I went to my club range after my shift on Tuesday the 4th and was pleased to see I was the only one there. I usually enjoy the camaraderie of fellow shooters at the range, but my main reason for going was to learn how to use my new shot timer. I would have to ask other shooters to hold up until I was done so their shots wouldn't interfere with mine. I'm sure it wouldn't have been a problem but alone was definitely better.
First, I wanted to make sure the ammo I was using for this exercise functioned OK in my Browning Buckmark. It was about 1/3 of a 1 pint milk type container of some old Remington Yellow Jacket that my Dad had. They functioned perfectly, so that was what I was going to use for my timer work. This was the first time I would be shooting while wearing my new Walker electronic muffs. They worked great for protecting my hearing. But it was weird to hear only the echo of the shot off the woods and hills and not the shot. Throwing .22LR's against steel plates didn't make enough noise for me to hear, but I could see I hit the plates. It will be interesting to ring steel when I move up to larger calibers on another outing.
I had already put in a fresh 9V Eveready Energizer and set the time and date. The clock will run down the battery so I will keep it out when not in use. All the settings and shot data stays in memory, only the clock will need to be reset. The default mode is to simply measure shot strings; from buzzer to first shot, and times between successive shots. I had it set for a random start between 1.5 and 9.0 seconds. I first loaded the gun with 3 rounds, hit the "START" button, and held at the low ready. At the beep (which I heard clearly through my Walker muffs) I raised the gun, acquired the target, and shot all 3 rounds. When I looked at the timer, it said 4 shots with about 10 seconds to the last shot, That's strange, I wonder what it heard to think it was another shot. A couple more tries and I had it figured it out. I had the timer clipped to my belt, and when I pulled it off the clip snapped against the body of the timer. I need to hit a button to stop the string. That was not detailed in the instructions which after reading right after I got the timer, I thought needed greater detail. I then did a few 10 shot strings and stopped the timer after 10 and had good readings. Now it's time to try setting some par times.
Not having any standard drills in mind to try, I made one up. 10 shots on target in less than 15 seconds at 7 yards. Now I was going to have a start and stop beep. Interesting thing I didn't know, the timer continues recording shots and time after the stop beep. What I thought was a stop beep just tells you you're at the par time and missed making time if you still need to shoot. At 7 yards, putting all 10 rounds in the 10 ring and a couple in the bullseye weren't too difficult, but doing it for time was new to me. I again started from the low ready position and was under time each string. What got better were my groups each time I tried it. I was satisfied I could use the timer for training without too much fumbling around and put it away. I then proceeded to shoot the rest of my ammo by smacking the hanging steel plates at 25 yards, as well as some free standing small diameter plates to set up and knock down. The largest of these plates was 6 inches, there were two 4 inch plates and a 3 inch plate. There is a silhouette target with a 2 inch swing-out plate in the center of the chest, and a hanging 2 inch plate. I did this several times effortlessly until I was out of ammo. The Buckmark is an accurate pistol for sure.
The last thing I did was try out my new Sig-Sauer Kilo Rangefinder. It turns out the 25, 50, 75, 100, 150, and 200 yard backstops are all a little short. The 200 yard measured 194.7 yards by laser. No big deal, just interesting. I had the connection up between the range finder and the Sig BDX app on my phone, which shows the readings on the range finder on my phone. The ballistics calculator is not as accurate as the Ballistics Buddy app which is right on with my dope card for my rifle, but also has a lot more parameters to set than the range finder. I will just use it for range and up/down angle, and let the Ballistics Buddy app give me elevation and windage.
