American Shooting Journal – August 2019

46 American Shooting Journal // August 2019

BLACK POWDER

to new shirts. “Bear” from Buffalo

Hats was there again, too, and he was

usually doing very good business.

Also, it was while at Quigley that C.

Sharps Arms sold the very first of their

copies of the Hopkins & Allen .22. That

gun went to Rob Dickerson, whom I

have known for about 40 years. Rob

selected a .22 Magnum as his “little”

.22, but Allen and I both ordered ours

in .22 Long Rifle. Our rifles will be

finished, maybe, in a few weeks.

Another business on Traders’ Row

was Roberson Cartridge Company

and Jeff Roberson made sure we were

invited for breakfast at their “camp.”

Roberson was offering free breakfast

burritos and, take it from me, those

were mighty good.

One trader on the row who I

was looking forward to seeing was

John Schmitz from Young’s Point

Manufacturing, the maker of hanging

AR400 steel targets. John makes

very good reduced-size “copies” of

the targets at Quigley so that we

can try to keep in practice at home.

I had ordered a 16-inch octagon and

John had it ready for me. The 16-inch

target posted at 200 yards is in ratio

with the 48-inch target at Quigley,

which is at 600 yards; they’re

excellent for practice.

THE BUFFALO RIFLE MATCH at Quigley,

the largest gathering of buffalo rifle

shooters in the world and inspired

by the sharpshooter played by Tom

Selleck in Quigley Down Under, is

very well organized. It has to be in

order to get all of the 530 registered

shooters through the course on time.

The shooting pace is on a rather quick

tempo. When your name is called,

you shoot. Then get ready to shoot

again because the shooting is done

in squads of six and it does go rather

fast. While your squad is shooting,

another squad is getting ready.

A good way to prepare for the

match is to simply practice your

shooting on the Quigley firing line

before the match gets started. The

firing line is open to all registered

shooters before the match starts. I

had my heavy .44-77 from C. Sharps

Arms with me and at least 190 rounds

of ammunition, loaded with 415-grain

bullets from a Brooks mould over 72

grains of Olde Eynsford 1½ F. The

match itself requires 48 rounds of

ammo, so I did have plenty of extras.

During the time available for sighting

in or practice, I fired 49 rounds. That

was while I made notes for my sight

settings because I had never fired this

particular rifle at some of those long

distances before.

One real highlight for me was

camping and shooting with Scott

Sibley, the well known maker of

powder horns. There were six of us

with our tents in a small area, right

in the middle of the trailers and

motorhomes, and we had some good

doin’s during the evenings. Scott

treated us all to antelope burgers one

evening. I made sure all six of us were

in the same shooting group and when

we divided into shooting squads,

Scott was the shooter just to my left.

Scott and I did most of our

practicing on Friday, just one day

before the match actually got started.

One rule about Quigley must be

mentioned: shooters are to use just

one rifle (with one barrel if the rifle’s

barrel is changeable) for the entire

match. That rule is stipulated because

Black powder cartridge enthusiasts

gather during a shooters’ meeting.

Rob

Dickerson

with his

Hopkins &

Allen from

C.S.A.