those Rimfire BR matches are a lot of fun, eh? We had them, cast bullet BR, and centerfire BR matches too. And in rainy Oregon you can't have too many wind-flags, there is no such thing as too many. You just have to figure out which ones you can trust on any given day.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
Roseburg (Oregon) Rod & Gun Club range is very much like that except it also has a solid awning maybe 4-6' longer that protects rifles & shooters from rain (maybe two out of every three days in Roseburg). Less often for the two - 2-1/2 months of summer...more often for the Fall, winter, and Spring. The awning sticks out 9 or 10 feet beyond the benches, so rain doesn't often get blown back far enough under it to dampen things it shouldn't

Your pic of looking downrange could easily be mistkn for one of the Roseburg range. The one looking down h firing line is a bit different in that the Roseburg range shooting benches only face in one direction. Opposite the benches is a nice clubhouse where we often used to serve free lunch during our benchrest matches.

It was free because as Chief Range Officer for several years, I used to cook elk stew from my own elk hunting/harvesting and make garlic French bread for the shooters and BIG urns of coffee both leaded and unleaded.

Those Rimfire BR matches are a lot of fun, eh? We had them, cast bullet BR, and centerfire BR matches too. And in rainy Oregon you can't have too many wind-flags, there is no such thing as too many. You just have to figure out which ones you can trust on any given day.

AC, you're killing me. I thought just having donuts and enough coffee to last a drizzly April day was good!

I have fun at matches. The cost of ammo limits how much I can shoot, but I’ll get in whatever trigger time I can. There's a good core group of talented shooters here that provide stiff competition but also lots of helpful guidance for me.

I’ve built up my own Suhl 150 over time on a shoestring budget and that has been a challenge at times but adds to the fun in my opinion. It has a factory 16.5 twist barrel and laminated cedar/carbon fiber stock I made- I have less than $1000 in it. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing. I have yet to crack the 250 barrier in IR 50/50 competition and have done it many times in practice but just not when it counts yet. Shot back to back 249s once last year- frustrating.

Here’s one range I shoot matches at, just across the river in Wisconsin. This is more typical of what's around here locally.



50 yard range surrounded by mature evergreens and hardwoods. Good for shooting high scores, but this is a place where the lightest winds and up/down drafts can burn you.



This is a range here in Minnesota. Another 50 yard line.



This one can have trickier winds. Not ridiculously strong like when I shot in Nebraska once, but it begs the question... which flags to pay attention to???

You are a lucky man with such beautiful places to shoot. I used to be, but there are few ranges around here where we have moved to and none of them attractive to the eye.

You mentioned the wind flags...

In most of the matches I have shot in, every single shooter had at least 3 flags of his own set out in front of his bench...usually at about 35 yards,70 yards, and 100 yards. (We shoot RFs to 100 yards every match.)

What I always get a laugh at is the guys who claim our (Roseburg) range is easy to shoot at because of the trees and berms all the way around it. They all presume (until they've made a complete bust the first few times they've shot here) that they reduce the amount of wind we have to deal with.

As you know, it actually makes things tougher. Wind comes over trees and berms like breakers at the beach...and of course, with the trees, the wind can come through them in some places and not in others. The wind coming over the trees/berms hits the air coming though the trees, and the air already slightly trapped on the range by the berms and the result Is like a river with both waterfalls and eddys.

You get roils, boils, rapids, and backwaters of air, all at once. Combine that with constant wind direction and velocity shifts, and it means if you don't pick the right flags for the bench your shooting from, and the day your shooting on, and really watch for which flag is telling the truth, you're a dead puppy as far as good groups go. Not to mention as the day warms or cools that it is all constantly changing.

Anyway, really is FUN, isn't it?

Kelbly's range is the most impressive I have ever competed on. The year Russ Haydon and I went, there were 60 covered firing points, and 387 shooters. It looked like a used RV lot.