| SILHOUETTE SECTION |
Weather and snow banks permitting, the silhouette section will kick of its 2012 season on Thursday, May 3rd. The section will shoot regularly on Thursday evenings and the first and third Sundays of the month, more information below.
2012 Silhouette Nationals are scheduled to be held July 7-12th in Heffley Creek BC.
The Yellowknife Shooting Club hosts an active silhouette shooting
program. The silhouette section host’s regular shoots at the outdoor
range. During the summer months, we shoot a smallbore (.22 rimfire)
rifle and pistol match each
Thursday evening, sight-in starts at 6:00 pm, and the match starts
at 7:00 pm. We shoot an additional smallbore rifle and pistol match the first Sunday of each Month.
The third Sunday of each month is a high power cowboy rifle and
pistol match. For weekend matches the range is set up for sight-in
at 1:00 pm, the match commences at 2:00 pm. Friendly instruction and
help is provided for newcomers, please come out and give silhouette
a try.
Special Welcome for Juniors
Smallbore silhouette shooting is an excellent introduction to shooting
for youth. Junior members, with parental supervision, are welcomed
at our shoots. The club has a number of good quality .22 rifles to
support junior shooters, safety training, safety equipment,
ammunition and coaching is provided.
What is Silhouette?
Silhouette shooting consists of shooting at animal-shaped steel cut-outs
at a variety of ranges. Four different animal-shaped steel cut-outs
(chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams) placed on stands at different
ranges. The shooter then fires to knock the critter off the stand.
The range the animal is shot at, and the size of the animal is
dependant on the type of match being shot. For smallbore (.22
rimfire) competitions, two banks of five animals each are set at 40
(Chickens), 50 (Pigs), 77 (Turkeys) and 100 metres (Rams). A match
typically consists of 40 shots, one shot per animal. Scoring is
simple, a shot that knocks the intended critter off it’s stand is scored as a hit, if it doesn’t, the
shot is scored as a miss. Oh yes, to keep it challenging, all rifle
shooting is done from a standing position.
What do you need to bring?
As with most activities, there is a huge array of equipment available to
help you get better scores. However, for beginning little equipment
is needed.
Smallbore Rifle and Pistol
Any reasonably accurate scope optional but desirable .22 rifle will allow
you to shoot a smallbore silhouette match. There are two different
classes of silhouette (Hunter class and Silhouette class) are shot
with different rifle weights, it will be easy enough to assign a
class to the rifle at the range. Also, a lever action .22 rifle with
iron sights will allow competition in “Smallbore Cowboy Rifle”.
Twenty-two calibre handguns can be used for smallbore pistol
shooting.
You will also need eye and ear protection, and ammunition. High and hyper
velocity ammunition can damage the targets and are not allowed. This
is all that is really required to participate.
High Power Cowboy and Pistol
For High Power Cowboy rifle matches you will need a lever action rifle
which fires a rimmed centerfire cartridge (30-30, 45-70 etc).
Various classes of pistol allow the use of almost any centerfire
pistol. You will also need sufficient ammunition to sight in at the
four different ranges (High Power Pistol and Cowboy Rifle are shot
at 50, 100, 150 and 200 metres), and shoot a forty shot match. Any
ammunition that damages the targets is not allowed (most factory
softpoint ammunition is fine, FMJ ammunition or very high velocity
handloads are generally Not OK). Of course don’t forget your eye and
ear protection.