Yesterday was the M1 Garand match at Kimberton Fish & Game Association. Scorewise, not a good day at all. The first five sighter rounds were grouped right around the center of the black. For the next ten rounds of prone slowfire, I did not use my spotting scope to check each hit. After all, the sighters showed that I was right on target. Wrong! When the slowfire stage was complete, we went downrange to score. As I saw through my scope, the sighter target on the left had five bullet holes orbiting the "X" ring! The slowfire target on the right had six shots in the black and four stringing vertically down to the bottom of the target. I could not believe that I was pulling those last shots so badly. After scoring, we got ready for the rapidfire stage. Ten rounds for record in eighty seconds. I loaded the first two rounds in the rifle and stood waiting. The command to commence firing was given. I dropped to the prone and squeezed off both shots. Quickly I glaced through the spotting scope and saw two bullet holes; one on top of the other, down in the "6" ring! I reloaded with a full clip of eight rounds and fired those remaining rounds with about five seconds to spare. Another look through the scope showed all ten bullet holes clustered at the bottom of the target. Something was really wrong. Standing up, I got ready for the last stage, slowfire standing offhand. Ten rounds in ten minutes. When cleared to fire, my first shot let off smoothly with the target absolutely still in my sights. Looking through the scope, I could see a bullet hole in the bottom of the "6" ring! Something must be wrong with the rifle. Bringing it back up to my shoulder I noticed that I had to lower my head more than normal to see through the rear sight aperature. The aperature was bottomed out in the sight base! Cranking the elevation knob would not raise it as the set screw had backed out of the knob. Obviously, with the set screw loosened, the recoil of the rifle cause the rear sight aperature to walk down. I fished a dime out of my pocket and tightened the set screw. Turning the elevation knob forward, I verified that the sight was bottomed out. Then I turned the knob back raising the sight thirteen clicks. Then next shot scored a ten! All eight of the remaining rounds scored in the black! While the match total was a dismal 197-0X out of a possible 300-30X, I was happy with myself in that I had diagnosed the problem and fired the remaining rounds, scoring well. I will disassemble the rear sight before the next match and replace any worn parts. I will be ready for next time.
DECCDW, PALTCF
NRA, CMP, DLEMA
11B, 45B, 45K, 45L, 45Z, 95B