Rifles for BPCR Silhouette Competition
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What it takes at 500 meters!

A selection of older lever actions includes, left to right, the Winchester Model 92 .38 WCF, Winchester Model 94 .32-40, Marlin Model 94 .38 WCF, Winchester Model 86 .40-65 WCF and Winchester Model 73
.44 WCF.

Mike Venturino

Back in Rifle No. 104 (March-April 1986), I reported on the inaugural match of a brand new shooting sport being developed by the NRA. It was called Black Powder Cartridge Rifle Silhouette. Basically stated, the new game called for shooting the same course of fire as high-power silhouette. That is, the targets were to be metallic cutouts of chickens, pigs, turkeys and rams placed at 200, 300, 385 and 500 meters, respectively. The major difference, however, was in the rifles used. They had to be single shots (or approved replicas thereof) introduced before 1896, and the calibers chambered in them had to be from the same era loaded only with black powder (or Pyrodex) and cast bullets. Hence, this is probably the most handloader-oriented sport ever devised.

The first ever BPCR Silhouette match was held in September 1985 at the NRA's Whittington Center near Raton, New Mexico. A total of 34 competitors attended. The next September we did the same thing with about 50 shooters. The NRA was then satisfied the game had potential, so for 1987 the first ever official National Championship for the sport was held with 71 attendees.

Also in 1987 the first NRA sanctioned local matches were held in Denver. The second location nationwide to hold sanctioned matches was the Park County Rod & Gun Club of Livingston, Montana. That was in 1988; I know exactly because I was match director.

How the sport has grown! By the mid-1990s the National Championship became so attended that the NRA Whittington Center had to enlarge its silhouette range's firing line from 40 to 64 points. The biggest year so far was 1996 with 347 shooters, the most attended silhouette national championship of any type the NRA has ever hosted. From those two local clubs shooting NRA sanctioned monthly matches in 1988, the sport has grown from coast to coast with dozens of clubs hosting shoots. Montana and California alone have no less than five ranges each holding regular contests.

Looking back over the story forwarded to Rifle after attending the inaugural match, I cannot help but grin. That event was won by a fellow named Ed Middleton of Kansas. His two day score was 32 hits out of 80 possible (40 percent). The 1998 National Champion, Steve Brooks of Montana, hit 91 of 120 targets (75.8 percent), a new national record. Incidentally, Ed Middleton is still active in BPCR Silhouette and a Master Class shooter.

Also in that report I said that the since the 200-meter chickens had to be fired at offhand they were difficult, "almost impossible" to hit. As of this writing, no one has yet scored 10 out of 10, but scores of 7 and 8 are fairly common now. (A young fellow named Brian Shackleford of Oklahoma, who was in grade school when this sport was started, hit 9 of 10 chickens in a 1998 match.) Ten hits in a row on pigs, turkeys and rams are common now.

Something else I smile at when re-reading that first report on this game is the mention that we early shooters had no idea if a black powder powered .45-70 bullet of 400 to 500 grains would topple those 50-pound rams. In fact, to be on the safe side, I took a .45-100 to that first match. We shouldnÕt have worried; the .45-70 was perfectly adequate, and so are .40 calibers with bullets as light as 380 grains.

Back at that 1985 match I did an informal equipment survey, catching 25 of the 34 shooters. This was more complete than it appears because several shooters were sharing rifles. From that survey I learned that 15 of those 25 people were shooting .45-70s (60 percent). No more than two shooters each were using such calibers as the .40-65, .40-70, .40-90, .45-100, and one was even firing an original Remington Rolling Block .44-90.

By far the most popular rifle type was the Model 1874 Sharps (originals and modern domestic and foreign replicas) with 10 users. Remington Rolling Blocks were second with five shooters, and original Trapdoor Springfields were third with four being used. Only two fellows were firing Winchester Model 1885 High Walls.

Another item I find extremely interesting, in looking back at that first match, is that 15 of 25 shooters fired Pyrodex, and most of us firing black powder wiped the barrel with a wet patch after every shot. This was because of the hard fouling left by black powder. At the shooter's meeting after the first day's firing, most attendees voted to open the sport up to duplex loading. That means putting a percentage of smokeless powder under the black powder in order to help keep the barrel clean after every shot. Others were adamantly against this as there was no way to police the amount of smokeless powder being used, and besides the original nineteenth century users of such rifles had no smokeless powder crutch to lean on.

Not only has the hard fouling problem been solved, but in the process, collectively, we BPCR Silhouette shooters have learned just how amazingly accurate such rifles can be when properly handloaded. For example, a rifle delivering more than 2 minutes- of-angle (MOA) accuracy out to 500 meters is not even competitive anymore. Those fellows winning the bigger matches are getting groups more in the one- to 1½-MOA range.

Back in the late 1980s, the one factor that was holding back growth of this sport was the availability of suitable rifles. When the sport began, not one rifle manufacturer was producing anything ideal for this game. Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing of Big Timber, Montana, was closest with their fine quality reproduction of the Model 1874 Sharps. However, this sport had its finer points which necessitated rifles be made expressly for it.

For instance, NRA rules from the very beginning called for rifles to weigh no more than 12 pounds, 2 ounces, including sights. Also there were stringent stock measurements such as width, length and depth of buttplate, buttstock drop and so forth. All these rules were formulated by the NRA's silhouette committee in an effort to keep the sport traditional and to keep it from deteriorating into an arms race like so many other shooting sports have over the years.

There were also factors related to accuracy in the actual construction of the rifle barrels that needed to be addressed. Because of black-powder fouling, rifling grooves need to be deep. We have come to consider .004 inch to a side, or .008 inch total groove diameter, as the norm. Chambers need to be on the tight side. The explosion of black powder in a rifle's chamber will cause the bullets to slug up into any space. Sloppy chambers and/or loose or excessively long throats allow the bullet to become deformed before it even starts down the barrel. Of course, a barrel meant for lead bullet match shooting, especially with black powder, must be smooth. If rough, a barrel not only leads, but the roughness also accumulates fouling much more quickly than a smooth one.

The rifling twist rate is also extremely critical to the BPCR Silhouette shooter. Back in the 1980s Shiloh Rifle Manufacturing produced their .45- and .40-caliber barrels with a one-in-20-inch twist rate just as the original Sharps were built. Original Winchester Model 1885 High Walls in .40-65 WCF used one turn in 28 inches. Competitors quickly learned that longer, heavier bullets held accuracy better out to 500 meters. Therefore, in general, bullets of 500 grains and more have become the preferred weight among .45-caliber shooters, while the .40-caliber fans have settled on bullets of 400 grains and more. Such bullets measure from 1.30 to 1.50 inches in length. This meant barrels had to have tighter twist rates. For .45 caliber, one turn in 18 inches is considered standard now while most .40-caliber barrels have 16-inch twists.

Back in the early days of BPCR Silhouette there was a lot of scrabbling about by competitors to "discover" the ideal cartridge. The majority of shooters were satisfied with .45-70. It had the power needed and produced perfectly suitable accuracy from a good rifle. However, others were not so happy with it. Recoil with 500-plus grain, .45-caliber bullets is fairly heavy, especially from the prone position that 99 percent of BPCR shooters have adopted for their pig, turkey and ram shooting. Others just didn't want to use a cartridge quite so common.

Ron Long, a Denver-based shooter and single-shot riflesmith, pioneered the use of the .40-65 WCF. Back in its original era, the .40-65 was more a short-range express-type round using bullets of 260 grains in factory loads. Ron rifled his barrels with tighter twists and started loading the .40-65 with bullets of 400 grains or more. The fact he won several national championships with his .40-65s didn't hurt the cartridge's popularity.

Others of us liked the idea of being more traditional. I, for one, started using the .40-70 Sharps Straight in 1989. Basically it gave the same ballistics as the .40-65 WCF and proved to be capable of extremely fine accuracy. However, its drawback was in that one had to buy fairly expensive custom brass. Conversely, the .40-65 WCF could be made by simply full-length resizing common .45-70s in a .40-65 die.

Other shooters tried things like .50-90 on the heavy side, down to .38-55 on the light end. Both have been made to work to one degree or the other but have drawbacks. The .50 calibers simply give too much recoil to ever be a widely popular BPCR round, while the .38-55 sometimes has problems toppling those heavy rams. Hits around the edges usually take them off while all too often dead center .38-55 hits simply make them ring.