Anyone into Silhouette?

[kdinutah]

This is my silhouette handgun.
22 LR 14" barrel.
3x9 Leupold rifle scope on a custom Ken Light scope mount.

[Ozark75]

I have no idea what silhoutte is. Care to give me a quick run down?

[bearcatter]

That's the steel shapes that you stand up and then knock over. They're different sizes for different calibers, I've seen all sorts of shapes; people outlines like police targets, animals, card suits, etc.

That's a nice TC. Don't know if I've ever seen a scope mount that high.
Most of the .22 silhouette guns I've seen were Ruger Chargers.

[LHB]

Forty years ago IHMSA (International Handgun Metallic Silhouette) was very big at the club I belong to.   They spent the money to put in the 200 meter range, held monthly matches, with good shooter turn out.   Then attendance started to fall off, when people discovered that you couldn't buy a winner out of the box, but had to practice if you wanted to win.   Same thing happened with Combat Shooting, it didn't matter how much you paid for your race gun, if you didn't practice, you couldn't win.

Then the man from Idaho, that started IHSMA passed away, and it was discovered that he had copyrighted the name and other things, and his son was a real jerk about using the name in any form, and our club dropped affiliation, and was running local matches, but the committee decided to make and use their own rules (ever changing) so they could/would win, and the non-members quit coming.

It was interesting to watch a match, I never shot one, but to see the shooters knock down a life size chicken, or peccary, or turkey, or ram was interesting.   Distances were 50, 100, 150 and 200 meters.   They told me that the hardest one to hit was the turkey, due to trying to determine the center of mass.   They would fire at five targets at each range, and a 357 could handle the three closer ranges and smaller targets, but when you got to the rams at 200, it took a perfect hit, high up, to tip a ram.   A good 44 Mag would take down a ram.

People started with guns they had, then started upgrading.   It took a hot 357 to even think about the rams, and they soon learned that a K frame Smith couldn't take a steady diet of 100 or more hot magnum loads every week, but would start to stretch, and if I remember correctly, the Model 29 didn't like a study diet of hot loads   Pythons took the hot 357 loads, and all the Rugers seemed to eat whatever they were fed, except for the 357 Max, which led to frame cutting, but that load was great in a Contender.   At the end, I think most of the shooters were using Rugers, Contenders, and some Dan Wessons, whick took the hot 357s.

For a while, they also shot 22 rimfire on smaller targets at closer range, and the NRA had a program, with smaller targets that went out to 100 yards.

[KEN AR]

I started shooting Silhouettes way back at the start.  Actually started on rifles in Texas as the sport came up from Central America.

converted over to IHMSA soon after they started.  Used a Ruger Super Blackhawk, then a Redhawk and made the switch over to Contenders.  That Ken Light mount was very common back during the peak of IHMSA.

I shot NRA Hunter Silhouette for many years in Austin and Memphis. Yes IHMSA felt the death blow after the founder passed.  It had started to drop off but fell rapidly.

I did enjoy shooting it a lot.  Many of the matches now are still handgun and also allow the Cowboys to bring out lever actions.  My Contenders in 22 Match are still some of the most accurate guns I have ever shot.  I love to go to a range and out shoot high dollar rifles at 100 yards off a bench rest!