The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

With the Phoenix meeting not so far away some forum members might fancy a go at shooting in the McQueen competition. For those of you that have not shot it before the McQueen is a stressfire competition at either 200 or 300 metres against the clock and is huge fun.

Course of Fire is 10 shots against the clock, comprising of a target exposure in one of six windows in a 'castle' which is the loose silhouette of a building, the target will appear in one of the 6 windows for 3 seconds the target is then removed. The target will then appears again at a random interval of between 5 and 15 seconds later in either the same or another window for 3 seconds and so on until 10 exposures have been made.

If you are lucky you should be allowed a couple of sighters before the competition starts to confirm aim. The target is a politically correct version of the old Hun's Head.

The minimum you need is a rifle and 10 rounds, re-entry is a fiver for another 10 rounds but is very dependant on how busy the RCO's are. I shoot off a bipod but some will shoot of the sand (Gravel) bags or a rest. 5-15 seconds does not sound like a lot of time but it is ample to hand feed a round and you can easily get on the target in 3 seconds. I run at about 14X magification which enables me to comfortably see the extremities of the castle. If you choose to shoot from a 5 shot magazine and are going to swap mags after the fifth shot practice this a couple of times at home first as you just know the guys in the castle are going to go for an exposure at 5 seconds!

Accuracy is rewarded but do not think you need the latest and greatest equipment to compete, I may well take my 4(T) along next time as it seems like an appropriate rifle for such a competition.

I have some target pictures somewhere I will post up and hopefully the forum members who do shoot McQueens will add anything I have forgotten.

EDIT - You will need to be a member of the NRA and book in advance to shoot this comp.

We should ALL be in the NRA anyway - it's our only hope of having a unified voice. If you don't like them then join and speak up.
Unity is strength or some such.

You can practice the McQueen at Diggle this Sunday - start 10.30am - bring 24 rounds for 2 & 10 at each distance. Only genuine un-PC HUn's head targets used!

Cheers
Vince

What type of material is the "castle" made from?

Plywood I think but don't worry the people holding the targets around are below the mantlet so you do not have to worry about shooting them. Also if you watch carefully you see glimpses of the target as it is moved sometimes so you have an idea which way side it is heading.

I practice this with static and moving targets (Politically incorrect Huns Heads) at 600m much to the delight of the Danes and anything like this is huge fun.

David, I didn't even think about those in the butts

I wanted to know in case our local MOD range didn't have one but as its a military comp, they should I guess.

You can always improvise assuming the Club/RCO are happy, I pasted a target onto a 3/8" ply backing and screwed it to a 2m pole, then sent Christel down the butts with a radio. We agreed the COF at 3 second exposures and >5 seconds dwell and that was it, she just popped 'Fritz' up from place to place, she can be quite a bag as sometimes he would jump up in the air and other times come peeping half out of the long grass for added 'realism'

Only problem I had was taking a shot and then realising I had probably just tagged a brand new that morning target frame

We also have access to 'knock down silhouettes' 3/4 man sized things that fall over if you hit them and then pop back up, great fun with an LSW M/04 on Auto, but more accurate on SF.

Auto fire? 22 or is this abroad?

Most of the things I get to play with are with the Danish Army.

The last castle that I stood under at Bisley was made out of corrugated plastic held up by wooden posts.

The V bull on the current non human target is one inch across, with the outer score rings being 4,5 and 6 inches across. Some competitions do not use the Blue ring.

Often the V bull will be marked as a 5.1 so a perfect score will be 50.10 or 60.
Many competitions will see the top shooters achieve the top score, and I am sure that I have heard of shoot offs were the top score was shot twice more before a shooter dropped a point.

Personally speaking my best score was a 50.7 at 300 yards during an Imperial comp. For that I go a snipers medal but was not in the top 5!
Some people aim at the centre of the V Bull, personally I can not see it with my scope so I aim at the top of the Appex as that is a fine point. I know some others aim at the black moustache, but that is too big for my liking.

DM