Old IHMSA days....

[Lee Martin]

I was talking with David Bradshaw the other day and it reminded me of some photos Ron Ricci sent a while back. Since there are a lot of silhouette shooters on the forum I thought there'd be interest in these:

1978 IHMSA Eastern Regionals at Camp Curtis Guild, Wakefield, MA. Left to right - David Bradshaw, Sig Himmelmann of United Sporting Arms, and Ron Ricci. Sig donated a Seville to be presented to the winner, David Bradshaw.

1978 IHMSA Internationals in Salina, KS. Left to Right - match Director Jack Parker, Vermont Director David Bradshaw, Jim McLellan who was the Marketing Director at Smith & Wesson, Sig Himmelmann from United Sporting Arms, Pennsylvania Director Bat Thomas, and Ron Ricci who was the Secretary Treasurer and Regional/State Director.

Hopefully David can provide more insight on those early days of clanking steel.

 

[Don Lovel]

I loved shooting IHMSA. I used a TC with 14"- 41 Mag, a 6" Ruger Security Six and a 10" Super Blackhawk.
I usually competed at the Sand Springs Sportsman's Club west of Tulsa.
I loved the fact that they would have nice guns, reloading gear, knives and even power tools for prizes.
I actually enjoyed spotting for other shooters almost as much as shooting on the line myself
To this day, being able to watch a big 44 bullet trajectory until it hit the steel and that CLANG from downrange.

 

[David Bradshaw]

Don Lovel.... obviously you have spotted. To be a good spotter is as challenging as it is to be a good shooter. The difference between shooting paper or cardboard and shooting steel is that each and every steel silhouette looks a little different, one reason----the silhouette has no non-scoring area around it on the same plane. Paper has scoring area and dead zone on same plane. Silhouette backgrounds range wildly from range to range, and often on the same range. Another optical challenge happens as light reflects off each steel target a little differently.

Uneven targets at long range open your skull to mind games as you try to hold the same sight picture shot after shot.

Only a consistent sight picture produces consistent adjustments with the screwdriver.

As a spotter, I always wanted my shooter to hit. Not just a vanity of good spotting; it is much easier to spot hits than misses. It is a humiliation to miss a miss. But, it is a sin to call a shot you don't see.

I call my shots. All the time. I want a shooter I'm spotting to call his or her shots. I'm not sure what a surprise break is. I think it's for amateurs. A shot needs to be MADE.

As Don testifies, it is a hoot to watch a bullet sail downrange. You get so you can call a hit 80 or 50 yards before the bullet gets there. Because that trajectory gets in your blood. You call it in your mind only, since lips and vocal chords don't move while the bullet's in flight.

To spot and to see the bullet, put the spotting scope as close to the shooter's bore axis as possible, on the SUN SIDE of the bullet. The sunlit copper or silver streak of a bullet is easier to see than the shade side of the bullet.

Sometimes the light won't let you see the bullet. The bullet is easier to see with the sun behind you, as it illuminates the heal of the bullet, a tiny flat spot reflecting sun.

I focus the spotting scope or binocular about 50 yards in front of the silhouette, to better pick up the bullet as it heads to the target. Remember, depth of field is about 2/3 deeper to the far side of the focal plane than the 1/3 in front.

It is difficult to coach and spot at the same time, as COACHING requires watching the shooter; whereas, SPOTTING requires watching along the line from gun to target, and the immediate area around the target.

To alternately spot and shoot all day left my eyes melting down the front of my face by the end of the match. Often, if I was sighting right-eye, I would spot left-eye. Or visa versa. Except with the binocular, which lenses damn well better be equal and parallel.
David Bradshaw

 

[braud357]

Sorry to hijack ------- David, please send me an e-mail. Would like to catch-up with you ! Philip Braud e-mail: [email protected]

 

[David Bradshaw]

Philip.... if you have a photo of your Bkackhawk .357 rework, bet some folks would like to see it. Best,
David

 

[willk]

Talk about hijacking. Philip, I did not know you were over here. Yes, everyone wants to see your Blackhawk. I'll try to get the Single Six you built pictured as well

Will

 

[jack black]

Sure does bring back some fond memories, I won my first championship back in the seventies at camp Curtis . Those were some great times with my 7TCU.

 

[MaxP]

Great thread!

 

[gatling]

I used to shoot IHMSA at Fort Bliss, TX, in the mid-1970s. Great times with guys like Tom Beall, Elgin Gates, and others.

 

[David Bradshaw]

Gatling.... you go way back. I did not meet Tom Beall. Elgin spoke very highly of him. Beall, as I recall, was in the early unlimited gun split, when he and others built on the T/C Contender, while the XP-100 took the other fork.

Warren Center asked me specifically to thank IHMSA silhouetters for driving him to strengthen the Contender. Those were the ROCKS & DYNAMITE days of handgun silhouette, duplex loads in T/C's, rams set full-foot, cartridges that would have worked better as mortars, double pistol grip XP's and T/C's, bull barrel buntlines, and dancing around the fire.

Shooting on an open firing line under a blazing sun, 106-degrees, there was no such thing as your gun cooling off while the target setters were out. A period of experiment that changed handgunning forever.
David Bradshaw

 

[gatling]

Tom Beall was indeed an amazing man. A great pistolero, too. You are right; he shot a customized Contender in 30x223, which was a very interesting cartridge.

Tom had been some sort of an intelligence agent earlier in life and he always had amazing stories about goings-on in Central and South America. He spoke Spanish like a native, and liked to talk about how he was occasionally stopped and asked for papers in Mexico. His Spanish was so fluent he could talk his way out of those situations by claiming he was a native and convincing the police he was. I remember he had a VW that had been converted to what we called a Baja Bug (might have the term wrong; it was VW beetle with bobbed fenders and big lights on the roof). I greatly enjoyed his company. I believe he died in a car crash on or near Ft. Bliss.

I tried a couple of Contenders in the metallic silhouette game, but I never really liked them. One was a .30x223 (loved the cartridge, but the Contender never really fit my hand with either standard or custom grips), and the other was a standard Contender for which I had several barrels. I thought the .30 30 Contender might be a good way to go, but that was a particularly brutal combination from a recoil perspective and it did not stabilize the bullets. The Contenders in those days tended to loosen up considerably after a steady and heavy diet of competition reloads. I even had a .22 barrel for mine, but I did better in .22 silhouette competition with my S&W Model 41.

My preferred gun for big bore silhouette was a Model 27 S&W with an 8 3/8 barrel. I shot a 200 grain cast bullet over WW 296, and it was a very accurate and potent combination. The 200 grain .357 bullet had less drag than the 240 grain .44 bullet, and it was more reliable at knocking down the rams than the .44 Magnum. That impressed more than a few people who didn't think it was possible to be competitive in that game with the .357 Magnum. I tied for 5th place in the 1976 Nationals at Ft. Bliss with that gun and then I lost a shootoff.

The Model 27 loosened up quite a bit after a couple of years of that kind of shooting, and gas cutting under the top strap was severe. I remember I traded it to a dealer in Fort Worth for a brand new Model 70 .458 African. The .458 was a lot of fun with cast bullets, and as you know, there are no longer any elephants roaming free in Texas. Took out a few jack rabbits with that rifle, too. Those were grand days.

I still have some old newsletters from IHMSA from that era and if I get around to it I'll scan them and post them here.

 

[David Bradshaw]

Gatling.... post 'em! Warren Center beefed up the "water table" and "standing Breach" areas of the Contender. A new split bolt locked up tighter and made cracking the barrel easier. Some of the early silhouetters, Dave Ingram was one of 'em I remember talking duplex loads, when they fired their Contender, the pistol boke open. The Contender was not designed with an auto ejector. Jawbone started that "at exactly what point in the pressure curve does the pistol unlock?"

If you think about the spring-loaded center pin of an S&W revolver under recoil, or the spring-loaded Contender bolt, recoil acts to pull the pistol away from the S&W pin and T/C bolt engagement.

(Recoil in a Colt Python acts to reinforce lockup of the thumbpiece bolt.)

***
If you have load data for your Model 27 8-3/8", please post it. With dimensional and alloy info on your cast bullets. I believe the dwell time of your cast 200 .357 exerted the push effect necessary to tilt the ram beyond the "rocking point." I watched hard alloy bullets vaporize on silhouettes. A softer lead lead pushed. Once again a blasting analogy: you can fracture a target without pushing it with Composition 4 (C4), which has a velocity of detonation of 24,000 to 27,000 fps. With low powder or ANFO (8,000 to 16,000 fps) you heave the target.
Beau coups thanks,
David Bradshaw

 

[gatling]

Here you go, David....

I knew quite a few of the guys in these photos. Those were good days.

 

[kentdep]

I shot IHMSA too. I was justa kid then. I learned a lot from the game. I started when I was 12, so that would have been 1977. I was a production AAA shooter in my first year with my TC Contender .22lr. With my 9 1/2 inch Super Single Six I could only make AA.

When I was 15 I was shooting big bore Production and Unlimited. I shot a 10 inch Contender and a 14 inch XP-100, respectively. Both gun were chambered in 7mmTCU. I was ranked AAAin both of those classes too. I think that I could have made International in those if I would have stuck to it but girls and football came along and I lost interest.

Jay

 

[David Bradshaw]

Jay.... sounds like you shot well and rose fast at 15. Perhaps you met IHMSA Michigan and Region Three director Jerry Moran, whom introduced me to Michigan steel shooters.
David Bradshaw

 

[flatgate]

I remember reading the occasional magazine article about the silhouette shooters. After a year or two of plinking with various Rugers I finally decided to learn more. I stopped at a store in Idaho Falls and asked if their trash had any "large pieces" of cardboard."Help yourself!" I drove west a few miles out to the local range. (They were "cleaning up" after a shoot.) I asked if I could "trace all four" of the targets. A really nice guy helped me out then said "would you like to shoot a few rounds?" Hoo Boy, you betcha!

I got out my .454 and some ammo. The guy said pick on the targets in this lane.......
So, I got settled down into position and shot at one of the targets. A little sight adjustment and I shot some more. What the heck? I know I'm hitting the target 'cause I can occasionally hear it. The guy came back and asked "How 'ya doin'?" I said I'm pretty sure I'm hitting that target (Turkey) but it ain't moving. The guy burst into laughter and, after a few minutes, he got his composure back and hollered at his buddies "Hey, guys, this guy is hammering the practice target and it ain't falling over"!!!! Oh, rats, I wanted to crawl in a hole....... :D He said shoot it one more time and I'll spot for 'ya so we can see where you are hitting. OK, I shot it one more time and IT FELL OVER. I felt bad.... now I wrecked the practice target with my .454. The guy was still laughing so hard about me having so much trouble with the welded down target! :D

That's my silhouette story and I'm sticking with it........... :D

flatgate

 

[David Bradshaw]

flatgate.... Had Dick Casull been looking over your shoulder, a barely perceptible grin might have stretched his lip as he handed you one of his very own blue pills and said, "Here, try one of these."
David Bradshaw

 

[Cary]

Excuse my ignorance here but is this sport still going on? If not what happened to it? It sounds interesting and a lot of fun.
Cary

 

[Chief 101]

It is still around, you can find more info at their website

 

[David Bradshaw]

Cary.... the wild wooly days of handgun silhouette are over. Perhaps a new generation will revive the game and rediscover it is a wonderful challenge for building skill, that it comes out of hunting at a time handgun hunters were few and far between, and viewed by conventional rifle hunters as bad sheep with wolves teeth, whose skill with the handgun bordered on heresy, witchcraft.

The mark of the handgunner is skill, a respect for his and her limitations, the vision to adapt those limitations to the challenge at hand and to Darwinize those limitations to equal in the field the ethics of the best rifle hunter.
David Bradshaw

 

[Chief 101]

Well Said David...this is like a journey in the time machine

 

[Groot Nadine]

interesting topic. I shot IHMSA in Michigan in '79-'83. I remember hearing of the guys you mention and remember well shooting alongside Jerry Moran with his Pythons.

It indeed was the Wild Wooley days of silhouette shooting...

I still have my Merrill Sportsman (RPM) in .30 Herrett and .357 magnum. I remember the Rock-n-Roll loads Jim Rock sent me!

Fired two rounds and pulled the bullets!!

The Range rod was de rigueur for the Merrill's.

Jim Chapman
old IHMSA #5121

 

[kentdep]

interesting topic. I shot IHMSA in Michigan in '79-'83. I remember hearing of the guys you mention and remember well shooting alongside Jerry Moran with his Pythons.

It indeed was the Wild Wooley days of silhouette shooting...

I still have my Merrill Sportsman (RPM) in .30 Herrett and .357 magnum. I remember the Rock-n-Roll loads Jim Rock sent me!

Fired two rounds and pulled the bullets!!

The Range rod was de rigueur for the Merrill's.

Jim Chapman
old IHMSA #5121

Jim, I think I remember shooting with you back then and I do remember shooting with Jerry Moran. Do you remember Tony Kemp and Jim Finneran (Sp?). They were some of the top shooters in the state for a while.

My uncle, Tom Westbrook, was the match director for Ionia back when there was a match there. We shot there alot and West Walker too. I believe West Walker is still shooting. I still have my guns, my 9 1/2 Super Single Six and my Contender. My dad had a 10 Super Blackhawk and a XP-100 in 7mm TCU. Every once and a while I think that I should get back in the game. There is nothing more fun than shooting a target at 200 meters seeing it fall and hearing the hit on it a half second later!

Jay Wayman

 

[David Bradshaw]

Jim and Jay.... Jerry Moran took me around Michigan. Don't remember where, but have strong memories of shooting in mud & snow with great-spirited Michigan silhouetters. I tried to beat Jerry with his own Python, but two points behind doesn't beat diddly.
David Bradshaw