Well, can you? After all, it's just like a rifle, and we can all shoot sub MOA groups at a thousand yards... offhand... in the rain... with blaster-grade ammo. Or at least, that's what all of the internet commandos lead me to believe. From which I can conclude that my abilities must be severely lacking.
It's been about a month since I set up and ran this course. I had considered not posting, since it's not exactly flattering to my shooting ability. I put my video together (watching shooting at any kind of distance isn't all that entertaining. Be forewarned). But maybe I can learn from all this. If nothing else, maybe you all can be entertained by my lack of shooting ability.
So I had posted some info in the Michigan Subgun Championship thread about this, but here are a few more details. I've always wanted to have a rifle-caliber machine gun. But then I start thinking about it and reality kicks in. I enjoy shooting subgun matches, but there isn't much out there in the way of machine gun competitions. Yes, there are machine gun "shoots", where a bunch of people set up their MGs on a line and turn junk cars and appliances into bullet-riddled scrap. Don't get me wrong, those are fun too. But after a while they feel like just turning ammo into noise and brass.
Competitions seem just a bit more... directed, intentional? I don't know. I am aware of a couple "machine gun" matches. There is the annual belt-fed match in Las Vegas (I've never made it to that one), which also has a class for mag-fed machine guns. And I recall seeing the North TX subgun match will occasionally have a "rifle caliber" class. I keep meaning to ask @chili17 how he sets those up. If it's basically a subgun match utilizing mostly paper targets, with some rifle-grade steel set at a safe distance, but still within subgun range.
But the idea I had was to set up a match using rifle-caliber machine guns at rifle distances. The range where we shoot the MI subgun match has bays out to 200 yards. While not anywhere close to "long range", it's still a pretty good stretch compared to distances we usually shoot subguns at. My idea was to do a small trial run with a handful of shooters, utilizing mostly the same stages we would shoot in the subgun match, with only minor changes required. The entire machine gun "match" would be run as one stage, incorporating bays 2, 1, and 6 of the subgun match, shot in that order.
Targets were all rifle-grade steel at distances from 50 to 200 yards, as well as some paper USPSA targets at about 30 yards. For the sake of safety and firearm control, any shots beyond 50 yards were required to be fired from a supported position (from a bipod, shooting bags, monopod off the mag, prone, etc). I had tables set up at the 100 and 200 yard sections to rest the gun on.
The match was set up with something like 44 shots required if you had no misses and fired no extra shots. Steel required one hit and paper required two. I figured if someone wanted to run a 100-round mag and do no reloads, that was great. Just to ensure I had enough ammo, I had planned to start with a 30-round mag at the first bay, then load to a D-60 as I moved to the second bay and finish out with that mag. I had a plan, it was all set in my head... and then the buzzer went off.
The first bay had four 6" plates at 50 yards plus three silhouettes and a 12" plate at 100 yards. I easily tagged the four small plates with four shots. And then it went downhill from there. I fired the rest of the mag at the big targets at 100 yards. I was shooting from a rest, with the gun set up exactly as I'd shot it just earlier in the week. And I was missing badly. I finally figured out my hold just as I ran out of ammo. Reloaded to the D-60 and hit the final target before moving to the paper in the middle bay. These were ok. Mostly. And then I moved to the final shooting position, which had steel at 50, 100, and 200 yards.
Now the 50 yard steel that I had nailed so easily on the first bay started to elude me. Was it because I had been moving and my heart rate was up (maybe some). Thinking back, was it because I was at an awkward position on the table with gun canted, moving my POI? Likely. But none of that crossed my mind at the time. I finally held to the right, well off the targets, and started getting hits... and promptly ran out of ammo again. I loaded to a too-long 60-round Schmeisser mag to finish things off, eventually.
In the end, I expended 143 rounds on my "simple" 44-round course. It took me 3-1/2 minutes to run through, and I had three paper targets that were not neutralized (only one hit each). So yeah, I did pretty poorly, if I do say so myself.
But I was in good company. The first place shooter ran a belt-fed HK-23 with a 200-round belt. He only had something like 30 rounds remaining at the end of his run. I could blame the open bolt operation of my gun, but there were a number of closed-bolt guns that performed about as well.
Here's the video, if you're interested.
It's been about a month since I set up and ran this course. I had considered not posting, since it's not exactly flattering to my shooting ability. I put my video together (watching shooting at any kind of distance isn't all that entertaining. Be forewarned). But maybe I can learn from all this. If nothing else, maybe you all can be entertained by my lack of shooting ability.
So I had posted some info in the Michigan Subgun Championship thread about this, but here are a few more details. I've always wanted to have a rifle-caliber machine gun. But then I start thinking about it and reality kicks in. I enjoy shooting subgun matches, but there isn't much out there in the way of machine gun competitions. Yes, there are machine gun "shoots", where a bunch of people set up their MGs on a line and turn junk cars and appliances into bullet-riddled scrap. Don't get me wrong, those are fun too. But after a while they feel like just turning ammo into noise and brass.
Competitions seem just a bit more... directed, intentional? I don't know. I am aware of a couple "machine gun" matches. There is the annual belt-fed match in Las Vegas (I've never made it to that one), which also has a class for mag-fed machine guns. And I recall seeing the North TX subgun match will occasionally have a "rifle caliber" class. I keep meaning to ask @chili17 how he sets those up. If it's basically a subgun match utilizing mostly paper targets, with some rifle-grade steel set at a safe distance, but still within subgun range.
But the idea I had was to set up a match using rifle-caliber machine guns at rifle distances. The range where we shoot the MI subgun match has bays out to 200 yards. While not anywhere close to "long range", it's still a pretty good stretch compared to distances we usually shoot subguns at. My idea was to do a small trial run with a handful of shooters, utilizing mostly the same stages we would shoot in the subgun match, with only minor changes required. The entire machine gun "match" would be run as one stage, incorporating bays 2, 1, and 6 of the subgun match, shot in that order.
Targets were all rifle-grade steel at distances from 50 to 200 yards, as well as some paper USPSA targets at about 30 yards. For the sake of safety and firearm control, any shots beyond 50 yards were required to be fired from a supported position (from a bipod, shooting bags, monopod off the mag, prone, etc). I had tables set up at the 100 and 200 yard sections to rest the gun on.
The match was set up with something like 44 shots required if you had no misses and fired no extra shots. Steel required one hit and paper required two. I figured if someone wanted to run a 100-round mag and do no reloads, that was great. Just to ensure I had enough ammo, I had planned to start with a 30-round mag at the first bay, then load to a D-60 as I moved to the second bay and finish out with that mag. I had a plan, it was all set in my head... and then the buzzer went off.
The first bay had four 6" plates at 50 yards plus three silhouettes and a 12" plate at 100 yards. I easily tagged the four small plates with four shots. And then it went downhill from there. I fired the rest of the mag at the big targets at 100 yards. I was shooting from a rest, with the gun set up exactly as I'd shot it just earlier in the week. And I was missing badly. I finally figured out my hold just as I ran out of ammo. Reloaded to the D-60 and hit the final target before moving to the paper in the middle bay. These were ok. Mostly. And then I moved to the final shooting position, which had steel at 50, 100, and 200 yards.
Now the 50 yard steel that I had nailed so easily on the first bay started to elude me. Was it because I had been moving and my heart rate was up (maybe some). Thinking back, was it because I was at an awkward position on the table with gun canted, moving my POI? Likely. But none of that crossed my mind at the time. I finally held to the right, well off the targets, and started getting hits... and promptly ran out of ammo again. I loaded to a too-long 60-round Schmeisser mag to finish things off, eventually.
In the end, I expended 143 rounds on my "simple" 44-round course. It took me 3-1/2 minutes to run through, and I had three paper targets that were not neutralized (only one hit each). So yeah, I did pretty poorly, if I do say so myself.
But I was in good company. The first place shooter ran a belt-fed HK-23 with a 200-round belt. He only had something like 30 rounds remaining at the end of his run. I could blame the open bolt operation of my gun, but there were a number of closed-bolt guns that performed about as well.
Here's the video, if you're interested.
