NASSA USA South Central Region – The 48th Annual Louisiana State HP Silhouette Championship at Zwolle, LA concluded on October 7th-8th, 2023. This famous match, simply know as “Zwolle” to those that regularly attend, is the longest continuous running Silhouette match in the USA.
Match Director Dustin Flint included a special treat on the Friday practice day by holding the first inaugural NASSA-Sanctioned 40-shot Short-Course Highpower Silhouette Match. Participants (left to right) were Woody Walk, Ronnie Page, Jerry Tureau, Chris Cawthorne, Garin Hatch, Dustin Flint, Mario Herrera and Allen Corneau.
What is Short-Course HP Silhouette?
The concept behind Short-Course HP Silhouette was first developed by Dustin Flint and Jerry Tureau at The Fusilier Complex out of Arnaudville, LA.. It did not take long for the NASSA Implementation Team to recognize the potential of this new discipline.
Short-Course HP Silhouette entails shooting full-scale chickens and half-scale turkeys at 200 meters (or yards), as well as full-scale pigs and half-scale rams at 300 meters (or yards). Shooting 1/2 scale animals at shorter distances may be nothing new for some clubs across Canada, Mexico and the USA, but the intent in the NASSA USA South Central Regions is to turn this into a formal NASSA-Sanctioned Silhouette discipline exported to other NASSA Regions.
Zwolle 200-meter banks with full-scale HP chickens on the left and half-scale HP turkeys on the right. Once again turkeys are the toughest animal!
Zwolle 300-meter banks with full-scale HP pigs on the left and half-scale rams on the right. Not much vertical MOA width on that ram compared to the pig!
Why Short-Course HP Silhouette?
Short-Course HP Silhouette is an element of one of the (5) 2024-2025 USA South Central Regional Initiatives (listed below) to grow our Silhouette sport.
- Develop a Highpower Sihouette Championship & Local Match Circuit across the USA South Central Region. This shall be achieved by the solicitation of local clubs willing to expand HP Silhouette range capacity, creating new HP Silhouette championship and club Matches, coordination of calendars for such matches, and promoting various new HP disciplines such as Half-Course HP Silhouette.
The benefits of this new Short-Course High Power Silhouette to increase shooter participation are:
- Many existing ranges that have a 300 yard range can accommodate this discipline, thus dramatically increasing the possibilities of new ranges opening up.
- Entry level rifles at a lower cost can compete out to 300 meters.
- Opens up the use of tactical rifles such as AR-15s to attract new shooters to our sport. This is a cheap way to get into this sport and reverses one the the major impediments to participate.
- If A-500 steel targets are used, calibers such as .223 could be used to reduce reloading costs and increase the number of shooters that could participate.
To support both Short-Course HP Silhouette as well as other NASSA High Power Silhouette initiatives, the NASSA USA South Central Region has also initiated plans to build HP Silhouette Rifle range capacity. The Fusilier Complex out of Arnaudville, LA, guided by Dustin Flint, is in the process of building a new HP Silhouette Range to add a Championship Match as well as club matches to the area. The NASSA Implementation Team is also actively involved with Bayou Rifles Inc. (Houston,TX) as well as the Golden Triangle Gun Club (Beaumont, TX) to propose plans to build Highpower Silhouette ranges at both clubs. We will keep you posted as we move forward with those plans.
So What did Our Shooters Think About Short-Course HP Silhouette?
It was unanimous among all eight shooters who participated that half-scale turkeys and rams looked small and intimidating but perhaps no more than shooting them at 385 and 500 meters respectively. More importantly, everyone enjoyed the new discipline and the match results were very interesting! Allen Corneau and Garin Hatch (shown to the left), both AA class shooters, tied for match winner with a score of 28/40. Allen won the shoot-off to win this first inaugural Short-Course HP Silhouette Match. Congratulations Allen!
Should you have any other questions about Short-Course Highpower Silhouette or wish to give it a try at your club, email me at chris@nassasilhouette.org.
