The highlight of this Top Shot challenge was getting the opportunity to meet legendary marksman Jerry Miculek. Jerry’s superhuman skills are highlighted in this video below, were he fires 8 rounds into a target in one second, 8 rounds into four targets in 1.06 seconds, and then 6 shots, a reload, and 6 more shots in 2.99 seconds! This is with a double action revolver!
Jerry is the perfect instructor for the exhibition shooting challenge that they had prepared for us. The firearms were also top notch, a Smith and Wesson 686 .357 revolver, and a Volquartsen Custom I-Fluted .22lr topped with a Trijicon Accupoint Scope. I was given the privilege of shooting the Volquartsen at cotton swabs at 25 feet. This rifle was definitely up to the task, the only question was my own abilities. Back home I’m used to “weedeating” yaupon weeds and green briars with 22lr pistols and rifles. But, back home it doesn’t matter if I miss! Here I have 3 bullets for 3 Q-tips, I have to make it count. At practice I noticed a change in my point of impact from before we started until the last shot fired. This could be due to Alex and I having to constantly change our zero on the scope since it was different. Alex is a lefty shooting a right handed stock, so we had about 1.5moa adjustments for windage and 1 moa on elevation each time we traded back and forth. My last shot in practice hit almost a full mildot to the right. So I decided to give that holdover to my first cotton swab shot. This resulted in a miss, almost with the exact amount that I was holding over. My second shot I held right at the edge, and I hit the cotton right on the edge. For my final I held as if was zeroed perfectly, and I got a perfect hit – cut it in half with a rewarding cotton “poof”. If I only had trusted my scope adjustments I could have gotten all three, but hitting two was enough to win my challenge against Phil.
Gary hit all three of his bottles shooting the 686 upside down against Jake, who hit none. Alex sent a .22 round through the center of a CD hole whereas Michael shattered all three. Then Mike Hughes successfully destroyed two 3 gallon jugs while blindfolded with the 686 revolver – a feat only he could complete with his amazing muscle memory. Blue team won 3 to 1.
For the elimination round Michael decided to take on Cliff in a hip shooting challenge with .45LC. Cliff broke 5 targets to Michael’s 2 and sent him home. We are now left with 8 marksmen starting episode 8.
Next week we will be challenged with shooting arrows into moving targets by deflecting them off of a steel ramp. I don’t see a hint of practicality of this, but it will be challenging, which is what Top Shot is all about.
