Using open sights for HFT...

[Mrs. H]

I picked up a rather nice new toy this weekend in the form of the Diana 46 Stutzen. -Yes, I know this is the collectables section but stick with me... I'm very impressed with the set of open sights it comes with; nice and rugged with easy adjustment. In fact, so nice my mind started wandering.... this is the problem with cold wet Sundays when you haven't managed to exorcise the shooting bug by lying in a puddle somewhere with total strangers on an HFT course.
Has anyone tried doing an HFT course with open sights? I've done one with diopters, but not plain old iron. The rear sight has a little elevation wheel marked from 0-9, but the instruction manual helpfully tells you that this isn't calibrated for any particular distance.
SO.... and this is why I'm posting here, (as I figured more people in this section have shot without the need for a whopping great MBC Zeuss Bushwhack Loophole stuck on top), has anyone out of interest worked out any rough data for height of rear sight to target distance? I'm not sure Chairgun is going to be that helpful with increments of a nanometer. And yes, to make matters worse it is in .22. At the moment my crib card reads;

8-15 yds pretty much in the middle
20-25yds top
25-30yds up a bit
35yds up abit more
40yds up quite a lot
45yds circling motion in general direction above target.

I'm not expecting a great score, heck if I can hit the plates I'll be happy. Just fancy giving it a go......

[Enthusiast]

The Bisley mob do a vintage HFT every now and again. I was lucky enough to attend one of these once. They use pre war springers with open sights - most are 0.177 which surprised me.

I opted for a 0.22 and it was phenomenally good fun, the longest target was - I think - 42 yards. I aimed at the knot in the tree trunk about 2ft above the target and dang me - the thing fell over!

Most of the targets were somewhat closer and the scores were surprisingly high - mainly high forties.

I would thoroughly recommend having a go.

Richard

[Retracted_Yeti]

Why not,a few folks have done..

here's one such looney..



Yep, tis me at a HFT comp!

Cheers.

Roy.

[Enthusiast]

Why not,a few folks have done..

here's one such looney..



Yep, tis me at a HFT comp!

Cheers.

Roy.

I went round with you I think - was that Tawd Roy?

Richard

[Retracted_Yeti]

I went round with you I think - was that Tawd Roy?

Richard

You are correct sir.

Cheers.

Roy.

[IOM]

Why not,a few folks have done..

here's one such looney..



Yep, tis me at a HFT comp!

Cheers.

Roy.

Twas this Tawd Vale Roy ? ATB Hughie

[Mrs. H]

Thanks for that Richard, that definitely sounds like must-do to have a try at!
I know dad worked out some rough data for the .25 Bugglespanner I have; to get to 40yards you needed an elevation of about 60 degrees, so about 20foot above the target! On the plus side if you saw where the pellet landed you could use it again and again and again....

I do fancy having a go with this Stutzen. I can see me being in a class all of my own.
Again....

[Mrs. H]

Blimey! In the time it took me to post this there were 2 more replies! Cheers for the support guys!
At the moment the little breech seal / O-ring from the front of the pop-up breech is AWOL. -I bought the rifle from the Newark shooting show where it had been on a display board so I suspect it escaped whilst numerous inquisitive fingers popped the breech open and closed over and over again. I've sent RUAG (the UK distributors) a quick email asking if they can send me a new seal, so hopefully they'll be able to help. SO... if it gets here in time I am quite happy to have a go next weekend at the Southern / Midland hunters double header at Shepreth. Heck, my score can't be any worse than usual!! And who knows.. I may just put a few people off as they try and work out which bit is missing....

[I. J.]

THIS is my Crib Sheet for when I used my 1914 BSA Impv Model D with open sights in a couple of national rounds of the UKHFT. It later appeared in the July '09 issue of Airgun World.
I hope my calculations and home work didn't give some of the top shooters an unfair advantage.

ATB
Ian

[Mrs. H]

Lmao
Thanks Ian! I suspect if I take Hsing-ee's suggestion and use Bisley Magnum depth charges thats going to be pretty much bang on!

[Hsing-ee]

You won't have any difficulty hitting the plates using open sights, so maybe choose a very heavy pellet and knock them down using the 'kinetic kill-zone trip effect' like the fellas with the .25s. But that is sort of cheating.

If the face-plates were painted white and the kill-zones painted black and the targets placed in well-lit positions on a bright day, you should turn in a very respectable score. The problem is that the kill-zones are often not distinguisable from the face-plates in the usual HFT conditions, I have had problems seeing them with a 6x scope sometimes.

Therefore, if it is within the rules, I think you should take some binoculars and 'spot' the targets before taking aim. Then at least you will be firing at the right mark.

All the best of luck!

[edbear2]

Hi Mate, all you need to know is the curve of the pellet you are using, and your zero range, the same as if using a scope......I shot a 1909 BSA at rivi last year in a normal comp.....as others have said, the main problem is seeing the actual target!.....Getting a 1 out to 45 yards is possible, but at that range the foresight is bigger than the target.......I set mine up by shooting a group at 5,10,15,20,25, yards etc....all the way out to 45 yards, with the same aiming point for every group...it doesn't take that long to shoot 5-6 pellets at each range,......then you decide on a zero range and draw a graph to suit, which you try and remember.........basically it is "real world" chairgun......

[Mrs. H]

Ta EdBear! I've just had a nice email from the MD of Diana's UK distributor to say that a nice new shiney breech seal / O-ring set is on its way for *fingers crossed* it'll be here in time for Sundays shoot and I can spend a few hours on Saturday working out some rough aim points.

I'm really looking forward to this now... and at least I'll have a better excuse if my card looks like binary code!

I'll let you all know how I get on....

Anne

[Amac]

Good luck Anne. It sounds like a great deal of fun to me. Maybe "open sights" and vintage rifles are the way forward for me as well. Let us know if your seals arrived and if you managed to hit anything (which I am sure you will !).
Andy

[Mrs. H]

Right!
Okay... new seals arrived as promised. For anyone else with a Model 46 who hasn't yet noticed, the seals aren't a great fit to the breech; they compress relatively well when thumbed in, but when the breech is opened they start to rise up. If you don't keep an eye on them they'll either fall out or prevent the breech *clicking* shut and fly out at you! (5th shot through chrono).
We sorted the problem with a fine layer of contact adhesive applied to the edge of the seal and *touch wood* so far so good. I gather Diana will be updating the 46 to have the sliding breech as on the 48/52 which will solve the problem.

So, nice bright sunny Saturday afternoon, just the ticket to pop some targets up in the garden and see what happens!
I'd tried using Chairgun to get some rough data; it is rough as the minimum scope mag is x2 on that, but at least I could get an idea of the trajectory. From 8-20 yards is near enough dead on, with every 5 yards after that accounting for about an inch drop.
With a paper target at 15yards I was getting fairly comfortable 15mm groups, so with a heightened sense of optimism I put out some of Dads home-made knock down targets with 20mm killzones.
With a 'proper' target to aim at things now got interesting. First off, what to do with your left eye. I found I had to close it as keeping it open (as you can do with a telescopic sight), simply meant multiple foresight images and a blurry mess. Closing it is fine, its when you keep doing so that it starts to get a bit grumpy and refuse to focus on anything when you open it again. For one shot at a time it shouldn't be a problem, but doing groups of 5 and 10 shots into a target meant I nearly fell into the pond when I tried to see again.

Second thing to note is that the sights become bigger as the target gets smaller, and at this point you start questioning exactly where they should sit together; rear blade dead level? Up a bit? Down a bit? And where on the target? Right on it or just above or below? Moving your head a tiny amount can alter it drastically.

I managed to hit the 20mm kill zone out to 25 yards with a not surprisingly increasing number of plates! At 10yards I could hit it about 50% of the time, by the time I got out to 25 yards I managed it twice in 10 shots. I didn't hit the blighter once at 30 yards and must have lumped the best part of 50 pellets at it. -I stopped when I'd decimated all the paint and could no longer see where the shots were grouping! At this point I thought I'd pop a paper target up (the standard 10M type with 5 bulls on) and fire a group of 5 shots from 30 yards to see where they fell. As expected the grouping was quite large and the average 'fall' from aiming at a top bull was about 2 1/2". From the 5 shots I managed two within the black area of the target below.

30 yards is about the max range I have here, so I'll take a pen and pencil with me tomorrow and do some quick notes after some time on the plinking range at the 35-45yd targets.
Just to make things really interesting... I have no idea how the rifle behaves with different holds when lying prone. The garden is still quite damp from all the rain we've had so all shots so far have been taken as unsupported standers. Still, should give the other shooters something else to gawp at tomorrow!