Thread: NZHS Hunter Challenge and Long Range Day - 7/8 Sept; Sparrowhawk

Things I learnt:
fill my pockets up with rocks to act as wind ballast. (See Tentmans comment, I fall under the skinny bugger class)
Wait for a wind gap before trying ~400yd shots with a 223.
Don't over think the wind, small amount of thought then just shoot the bloody animal. It'll either hit or it won't.
It was a good day out and I learnt a few things. Great to catch up with folks and sling some bullshit too.

Massive thanks to organisers and R.Os on the day.

We shot the first 10 yesterday afternoon in the tail end of the rain & finished up the back 10 this morning in the sun. Difficult conditions yesterday and tricky wind this morning. I did alright on the closer targets except a couple of definite shooter errors, but struggled with the switching wind on the 400+ targets today. Pulled out 8 in total which I imagine is around the average. It is a tough course, there are some small targets. Good to meet some people and see others again. Bit of a stitch up with the way the weather turned out but made it work.

Good if people care to declare their scores. We shot 7 stages and I finished with 4 hits (Ben and I couldn't stay the night), so again about average. The weather conditions (and course too for that matter) favored the more powerful calibres I think. For example in our squad nearly everyone got the big cat, which was a target that was a bit more forgiving of wind than many.

I feel it's an excellent course, nothing can replicate real hunting - I'd have attempted to close the range on most targets, which would dramatically improve my hit rate, but some of the animals would have gotten away whilst one was getting through the matagouri filled gullies, so I doubt my overall "bag" would increase much. I'm itching to shoot it again, it's a great leveler for us older blokes - I struggle with PRS due to the degree of athleticism required.

Typical Canterbury springtime weather! NW flow and rain. Some tricky winds this morning, switch left to right and back again at some, and still up to 10mph to complete drop offs.

Finished with 14 from 20, dropping all the offhand shots and a couple of mental issue on the other too.

We often pick our rifle caliber based on the target we are chasing. Certainly worth considering it based on the weather forecast, hence the 284Win for this weekend.


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I hit 3 of 7.

Good to meet a few of you guys in person and an awesome set up. I got 6/10 on day one but it all turned to shit today on the long side with 1/10... pretty stoked with the second round hit on the 700m roo with the 14" grendel today. Will be back

Bloody good fun I thought. Pretty happy with my results all considering I was finishing up loading Thursday at midnight and shooting a 20ish round zero Friday evening after work. Didn't quite manage the 50% I'd hoped to follow up with from Day 1 but ended up with a total score of 9 which I'm happy with.

I was shocked to learn I actually preferred a higher wind than a really gentle wind. I was one of the guys that stuck around to have a wee play on the long range and after shooting a few at 500 odd yards. Managed to get the 700m target in a decent wind and then managed a 1st round hit on 800m and 900m a bit later and a finished my day off with shooting the 1000m target with a second round hit after the firstt went low. Followed up with the exact same hold and made a hit so I cracked 1000yards for the first time ever and did so with a 223 in 9-10mph crosswind. Stoked!

What's behind the target made a huge difference in spotting shots with the 223 and I actually found it much easier to spot misses in the short grass behind the 7-1000m targets than i could tell hits on the steel in the wind. Ah huge thanks to everyone in our squad I felt like I learned a lot this weekend especially on getting a basic understanding of wind.

All in all a great little event

It's always a good day at Sparrow Hawk, my daughters enjoyed plinking all the ammo away in their Creedmoor,
Thanks to Al for organizing the event and Nick and team for hosting it


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Originally Posted by Stocky

Bloody good fun I thought. Pretty happy with my results all considering I was finishing up loading Thursday at midnight and shooting a 20ish round zero Friday evening after work. Didn't quite manage the 50% I'd hoped to follow up with from Day 1 but ended up with a total score of 9 which I'm happy with.

I was shocked to learn I actually preferred a higher wind than a really gentle wind. I was one of the guys that stuck around to have a wee play on the long range and after shooting a few at 500 odd yards. Managed to get the 700m target in a decent wind and then managed a 1st round hit on 800m and 900m a bit later and a finished my day off with shooting the 1000m target with a second round hit after the firstt went low. Followed up with the exact same hold and made a hit so I cracked 1000yards for the first time ever and did so with a 223 in 9-10mph crosswind. Stoked!

What's behind the target made a huge difference in spotting shots with the 223 and I actually found it much easier to spot misses in the short grass behind the 7-1000m targets than i could tell hits on the steel in the wind. Ah huge thanks to everyone in our squad I felt like I learned a lot this weekend especially on getting a basic understanding of wind.

All in all a great little event

Yeah, sometimes those light changeable winds are way worse than a constant 12mph blow!

Remember that the wind doesn't always affect the entire bullet flight, too. This may be due to terrain sheltering some of the bullet flight and also that the felt wind at your location and observed wind at the target location are less than the wind at max Ord.

Think of air movement like water in a river; it's slower near the shore, faster in the middle. It's Eddie's or/and changes velocity near changes in terrain and structure.

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First time to Sparrowhawk, great setup. Mix of target sizes and distances, shooting prone, freehand (which I was hopeless at) sitting, shooting of fence post, logs etc so a really good mixture. Got 7/10 yesterday in the wind and only 4/10 today in the light shifty wind (Go figure) but did manage a first round hit on the 700m Wallaby today which I was pleased with, learnt a few things, need a longer bipod than the old Harris for the steeper uphill shots. Thanks to my squad members for the banter and making it fun, Nick for hosting us and the bbq last night.

I can confirm Stocky got the 223 to 1000m, very well done!

Great to meet a few more members and see all the different equipment, rifles etc

Originally Posted by outdoorlad

First time to Sparrowhawk, great setup. Mix of target sizes and distances, shooting prone, freehand (which I was hopeless at) sitting, shooting of fence post, logs etc so a really good mixture. Got 7/10 yesterday in the wind and only 4/10 today in the light shifty wind (Go figure) but did manage a first round hit on the 700m Wallaby today which I was pleased with, learnt a few things, need a longer bipod than the old Harris for the steeper uphill shots. Thanks to my squad members for the banter and making it fun, Nick for hosting us and the bbq last night.

I can confirm Stocky got the 223 to 1000m, very well done!

Great to meet a few more members and see all the different equipment, rifles etc

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You shot very well

I had signed up for this event but another shoot came up that I wanted to do closer to home.

Sounds like the conditions were, difficult.

Definitely keen to attend if another one is held, hopefully 3rd times the charm with the weather.

Originally Posted by Beetroot

I had signed up for this event but another shoot came up that I wanted to do closer to home.

Sounds like the conditions were, difficult.

Definitely keen to attend if another one is held, hopefully 3rd times the charm with the weather.

I did feel I learnt alot with the weather. I would usually say don't shoot in anything windy but it became apparent that gentle shifting winds were a much bigger issue than more constant high winds.

Apart from the poor guys that couldn't shoot the whole thing that only had a day I didn't feel the weather took much away from the event.

I was hoping to get enough scores and rifles used data to try and convince one of the scientists ((looking at you @gimp) to do a matrix of caliber versus hit rate sort of thing. I felt that everyone had pretty similar ability ( and shared info as well) so it was a pretty level playing field shooting wize. On the Saturday I watched with interest on the cat target, which was the most forgiving target wind call wise, and most of our squad hit it. But it seemed the less powerful cartridges were handicapped a bit with the wind generally.

Got to be careful not to turn this sort of thinking into a pissing match . . . . better if we can discuss it to learn something.

Funny you should say that, I have a stats project I've been working on a bit recently - not data from Sparrowhawk. Full writeup will come at some stage