Bob Jenkins, a New Mexico cowboy, checks his sights before a relay. The stepped slider rear sights as found on most factory guns can work quite well in this game with a little experimentation. The white tape on the stock has a reminder of which step to use for each different distance.
This is not your typical match report, but rather a short “how to” article in case you are ever interested in trying this growing sport. It is on the rise as shown by the almost 200 shooters competing in the largest lever gun silhouette match ever held anywhere in the world. It was held at the Whittington Center, New Mexico, as the combined Western Championship and NRA Championship from July 2-6, 2024. Shooters from all over the U.S.A were there, to include eight from Australia. The Match Director was a well-known shooter named Jim Luke, and with his wife Roberta. They put together one of the best-run matches – if not the best – I have ever attended. Over $25,000 in prizes were given away, including 11 rifles, and every competitor walked away with some valuable donated merchandise from 18 generous sponsors.
To illustrate the growing interest in lever guns, Henry Repeating Arms is now making 1,800-2,000 guns per day, which is just shy of 500,000 per year, and Ruger is now running their Marlin assembly line to produce 300-400 per day. All of these guns, I am told, are already sold even before they leave the factories. Demand is very high.
A lady from Australia on the firing line. By the way, she was a dead shot.
There are three categories within the overall match, one for “rifle caliber” lever guns, one for “pistol caliber” and one for 22 Long Rifle lever guns. You can participate in just one category, or all three as most people do. The shooting for all categories is done from the offhand position, with most resting their triceps on their rib cage. No palm rests, fancy gloves, or tight-fitting coats are allowed in trying to adhere to “The Spirit of the Game.” Each shooter takes turns serving as a spotter, and the spotter is restricted to binoculars – no spotting scopes allowed. (I doubt many early pioneers carried spotting scopes, but some did indeed carry binoculars.) For this particular championship the rifle category was 80 rounds total, pistol category was 60 rounds total, and the 22 Long Rifle category was 60 rounds total. For each five rounds, you have two minutes to send them downrange, which is plenty of time. As you would expect, each steel animal has to fall to the ground to count.
The “rifle caliber” lever gun must have a bore diameter of more than .25-inch (viz. 25-35 WCF) with no upper caliber limit. I saw lots of people using 30-30s, followed by 45 Colts, 44 Magnums, 357s, 45-70s and 38-55s. The targets for this category are steel chickens at 50 meters, pigs at 100 meters, turkeys at 150 meters, and rams at 200 meters, with the rams needing a good thump to take them down cleanly. All types of traditional lever action rifles were being used, from the Model 1866 Winchester, to the various Marlins, to the newest Henry models.
There are many different sizes of animal silhouette targets for the many different shooting disciplines. Rather than showing you a typical blurry photo of silhouettes out on the range at a distance, I decided to do a size comparison with a human (my son) for those not familiar with lever-action silhouette targets. These particular animals are for the “rifle caliber” portion of the match and are the largest. Chickens are shot at 50 meters, pigs at 100 meters, turkeys at 150 meters, and the rams at 200 meters.
The definition of a “pistol caliber rifle” is 22 Magnum, 32-20, 38 Special, 357 Magnum, 38-40, 44-40, 44 Special, 44 Magnum, and 45 Colt. I heard a number of 22 Magnum shooters complaining that this cartridge is not ideal for taking down the rams due to insufficient energy, so they are trying 45 and 50-grain bullets, with some limited success. These animals are quite a bit smaller than those used for the rifle caliber category, and the chicken is about the size of a quail, while the ram is about the size of a large jackrabbit.
For the third category, 22 Long Rifle, no hyper-velocity ammo is allowed, and in fact, most people were using standard velocity ammo. Again, the chickens are at 40 meters, the pigs at 50 meters, the turkeys at 75 meters, and the rams at 100 meters; however, these steel critters are normally lighter in weight to make them easier to knock down with 22 Long Rifle ammunition. They are the exact same size as for “pistol caliber rifle”, just thinner steel. I saw a lot of Marlin Model 39s on the line, followed by Henrys, and the Winchester Model 9422.
Another size comparison, with these being the smaller silhouettes used for both pistol caliber rifle and 22 long rifle competition. These can be harder to hit than you would think with the chickens at 40 meters, the pigs at 50 meters, the turkeys at 75, and the rams at 100. It sure is a hoot when you see them tumble.
Receiver sights dominate the firing line, followed by tang sights, with some hearty souls doing just fine with factory open sights. Fiber optic front sights are allowed because some lever guns now come from the factory with them; however, most shooters are not using them. Bead, post, or aperture front sights (Lyman 17a) are the rule. The trick to this whole game is to have your guns zeroed precisely beforehand for all of the different distances, and to have the sight setting data written down in a notebook. In addition, you should bring plenty of practice ammo, as there is ample time allotted for this. All in all, the guns are the same ones you grew up with, with no replacement barrels, special target barrels, or unusual appendages allowed. Some lever gun shooters use black powder and clean from the breech with a bore snake or “pull-through” every five shots or so, but most competitors were using smokeless. Lever guns come in a variety of stock lengths for different body sizes, and I saw more ladies, young couples, teenagers and youngsters shooting than ever before – truly a family sport. This was very refreshing since I usually shoot with grizzled old geezers!
As many of you know, competitors generally pick a specific aiming point on each animal, such as the bottom of the foot, or where the top of the leg touches the bottom of the body of the animal. The reason for this is because your bead or post front sight can get lost in the black body of the animal, especially if your sights are black. In other words, black sights swimming in a black body are not the best for optical resolution. Therefore, you have to set your sights to shoot higher to hit in the center of mass of the steel body. Paper targets of the exact same size and shape of each steel animal helps with this tremendously. I didn’t notice many people using aperture front sights, but the technique there is to bracket the front and rear of the animal.
Another size comparison, with these being the smaller silhouettes used for both “pistol caliber rifle” and 22 Long Rifle competition. These can be harder to hit than you would think with the chickens at 40 meters, the pigs at 50 meters, the turkeys at 75 meters, and the rams at 100 meters. It sure is a hoot when you see them tumble.
There are scoring classes for beginners through experts, those being B, A, AA, AAA, and Master. Therefore, you only compete with shooters of approximately the same skill level. By the way, I saw some of the best off-hand shooters I have ever seen anywhere in the Masters category. The Grand Aggregate winner this year was a mild-mannered senior wearing overalls and a straw hat, named Robert Massey. It seems he grew up shooting squirrels and rabbits with such guns. Nipping at his heels were some teenagers and ladies who brought in some truly astonishing scores.
This year the Match Director added the “Henry Championship” where each day one class of shooters competed in a one-shot shoot off to determine one winner who received a Henry rifle. Four rifles were given away in these shoot offs and a big thank you to Henry Repeating Arms for their generous support.
Jim Luke (on the right) was the winner of the open sight smallbore match, as well as the Match Director for the Western and National Championship; a great shot and a fantastic match organizer.
Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention the Western Smallbore Open Sight Sporting Rifle Championship that took place a few days before this national championship. It was for unaltered factory sporting rifles with open sights as installed at the factory. No rifle upgrades or modifications were allowed, such as target barrels, bull barrels, trigger-jobs, or peep/tang sights. Basically, this was a “bring any old 22” silhouette match, and I saw everything from Ruger 10-22 semi-autos, to CZ bolt-action Jaguar models. There were about 60 shooters who participated over three days, and Jim Luke took top honors. This is also becoming a popular sport in several Western States, with a number of clubs holding regular .22 silhouette matches for factory open sights. The idea is to get new folks started in the silhouette game.
Interestingly, the .22 BPCR Silhouette Match and the regular BPCR Silhouette Match were held right after the lever gun matches, so one can hang around and enjoy a number of great shooting sports at this world-class venue. A huge thank you goes out to all of the volunteers who helped make this event a smashing success, and I hope to see you there next year!
