Shot my first match today! Very fun! Any tips?

Ten is a great score for your first match. Your equipment sounds fine,at least until you reach 50% hits. Best advice I can give is to get your sight settings for each animal, know how and when to get that setting and have confidence in it. Holding over or under is not the way to improve. Your spotter can be a huge help if you work together,remember that this is offhand shooting and that you will not be able to reliably call your shots until you reach AAA level. All this to say that if you shoot at a turkey and your spotter says the impact was 9 inches high, don't start aiming elsewhere, be confident in your settings, aim at the turkey,gentle squeeze of the trigger with just the first pad of your finger, keep that hold long enough for an arrow to travel that distance,listen to your spotters input. Then forget about that shot and move on to the next,unless everything was perfect with the previous shot,every shot is its own complete match,just happens to be 40 of them. "You never count your chickens when you stand at the line" that is part of your spotters job.

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Hopefully I don't sound too preachy, but I love silhouette so here is my 2 cents.

To answer your questions: There are two categories: Hunter and Standard. Hunter is a rifle that weighs 8.5lbs or less with a trigger pull of 2lbs or more and the scope bottom? can't be more than 1.5" above the top of the receiver, and the barrel must taper. Standard rifle can be 10lbs 2oz with any weight of trigger pull as long as it's safe ie safety can be engaged and if you hit the buttstock hard it won't go off, scope can be 2" above the receiver, and any barrel including bull. A hunter rifle can be used in standard, so a lot of people these days like to use just one rifle for both.

I believe your Savage barrel doesn't taper so it would instantly be a standard rifle only hopefully your match directly will let you shoot hunter just for fun to get the xp Also the cheek piece can't be above the center of the bore; yours might just barely be passing. Also I believe if you have an adjustable stock it must be taped over etc since you're not allowed to adjust it during a match i know, strange rules...again local shouldn't really care. Keep in mind you can't have a buttstock that casts to the left or right or dips lower than the normal buttstock *ie you can can't slide an adjustable piece down.

For a 40rnd match
Hunter: B: 0-14 A: 15-19 AA: 20-25 AAA: 26-31 Master: 32-40
Standard: B: 0-14 A: 15-20 AA: 21-27 AAA: 28-33 Master: 34-40

If it was an official match and since it was your first unranked you are now B class for standard, you are still unranked in Hunter. To get out of B you will need to shoot 3 A scores during the season, doesn't have to be in a row. If you shoot two above your class you BREAK OUT! so if you shot a AA score once as a B class, you instantly become A class. Great job shooting 10, yes that's great for your first time out! Silhouette is incredibly relaxing as it is challenging, 99% of it is in your head once you get the basic motions down.

Most people use 20x or 25x+ I highly recommend starting at a minimum of 10 or 12x and working your way up to 16x on your scope when you are comfortable. Never change your magnification based on shooting a different animal.

Some tips... hmmmm. Dry fire a lot! print out some targets ie 10m in your home and get 10m air rifle print outs. Work on your stance, don't overextend your body...do what is most stable FOR YOU ie some like to put their thumb on the bottom of the trigger guard others like to rest the trigger guard in their palm. Over time you will naturally know how to position your body so when you raise the rifle you aren't "searching" for your target. Work on natural point of aim...there is a great video on here that describes it that I will try to find later. Keep your front foot always planted, your rear leg moves either back and forward to adjust height or slightly move it left or right to better "rest" on the animal. Closing your eyes to find your natural point of aim for 5 seconds then looking helps to realize how to adjust.

STRUGL hit it spot on...one match is 40 matches! Don't let your last shot dictate your current shot...bad shots aren't worth remembering. Also, it's not fun being around negative shooters wither it be them being frustrated or telling you how bad they are doing because now you have that in your head. Silhouette community is great and people have a ton of fun! You will do your best shooting when you're not even thinking about it and having fun.

Great job on rams being your best, if you can find out what ammo groups best with your rifle at 100m or yards if that's what your club uses. Make sure to bring bags/rests every match and know your elevation for each animal and don't 2nd guess it during the match! You used a rest, it's correct. I second guess WAY to much and it gets in my head and it's down hill. Also when done with a animal change your elevation for the next animal before removing your gun from the line. Be careful, when you end up shooting both Hunter and Standard you usually shoot the same animal on the next relay depending on how your club runs things so you don't want to Shoot standard chickens, then when you shoot Hunter chickens you accidentally already set it to pigs.

Edit: Also never add up your totals until the very end! When you tell someone your scores just say whatever your got..."chickens, 1 and 3" Don't think or write down 4 on the side because then for pigs you will be like oh 2 and 2 another 4 that's a total of 8 and i have 2 animals left so I now need 7 more hits for an A score and it will get in your head, especially in the end. Just shoot your game one target at a time.

Some helpful tools to bring...bags/rest, a little timer I set mine for 2:45 and press play when they shout READY You get 15 seconds between the ready and fire command and 2:30 to shoot. Always take your time on each shot, you have 30 seconds per shot. A small clipboard for your score card so it doesn't blow away and a pen...people will take your pen so keep it close! Having 2-3 mags preloaded takes some stress out. Bring a light snack that is easy to digest and plenty of water. A vest helps you with making sure you're place the rifle in the same spot every time...consistency is key in this sport!

I think that's about it....
Check out Erich Mietenkorte's youtube channel: He is one of the best shooters out there. If you ever encounter top shooter just know they are some of the friendliest people and to pick their brain.

Ridgway, PA is the holy grail for us. The Lapua Super Shoot is at the end of this month...it's like the endurance racing of silhouette. It might be intense, but you will learn A TON by shooting so much! Facebook is big on info for silhouette... there is Metallic Silhouette Shooters Society which is a private group and usually has the most announcements / updates. there is also Metallic Silhouette Shooting and also some lever action groups + more.

If you're on the boarder of WV near NOVA, send me a PM if you ever want to come out for a match!

Also, here are the most current rules.

No such thing as bad when it comes to competitive shooting!

The only score to beat is your previous one, having switched disciplines from Gallery/Light weight sporting rilfe which is shot off hand to shooting small-bore prone i thought life would be easier, how wrong I was.

For me I will give it at least a year to relearn and "git gud" well good enough to satisfy my own level of skill,

Many of the same principles apply from both discipline's, NPA (Natural point of aim) is a big factor, but practice is the key, never beat yourself up if you hit a slump and try not to be bamboozled by to much advice, although that's also advice?

The other thing about comp shooting is this, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong during a comp, months of practice go by without any mistakes or mechanical issues, until you go to a national 🤣

Then you'll get a jam, dud round or faulty mag.....never happens in practice only comp. But on the upside this happens to other people too, so you might end up winning a heat or division by default.

I've always been tempted to enter the single shot flintlock pistol comp as in the last few years no one competed at all, and I would have been the gold medalist!

eflyguy said:

The silhouette match we want to shoot requires 6mm or larger, so we'd have to use my .308. It's standing, off-hand. The match organizer said my Nikon P3 (3-9x) would be better suited than the P5 (4-16x). They both have BDC reticles which I really like, but I've not competed with them. I only use a 'scope for ammo testing.

Cost of .308 has prevented us from getting started. Hopefully this year, things are improving.

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That's highpower silhouette, also a ton of fun, but can be a whole other game with the tiring recoil and reloading. I don't understand the logic behind the 3-9 over the 4-16 when they appear to be the same weight. The only thing that makes sense is that you are new? and to get use to lower magnification and work your way up when you're comfortable? But you could still do that same magnification with the 4-16x so idk! I like to be up in that targets face as much as possible with as little outside distraction as possible..ie other targets or a butterfly.

It's still very doable, use what you have, you don't need what everyone else is using! Reticle honestly doesn't matter either, people just say they get distracted by the lines. End of the day is the center is on that target. At my range we have an AR class I use a 4x scope at 200m with all the targets scaled down, it's very doable. I also shoot 7mm-08 with a fixed 25x and prefer it A LOT more!


What is this, a range for ants?!

ky-shooter said:

I can’t imagine holding a 20x scope or even a 12x scope steady enough to shoot offhand with no artificial support. My hats off to anyone who can do this and consistently hit targets.

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It's a challenge and a ton of fun! You get use to it. There are some freaks of nature like Erich Mietenkorte I'm lucky to stay on the target for more than a second!

So smallbore is 1/5 scale of highpower targets.....rough dimensions.. chickens 2.5" @ 40m, Pigs 3" @ 60m, Turkey 3.5" at 77m, and Rams 6" at 100m. Roughly targets are all 5 moa? I'm sure every shooter is like hell yea I can hit a 5 moa target, this rifle is 1 MOA! They go out, try it and usually never come back sadly. It's very humbling, but soooo rewarding if you stick with it. It's great to see those targets fall and the chickens fly! Plus you get 5 and 10 in a row pins for each animal I like to compare it to bowling...you can go out there and have fun no matter how good you did...Then when you get better you start picking up strikes and eventually turkeys...now the hard part is getting a strike every single time!

I think you would LOVE lever action silhouette! The targets are 1/2 scale so whatever 2.5x the above sizes are. The pigs are at 50m and the Turkeys at 75m. The catch....IRON SIGHTS ONLY! It's a ton of fun, you have smallbore 22lr and then you have pistol caliber with the same size targets but they are slightly thicker, you can use 22lr but you will most likely ring some pigs or rams *you have to knock the target off the stand to count. 22wmr is big if you don't like to reload and next is 357 but there is a mixture of calibers people use. Rifle is shot on a 200m range starting 50m with chickens and on ward, but these targets are full scale. People enjoy using 30-30 for this. Lots if not most switch their sights to the peep style like lyman, williams, or redfield so they can still adjust for each distance.