| Early in the last century, Pancho Villa and his bandits pillaged Mexican
farmsteads. Violence was a problem only when it happened within ranks.
Apparently after one raid, a couple of Pancho’s henchmen argued over who was
the best shot. Burying both would have been hard work in the afternoon heat,
so their leader suggested a contest. A couple of steers, curiously still
alive, were rounded up and staked far away.
Shooting livestock at long range eventually drew more reputable marksmen.
Dr. Mario Gonzales wrote about a fiesta in Jalisco where contestants fired
at chickens l00 meters away—with pistols! Any hit drawing blood claimed the
chicken for that shooter. In l946 Gonzales joined a club in Guadalajara and
attended weekly chicken shoots. For variety, turkeys were added as targets
at l50 and 200 meters, and pigeons at 50 meters. Riflemen could shoot at
chickens 200 meters away, and try to hit turkeys at 400. Sheep were staked
500 meters downrange.
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| After originating as a sport where
live animals were shot, silhouette shooting switched to "knocking down"
metal silhouettes in the shape of animals. |
This sport didn’t last long. Animal suffering had less to do with its
demise than did cheating. Riflemen learned you could hit a big rock next to
a small target to draw blood with the shrapnel. Or pay an official to
overlook blood from a previous hit, to count later. Animals were not the
same size, and some moved more than others, prompting complaints. Softnose
bullets damaged meat. Rounding up and staking the livestock was lots of
work.
In l948 Don Gonzalo Aguilar organized a rifle match in Mexico City,
substituting metal silhouettes in the shape of animals. Four years later
Mexico held its first national Siluetas Metalicas championship. This
course of fire included 30 shots: l0 each at gallinas (chickens) at
200 meters, guajalotes (turkeys) at 385 and borregos (sheep)
at 500. Riflemen with .22s could shoot palomas (doves) at 50 and l00
meters, and pint-size steel gallinas at l50.
American Style
Into the early l960s, Siluetas Metalicas remained a Mexican sport.
Then, in l967, Roy Dunlap and others at the George Paterson Rifle Club of
Nogales, Ariz., built a silhouette range. The targets were like those used
by Mexico’s Northern League, but Roy put horns on the sheep. The club added
a bank of javelinas (pigs) to be shot at 300 meters. On April 12,
1969, the first American Metallic Silhouette match happened at the Tucson
rifle range. An entry fee of 30 pesos, or $2.40, included all the
pit-barbecued beef you could eat. Matches that followed stateside were for
centerfire rifles only, with the maximum weight changing from Mexico’s 4.0
kg (about 8.8 pounds) to 4.6 kg (10.2 pounds) to accommodate scopes. Still,
all shots had to be taken offhand (standing), without a sling or artificial
support.
I shot my first silhouette match in l974, on a strip of featureless New
Mexico sand. Distant borregos weaved unsteadily in mirage that
floated them off their steel pedestals. “Teeny, ain’t they,” grinned a man
scuffing a level spot in the prickly pear to my left. Teeny! Landsakes, it
was like trying to hold on to animal crackers while riding surf!
“Listo!” I slipped a cartridge into my .270. “Fuego!” The
following fusillade was punctuated occasionally by pings, clangs and
far-away bongs. Between shots I’d see the odd turkey or sheep melt into the
desert. They didn’t fall; they just disappeared. The sound of the strike
floated back later. Closer, the pigs toppled, or skittered off their
pedestals. Chickens took a beating at 200 meters, leaping off their perches
and spinning into the sand.
When the rifles at last fell silent, only one gap had appeared in my line
of five borregos.
The stout man who won that day hit about half his 80 targets. He shot
them with a Winchester Model 70 .30-06 and a Weaver K-4 scope, an
off-the-shelf rifle you’d hunt with. Later, when shooters began building
custom artillery, a “hunting class” would evolve to maintain the original
spirit of the sport. Rifles for hunting matches would be held to less than 9
pounds overall weight, with a 2-pound trigger and functional magazine.
Since its start 20-odd years ago, metallic silhouette shooting has
spread. The National Rifle Association has developed courses of fire for
black-powder cartridge rifle, long-range pistol, short-range pistol,
smallbore (rimfire) rifle, even air rifle and air pistol. A local club has
“Cowboy” silhouette matches. Rules are similar; gun specifications, target
sizes and distances vary.
Match Points
In the popular centerfire and rimfire rifle matches, competitors fire 40,
60, 80 or l20 shots in five-round strings, with no sighting shots. Targets
are taken left to right; any hits out of sequence are counted as misses. A
second-round hit on target number #3 would be a double miss because
target #2 is safe and the hit on target #3 cannot be scored. No coaching is
allowed. If wind knocks down a target, you skip it and return to the
left-hand-most remaining target for your last shot. Equipment failure may
qualify you for an alibi string, 30 seconds per shot, at the close of that
relay. Ties are broken by “sudden-death” shoot-offs.
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| Bullets 6mm or larger are used in
centerfire silhouette shooting events, mainly to insure that a direct
hit knocks down the target. |
The only cartridge restriction in the centerfire event is a bullet 6mm or
larger, and most shooters favor bigger missiles, because borregos
that are hit low by a lightweight bullet sometimes don’t fall. A long-time
favorite round is the .308 Winchester with l68-grain match bullets. Some
shooters like the 7mm/08 Remington. The .260 makes sense too. Short actions
are most popular; a long rifle action robs weight and stiffness from the
barrel. Unnecessarily powerful cartridges are bad business because they make
you flinch.
Early on, the most popular factory rifle for metallic silhouette shooting
was the varmint-weight Remington 700 in .308. Other firms have followed with
similar models. Custom-built rifles for metallic silhouette usually feature
short, heavy barrels and lightweight synthetic stocks. Vertical grips and
tall combs are the rule, because shooting is offhand only. You won’t see
many 4x scopes these days. Some shooters use magnification as high as 24x,
though I prefer about half that (wind can make a high-power scope very
difficult to control). Target-style turret knobs help you switch from one
distance to another. I zero in on pigs at 300 meters, aiming low on the
chicken and just above the turkey. I crank the elevation dial only for the
sheep. An adjustable objective enables you to focus sharply when using high
magnification.
A silhouette range requires no target frames, pits or cement firing line.
But you do need space. A 500-meter shot is 547 yards. Add 50 yards for
parking and scoring tables. That means 600 yards of relatively flat land
with a hill tall enough to catch bullets and a road to the targets so you
can carry them in a vehicle and set them up in a hurry during a match.
The Long (L, LR) And Short (S) Of Rimfire
In places too suburban for long shooting, rimfire metallic silhouette
shooting evolved. Scaled to roughly one-fifth the size of standard
silhouettes, rimfire targets are set at 40, 60, 77 and 100 yards. They save
a lot of steel. Bases for centerfire sheep are as big as sheep targets
for the .22s, which require only a quarter-inch plate. You can throw
eight banks of .22 targets in your trunk, with pedestals and sight-in gongs.
At the range, just drive the pedestals in the ground. Centerfire targets
fill a U-Haul van, and you need a crew of stevedores to set them up, plus
permanent pedestals.
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| Silhouette ranges do not require a
huge amount of land to set up, just around 600 yards of relatively flat
land and a hill behind the targets tall enough to catch the bullets. |
Ammunition for rimfire shooting can be any .22 caliber Short, Long or
Long Rifle cartridge. However, hyper-velocity rounds don’t qualify. Match
ammo isn’t necessary, but groups bigger than 1 inch at 50 yards could cost
you. Rimfire rifles must hew to the 10.2-pound weight limit of centerfires,
and the same limitations concerning barrel length (30 inches), comb height
(bore-line), and forend dimensions (no more than 2 l/4 inches deep or wide).
Any safe trigger is permissible. Early on, Anschutz built a silhouette rifle
on its Model 54 action with a trigger adjustable to 2.1 ounces. Beginners
who shot against such hardware soon howled for a “hunter” class. The NRA
modified centerfire hunter-class rules, settling on a 7.5-pound weight limit
and allowing single-shot actions.
Many common rimfire rifles can be competitive. One fellow I know made his
debut with a battered Mossberg, using a hacksaw blade in place of its
missing bolt stop and taping the splintered stock together. The scope was a
cheapie. This young man worked hard on shooting fundamentals, however, and
won the season championship at his club.
Metallic silhouette shooting can help you become a good shot. While
hunters covet new equipment, the truth is that ordinary rifles, optics and
ammo are better than they’ll ever know because they lack the skill to test
them. Silhouette shooting is a way to gain that skill. Francisco Doroteo
Arango “Pancho” Villa probably never had a better idea. |
