Legends of Silhouette #8 Steve Martens 40x40x500 iron sights

[therose7]

Legends of Silhouette #8 Steve Martens
by the Old Guy

There are a fair number of quite good shooters in IHMSA, fellows who have won lots of matches including the old Internationals and current World Championships who are not Legends of Silhouette. In order to qualify as a Legend of Silhouette it is necessary to do something genuinely outstanding, spectacular. For a number of years IHMSA past president Steve Martens fell into the former category, but on June 2, 2019 at the Oklahoma City Gun Club he finally achieved the spectacular. He shot the first 40x40 on the 500 meter course of fire with an iron sighted handgun.

Why do I say this is spectacular? Why do I believe this is second only to the 40x40 in iron sights standing, either small bore or big bore. The reason is simple. A relatively small group of handgun silhouette shooters has been shooting the 500 meter course of fire at least as far back as 1983, and maybe even before that. Almost all the really good freestyle shooters had tried, some of them a lot of times at the time in their careers when they were at their best, and none of them was able to do it.

This includes shooters like John Dunn who holds the 157x160 big bore aggregate record, Scott Mann who shot more 40x40s in half size than anyone else (He now has over 140 perfect scores on half size.), Richard Mishler who shot 319x320 on the NRA four gun freestyle aggregate and was the first shooter to reach 50 40x40s in iron sights half size, and all of the other shooters who have shot the 500 meter Grand Slam iron sights (ten in a row of each animal on different occasions).

The 40x40 in iron sights on the 500 meter course of fire increasingly appeared to be like accelerating a particle to the speed of light. The closer you got the particle to lights speed, the greater its mass, and theoretically at light speed, its mass would become infinite. Conditions had to be near perfection not just for one or two banks but for eight banks. Even on some of the better ranges where wind would be relatively gentle and consistent, all it would take was one mild puff of wind around 385 meters from the firing line, a puff of wind it would be impossible to detect from wind flags, and you would lose one or two targets no matter how perfectly you were holding. As for achieving this at a range with substantial, conflicting wind currents, that was out of the question.

Steve started shooting IHMSA silhouette in 1995 after shooting small bore rifle silhouette. In 1998 he attended his first Internationals with Ken LaCroix in Oakridge and shot an 80x80 in Production. In 2004 he shot 80x80s in scoped and iron sights half size and first won the Iron Man in 2001. He is one of only two shooters whose name is on the Gold Gun three times for winning small bore Unlimited at the Internationals. Obviously he has had an illustrious career up to now.

He first began shooting the 500 meter course of fire around 2005, and he consistently shot 30+ scores in iron sights. Prior to the 40x40, he had high scores of 36x40 and 37x40, and he had achieved the Grand Slam and the scoped 40x40, too.

More recently he had begun experimenting with other options than Creedmore in the freestyle events, most notably the flop position devised by Jim Fields. This is limited to ranges that are flat or downhill, but the Oklahoma City range is ideal for it. Being a tinkerer, Steve decided the ideal cartridge for this is the 6.5 TKS, and he decided the ideal sight system was some form of double aperture tube sight, but he had difficulty getting the rings to align so he built himself a tube with a Merit iris at the breach end. Since the flop position enabled him to get fairly close to the iris, he was able to use a very small aperture at the muzzle end. This meant he could center the target in the front ring more precisely and simultaneously insure that the rear ring formed by the aperture was concentric with the front aperture.

He had not load tested for accuracy in this pistol. He just referred to the large data base put on line by Jim Harris of the Los Angeles Silhouette Club, and found several loads that were suitable for the different targets. The load for chickens was 30.1gr. N-133 for the 107 gr. Sierra MatchKing. He experimented with N-140 and 139 gr. Lapua bullets and 142 gr. Sierra MatchKings for pigs, turkeys, and rams.

He came from his home in Minnesota to the Oklahoma City Gun Club to experiment on June 2. He was not serious about attempting to shoot the 40x40 at that time. He just planned to check out sight settings and refine the system as it might be necessary. After sighting in he cleaned the chickens and pigs, but he still did not take this to be serious. He hit the first turkey high on the back, came down a bit, and cleaned the next four turkeys. Then to make matters worse, after shooting and hitting the first five turkeys, the auto reset bar behind his bank of turkeys, bank 4, would not go down, so he had to move to bank 2. This was nerve wracking, just what you do not need when you are clean after the chickens, pigs, and first five turkeys, but he cleaned the rest of the turkeys. At this point the whole thing became very serious.

He had had only three rounds for ram sighters, and his first shot had been four feet below the sighter target. At that point he had come up half a turn on the Unertl knob and the second sighter was a bit over the back. He came down slightly and managed to hit the third sighter, but he did not have enough ammunition to double check that hit, so when he came to the first ram for record still clean, the pressure was on for a perfect hold hoping for a hit from which he could adjust his sight toward the center.

He was able to hit the #1 ram and adjust toward the center and clean the first bank. The pressure on the second bank was what you might expect, enough to make almost anyone tremble. He got decent hits on #1, #2, and #3. By #4 his heart rate had risen substantially which is part of why this is such a difficult record to achieve. He hit #4 low, and he thought that if he missed #5, he would have wasted a once in a lifetime opportunity. His vision of the sights got fuzzy on #5, and he stopped, took a deep breath, and started again. After he shot the shot and saw the ram start to go down, he yelled really loud. Who would not be ecstatic at such a point?

One thing which added to the difficulty of this achievement is that he shot this simultaneous with a 200 meter match so that the time for each bank was only two minutes, not the usual 500 meter two and a half minutes.

At this point there is one more thing to note. Steve’s spotter for this spectacular accomplishment was Tim Ablay, a local Oklahoma City fellow who obviously was able to see and call the hits accurately. Congratulations also to Tim for a job well done.

[260 Striker]

Absolutely amazing, fantastic and any other superlative I can think of.
I'm sure Steve bought Tim a great big dinner after that entry.
Way to go Steve, and Tim!!!!!!!!!
I can't even see to 500 meters.

[aggshooter]

Undeniably, great shooting, and very much under appreciated by those who have never tried this event.

[OkieShooter]

Steve Martens...Great job bud!

Lynn Shultz...Congrats to you as well for your 47! I too was AF and put in a combined 47.
Tim Ablay