A decade or so ago I stumbled on an article about a shooting discipline I had never heard about, I printed the article and filed it away.  About a month ago one of my enablers, or support group as we refer to them, called me about a couple of rifles that had come up for sale – a pair of bottle cap Ballards.  I called on the rifle but by the time the seller responded he had already sold them, we had a good conversation about this discipline.  Following this conversation, I did some digging and found my copy of the article.   
In a nutshell, the target is a disc that measures close to 1-5/8” in diameter, non-corrugated carboard with a thickness of nearly .050”.  Thirteen of these are marked by the competitor with a dot, circle, cross-hair, whatever mark they so choose.  Then these discs are taped to a backer and in our case, sent down range to 50 ft.  One shot is fired at each disc and then we allow one disc to be tossed and twelve discs are then measured for total runout, a perfect center will have an indicator runout of .000”.  Sounds easy doesn’t it…   The runout is added all together and the accumulation is your score – lowest has bragging rights.
Now, being somewhat innovative and inspired by a photo, I had to go make device for measuring runout of the disc.  Then something had to be done about producing the cardboard discs, so I got creative and made a punch very similar to a wad punch, only it makes a wad that measures 1.600” diameter.   I had an older Lachmiller reloading press that I used for the process.  The threads on this are 1-1/4” x 18 thread so there was plenty of room for a large stem for the punch.   A tiny bit of humor is involved with this process.  I went on a search for non-corrugated cardboard that measured .040 - .050” thickness, preferably white.  I exhausted most of my resources and then a text came in from one of my students saying he’d found it…  The only thing he said, was he had to go in to a store that degrades the character of one’s manly status so please keep a lid on things… a chain crafts store… I kept it quiet for nearly 15 minutes.
There are a few threads on different forums with a little more info about this discipline’s origin.
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These single shots that we all shoot and hold dear, shot well in the lineup, but believe it or not, a little semi-auto Ruger look-alike has dominated the last two matches.  Some 52 Winchesters and Remington 40X’s are right there running with the Ballards.   There were a few folks that promised to show that would have brought the number of early single shots up and maybe evened the score but weather and life interferes with best laid plans.   I’m doing my best at corrupting these modern rifle shooters, the fella shooting the semi so well, finally expressed an interest in giving my Ugly Ballard a go, he came back a little while later and asked where he could come up with a single shot of that vintage…  hook set!

The Range manager asked if I would do one more indoor match yet this year, there's a chance we'll fit one more in next month... weather is getting better, less and less folks care to be inside...  Rodney expressed an interest in making a casting of the measuring device so maybe another individual or two will go down this path with me and we can compare notes?  It removes the lying about how accurate you shoot, exact center is tough to hold.  There is some local interest shooting these outdoors at 50 and a 100 yards so the game should change even more.

after you see these measuring devices , you know these old boys were serious about shooting. the hubalek out fit was brought to me at the sioux falls  show a month ago. yesterday was the first time i got to shoot it. wow what a shooter. i brought 2 more rifles to shoot one open sights and one offhand, never opened the cases.after about 10 shots to start fowling bore and get the scope dialed in. i was seeing this gun was gonna be a great shooter.  the first ammo i put in it was sk standard plus and it loved it. that's now 2 popes and this hubalek that love this ammo. 
the weather was a little iffy but if you live out here and don't go any where when it's a lilltle iffy or worse you don't do much. had a good time and am looking forward to shooting a lot more.  rodney i want one of the castings for the measuring devises.     tony<><

Similar to what the Germans have been doing for a very long time. Not sure if Biggi still has her measuring device collection.  The German version heavy  cardboard disks are red in color and always shot from the standing position. It is pasted to the center of a ring target. Shooters are scored two ways, closest to center and ring count.  I think they also refer to it as a disk. Maybe has to do with translation.

Absolutely fascinating! What a neat venue.

A few more

These matches look like a lot of fun and shooting offhand seems like it would be a lot of fun.  The target measuring tool you made looks like it works great.  Thanks for sharing.

Amoretti wrote on Mar 6^th, 2022 at 8:29pm:


If my math is correct .1745" is 1 MOA