First Speed-Steel

Guy Miner

Master Loader
Apr 6, 2006
17,453
4,514
Wow - a couple of veteran shooters brought this cool sport to our club, and we had our first Speed Steel shoot today. What a hoot!

It's fun, challenging, and did I say fun?

We had about 30 shooters, some with various semi-autos, a revolver shooter, and a couple of folks with pistol-caliber carbines. So cool. Lots of smiles! That the day was sunny and warm was welcome. I shot my 45 1911 Kimber. I made use of six magazines. Started the day with them all loaded and went through the danged things every run. I ended up going through 150+ rounds of ammo, gave 10 rounds to another shooter who had run dry too.

Nicest bunch of folks you could hope for. Older, young, men, women, different races. Everyone just enjoying a fun day at the range, slinging pistol ammo downrange!

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This sport is a new thing for our club, and I am glad to see it here! I think the monthly matches are going to be very popular.

Regards, Guy
 
Good luck with it.
The club I belong to introduced speed steel 10 years ago and since then we have had several injuries from flying shrapnel. It seems there is a power factor that they claim they have to shoot hot loads which leads to damaged club equipment and personal injury. We had a female range safety officer who was running a match hit by shrapnel that required several stitches in her face just below her eye. And yes she was wearing safety glasses but I honestly don't believe it would have saved her eye if it had struck her any higher since the angle was coming up and would have went under the eye protection. They all laughed about it and said that's the chance you take when shooting speed steel.
When they shoot I don't go near that area of the range since I was sprayed with shrapnel when standing in what they called the safety area.
2/3 of the club now shoots it and there is no way to control it since they have the majority rule.
I'm not against shooting it or knocking it, just not my cup of tea and wanted you to know there are pit falls to the sport.
 
Ya, I did shoot a lot of steel during my law enforcement career. Occasionally had some shrapnel come back towards us, not often.

Not sure how these AR-500 steel targets can be damaged by "normal" handgun cartridges. I was putting away the targets after the match, and even after getting pounded by 20 or 30 of us all morning, there wasn't an indent to be seen. Those danged targets are hard!

So, lots of steel shooting in my background, but never an "official" setup until today. It was an awful lot of fun and I'd recommend it to anyone!

I have several friends who are confined to wheelchairs, and noted that they could easily compete in this sport if desired, since all shooting is done from a static position, no running around the range.

Regards, Guy
 
Hmmm... Got the match results via e-mail this morning.

Looks like I finished 18th out of 29 shooters.

But 3rd out of 10 in my division (center fire pistol, iron sights)

I can do better! :)
 
I shoot on a friend's property where we have set up a good number of AR 500 steel targets. We've had no problems with the dueling tree or the swinging steel plate but I have found that the six disc tray is responsible for sending shrapnel back at us. My buddy actually had to pull a good size piece of bullet out of his ankle. It appears we solved the problem of splash back by shooting at the tray at a slight angle. It doesn't change the knockdown force of the bullet but the splatter goes off to the right in our case.
 
That looks like a hoot! Our club cant find anyone willing to keep the three gun league going. People to busy to volunteer.... how do you coordinate that activity? Again looks like fun! CL
 
A number of years back while we were doing an IDPA night at the local club, a bunch of us stayed afterwards to shoot some steel targets. While we were shooting at the one target with the plates that swing back and forth from side to side on a post when hit, at 15 yards, I took a 45 slug in the chest from another shooter further down the line to my right. (There were quite a few of us shooting at one time) It resulted in a good scratch that bled a little, but left a good sized bruise on my chest just right of the middle of my sternum. The bullet was deformed from hitting the plate, and it was the sharps edges that caused the scratch.
As a result, we shortened the shooting line so that there would only up to two shooters at that station, so as to reduce the angle of bullet deflections from shooting at the plates from an angle. No one else suffered from being hit by deflected shrapnel that summer at that station.
Glad that I was not injured further, but was definitely an eye opener!
 
cloverleaf":3uajixat said:
That looks like a hoot! Our club cant find anyone willing to keep the three gun league going. People to busy to volunteer.... how do you coordinate that activity? Again looks like fun! CL

Our club has many different activities - and we rely on volunteers to get them going & keep them going. Two gentlemen were enthusiastic about shooting steel at a nearby club, realized that our club already had a lot of steel targets and decided to bring the activity to ours. They brought it up at a board meeting and the idea was enthusiastically supported.

I'll probably end up helping coordinate it at some point. All I did the other day was set up and take down targets. And shoot! :) We will need a couple more folks to get involved in running this, because it can't be just on the two guys who got it started. Every one of our "disciplines" at the club has a little core of volunteers who help make that stuff happen. High Power, Trap, Cowboy Action, Archery, etc...

I'm going to have to move some of my handgun classes, as this activity is going to be the third Sunday of every month, and there's a conflict. I can do that.

Guy
 
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