Switzerland is littered with rifle and pistol shooting ranges. After compulsory military service was introduced (in 1848), it also became compulsory to practice outside of service in 1907, once a year. This was organised by shooting societies (clubs).
The 300 meters distance for rifles was imposed as early as 1874 during the Federal shooting competition, and literally every town had a shooting range.
This is what the range looks like
First challenge is to make sure you’re aiming at your target, not the neighbour’s one.
However you are only allowed to shoot Swiss ordnance rifles, StGw 57 & 90, and the older straight pull rifles and carbines. There is also a Match bolt rifle category shooting the 7.5 Swiss cartridge. Open sights only.
But every now and then there is an open rifle day, where virtually all rifles are allowed, up to .50 BMG (this one with a silencer), including scoped ones. It’s an open day (well morning really), no competition, just leisure, fun, and possibly sighting in.
I brought three rifles, Colt Delta Hbar, Norinco M14 in an archangel chassis, and my Chinese Dragunov
My buddy brought a scoped StGw 57 and a scoped K31
The targets setup is a mix of precision targets and metallic gongs
Here’s my buddy helping with sighting in the Colt
and the M14
He was not confortable with the Dragunov
The M14 was fairly inconsistent, cheap rifle, cheap chassis, but I’ll still work on accurizing it
The Dragunov performed quite well, however it’s scope is more a combat scope than a precision one, good for the gongs, for the precision target not so much.
The Colt really shone. After sighting it it, it was very accurate and consistent. The ten ring is 10 cm, a tad under four inches.
Now I need to get a better trigger, Geissele probably, as the stock trigger pull is 3 kg (6 lbs 10 oz).
I also had a nasty kaboom with .308 Tula ammo, I had six rounds in the bottom of a box, the first one blew up, and the mag plate acted as a fuse. Unpleasant but I was unhurt, so still a great morning of fun with the last 45 minutes spent hitting gongs.
Bookmarks