Took the 6.5 RAP build to make sure it was zeroed properly @750. I loaded about 10 extra rounds for the Pokemon rifle and took it to see if it was still on at 100/1000 with only a Base Dial setting. I took the 600yd gas gun(6ARC) as a backup, sinch the range was a good 2 hour drive. I took no pistols today which was a first, my focus was on Rifles today.
Shooting the 6.5 first, I confirmed zero @ 100 on the sighter plate and then moved to the 750 plate. The range’s TV target monitors were out on the 750 target so I was depending on my OLD spotting scope and my CHEAP SWFA 20fixed so spot shots. It was not mesmerizing. At 750 I seemed to be on at the lg sighing plate, but it was so speckled I couldn’t tell. I tried a few shots at the other circle targets but couldn’t confirm hits. I went back to the 600 yd berm and well those targets were cheeta printed as well. I tried da couple of shots with a hold under for 600. I still couldn’t tell as far as hits. This sport has constantly honed one of my life skills – patience. I simply waited for the next cold range and went and painted targets.
Rugers Rule!
With a fresh batch of white on steel, I decided to start at 600 and confirm hits with my hold under there before moving to the 750 berm. I saw my hits on the sighting plate. A little high and right. I was working with a sub optimal rear bag setup but was able to start dinging targets at 600. I did dial in 1MOA of wind and noted how spongy the dials were on this cheap scope. I thing to myself “just another reason to hold as opposed to dial”. Having dialed all this in just one time previous, I was referring to my Dope card. I was able to confirm the elevation for these Barnes 140MBs @600yds to be -6MOA. With the new wind “dialed” in and holding confirmed elevation, I started dinging the round swingers at 600. The first one was large 24” followed by smaller plates with a 4” and finally a 2” circle on the right of the swinger’s rack. The last small 2” circle reminded me of an “almost done” dum-dum hanging upside down. I tried to hit that sucker a couple of times but I was only able to hit the 4” circle today (at 600 yds) – good enough for my redneck engineered pea shooter and standard practice ammo.
After cleaning all but the smallest circle on 600 I moved back up to 750. Sighing plate was still GTG so I held straight crosshairs (with no dialing), and nailed the center plate. From there I chose a full size silhouette steel target and started letting them fly. The target had an orange waterline painted across it. I held generally center and was able to score hits. Then I started pinpointing shots on the waterline. With a few very close. I started trying for headshots. I didn’t score any hits there but got the neck shots and a couple that would have pierced an ear.
With the last 5 or 6 rounds I then set my sights on the 1000 berm. Again, there is no dialing just hold. I was holding 10MOA and saw my rounds hit the dirt. I held another 2MOA and was able to hit the lg sighter plate to confirm that yardage/hold. Then I ran out of practice ammo. With another box of 40 handloaded rounds ready to go, I thought to myself I will just save these and go get the big rifle now.
So the 300PRC Pokemon rifle with the Iveytron setup entered the bench. I had 3 rounds left over from last times range visit. I had made another 10 rounds to shoot today specifically. My goal was get the 1250 plate today. Didn’t happen.
I got setup on the bench and set the Ivey base to 0 and took a shot at the 100yd sighing plate. Dead center with authority. Unlocked the Ivey Base and set it to 25MOA and took a shot at 1k. no call. Took a shot at the 24” plate and missed it to the low and right. I was about to load up my mag again and dial wind and hold another 2MOA but alas I didn’t seat my bullets short enough so they were jamming the lands and would not load. I sighed in disbelief as the 1250 plate laughed in my face. I thought about breaking out the gas gun (that I brought for backup fun) but just decided to I packed my shit and went home for another day.
On the way home I thought about the wind and the wins. The win was that through patience I was able to get on at 600/750 with only 4 clicks of wind. Patience kept me from second guessing myself and turning knobs in hopes of hits. Having recorded dope cards and copious notes also did not hurt. Knowing that rifle is zeroed at 750 and knowing the 600 hold made me feel good about the trip overall.
Well, that was humbling… many reasons to underperform and so I did that quite well.
Uhhhhhhh – I could have done better on that one for sure but it sure was freaking fun!
The biggest weakness that could have been avoided was practice on barricades and moving positions, so I will be working on that for sure. This pic sums it up basically.
Poverty pony brings up the rear. Still better than riding the couch. Custom bags are now on the build list. I wanted to run a match and see some other bags in use to decide which way to go. I think I have a plan.
The guys at AP were top notch and the facility is amazing LR gem of the state. It’s located in Carbon Hill Alabama.
I found this on top of the hill. Nice keepsake, Should have taken a pic with brass in hand.
I grew up in the woods not far away so it was great to travel the country roads from my childhood once again. New phone and funky google maps got me lost only to come across the very spot we used to stop and get boiled peanuts on the way to Grandma’s house. I still remember the rickety old “Nut Shak” on the side of the highway and how they cooked up the good stuff (peanuts and pork rinds) in giant feeding buckets over open coals and dipping your “hot” bag of peanuts right in front of you for a couple of actual greenbacks. I used to trick my dad driving when he asked for more peanuts I’d just give him the hulls of mine in a new bag and pass them to the front seat and he’d get mad and swerve and say “No, I paid for them peanuts I want some more”.
I met some great folks and had a great time, despite my poor performance. I think my squad members were more concerned with my score than I was. After a spring break full of computer ticket work, I was just glad to get out in the sun and run some.
Stage 8 – Thank goodness they gave us target size and distances!
Just like the layers, and Pharmaceutical companies… Disclaimers First:
Overweight buffer – Gun was ejecting brass, but not picking up the rounds in the mag, so I had to run my AR like a bolt gun on top of everything else. I believe this was mainly due to me changing the buffer spring and buffer recently. When confirming zero earlier in the week during a very quick range trip, I tried adjusting the SA gas block, but still no dice. So I think it is a buffer thing.
Under Bagged – I watched people stream to the store to buy $$$ bags before the shoot. They do work well, but I’m weird and like to run my own, so I just took the old Jean bag with sand, and a Crown Royal bag with plastic BBs. I am looking into making my own waxed cotton bags in the near future, thus the snub of the high dollar bags (I’m pretty sure they sold out anyway). I felt the most comfortable shooting on the Prone stage where I used my backpack as a support bag and the sandbag as a tailbag.
No Bipod – one shooter just plainly said he couldn’t believe I was running with no bi-pod. I told him I usually just shoot of bags (on the bench) so that’s mostly why.
Skills – I really need to practice barricade positions and changes under the clock. There were many times I thought to myself (duh, why didn’t I just do it like that, it is much more stable). I have a spot to practice that stuff but its so far away I normally spend my time on the long range bench targets working on load development or groups.
MOA not Mils – This was a constant topic of humor. As a beginner focused match, the other guys were very helpful and willing to help the turd pull up the back of the pack with wind calls and holds, but they were all in MILS not MOA! I see targets in inches, and that’s how my brain works, so most of that data was ignored while shooting, but after the stage I would figure if I was about right or not. Besides, with everyone running different calibers how much do you want to depend on them anyway. I still see this as a plus, or at least a double edged topic. For if you rely on others wind holds how good can you really become. There was a stage where I didn’t figure ANY wind at 700 yards and yeah that was a big miss. After that I just generally guesstimated wind holds based on my previous experience with that rifle and round.
Rucking too much stuff – I took Full backpack with typical range repair toolbag, ammo, clothes, cliffbars. A small tripod stool, shot up and repaired (mostly functioning) BOG deathgrip tripod, Thrift Store Special Sandbag, water, and rain jacket, and rifle. It was a lot of stuff to huck around. I should have left the deathgrip in the car, as it was never used and there were PLENTY of nice tripod/spotting setups to take a quick look at the targets between stages. I felt like Charlie Sheen in Platoon when he was going on his first mission – “your packing too much stuff, I’ll carry it for you… this time,”. I blame the boy-scouts for that one.
With all of the above disclaimers, it is now time to report what DID work out well, or well enough to try using it again. To sum it up would be (scope, dope, stool):
All Holds No dialing from 100-1000 (and maybe a little more)All holds, No dialing…High Velocity Laminated Dope card. Ammo nerds only.
Valdada 16X Fixed scope: 100-1000 ALL HOLDS, NO DIALING and 600yd zero. I freaking love this scope. If I had to dial like the other guys on top of my gun nit running like a semi-I would have been much worse off. I shot the first three stages with the parallax set at 100yds (from zero range). After that I just set it at the first target of each stage and went with it. The glass is very clear, I could see boils roll around at 1100 yards and read the weeds at 1k. Before each stage I would just remember my holds for the target and adjust as needed on the second shot. I ran out of time on every stage, but I count that mostly to having to come off scope to rack a round. I held on to my Dope card like it was Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. When this gun runs, target transitions are fast. There was one time I had to laugh out loud because one guy said “zoom out, you’ll see it”… I also got to peek through a variety of spotting setups, which was great. One shooter told me that he just uses 15x binoculars to preview/spot and then leaves his scope at 15x “99 % of the time”. That way your are previewing the targets with the same “mental picture” as you will be using when you are actually running the gun. That piece of info alone was worth the trip and the match and it’s tricks like that make the match worth it. It also confirmed that I made the right decision to spend the $$$ on a fixed power with great glass. Actually
The bullet and hand loads did work well enough that I don’t think it limited me. I spent a lot of time in load development and dope on the long range and brass prep and such and the consistency and accuracy did show up when the other elements were at bay. The last stage was 600 and 650 targets so I got to just hold “mostly zero” on those targets and was able to score a few hits to end the day. I was running my KANG MATCH rounds: 105 Berger VLDs at 2650 over LL with Starline converted brass. There was one other guy in my group running a Grendel and he did pretty well. We discussed the rounds and agreed that 800 and in, it is a very capable round. Past that you really have to do your part to make hits. I think the better rifle to actually compete in this match would be the 6.5CM bolt gun, but hey I wanted a personal challenge and I certainly got it.
The small tripod stool was excellent last minute “ohh I’ll grab that too” addition. With it I was able to setup under and among the spotters and save my legs while eating cliff bars and hot dogs. Assuming I can use other shooters gear to spot, I’ll happily take the small stool tripod over the big old BOG deathgrip.
I used my bag of gear as opposed to a bipod to shoot the prone stage. I made only 1 hit at 800 on that stage but was able to spot some splashes close to the 900/1k target. Took a couple of shots at the 1100 but ran out of time on the 12. With this Glass I was able to spot shots of the other shooters on that stage.
Other notations:
Drive a freaking truck! Not a low slung tiny sports car! I had that little red Miata PACKED to the gills with crap. My BOG legs are shot up and wont compress properly, and won’t even fit in the trunk so it had to ride along side in the passenger seat where I brushed it every time I went into 5th or Reverse. When I got to the match, I found out that we had to drive even farther into the boonies to get to the course. I smartly hitched a ride with another shooter to the actual range and yeah after the first hill and mudhole I realized there is NO way the Miata would have ever made it. I longed for my ’78 Bronco, but thanks to Former Vice President Joe Biden’s energy policy, that is not happening. Plus the sidepipes get annoying after an hour or so.
Pizza make a great dinner on the cheap, but make sure you bring paper plates unless you prefer cold pizza for breakfast.
Get there for open range day (the Friday before the match) – I didn’t and that would have certainly helped. I packet the Pokemon rifle (300PRC with IveyTron setup) and made up 27 198 PVA solids to maybe try to shoot, but all that was for not because I worked Friday.
Was talking with some shooters before the match and was ecstatic to learn he was shooting a Garand at 1200 on the open range day – FUDDRUNNER! I told him how I modified my IHC for more accurate bench shooting and he told me how he uses his flat front sight to hold for wind. His friend was shooting a bold 30-06 in the match too! I happily supported his fuddery….. and they loved my Patton Hoodie.
There was some discussion about how some powders may not be the fastest, but being off about a grain made no difference in the groups, where as the more finicky powders would throw your group if you are off .2 gr.
If you ever want to check out legit glass before you buy, check out a long range match. There were very nice spotting units along the hillside
I had a couple of recent range trips with some ridiculously long 22 pistols. A couple of weeks ago I shot the Ruger Scoped Black Grand Mamaba out to 200yds. This past weekend we piled up a mess of other Rugers as well and shot them at the 50yd berm. Targets were a mix of clays, a plastic self healer and 3 brand new bright red Calloway golf balls. I scored them along with a nice white golf glove at the golf Range the day before.
Anyway, we had a blast, but in my haste, I forgot to mount another scope on the Black Grand Mamba (the Valdada went back on another rifle). So, we got to the range and dang if we didn’t just Joe Dirt that pistol and sight right down the full pic rail that was mounted on top. Just line the edges at the muzzle up and have at it. The amazing light weight, superb trigger, and long sight radius make this thing a runner. I may run it at speed steel like this for the fun of it.
I wouldn’t say that would be the most accurate, but it was surprisingly able to make the 4″ self healer dance at 50 yds plenty good enough. The thing feels like a paper wand its so light. Shooting it standing freehanded was perhaps my favorite and I may just leave it that way and try the rifle scopes on something else (the 10″ bull barrel) perhaps.
We shot the Bond pistol and slabside too. The Bond Pistol is a MkII with gold bolt and trigger all iron sights. Another bonus is that we got to just mow through some random assortment of ammo that I had been testing – I’m trying to thin the variance and get more bulk. Anyway, I have a lot of cleaning to do but man I love these Ruger .22 pistols.
So, I got bored and made a new video about new(to me) old CZ97B Safety model. I got some video editing practice. Digg the 97s (CZ FuddRunner) – it was a great day!
The trigger action and shape of the older one has the slight nod, but the newer model has better sights and LOK grips(upgrade). You can see typical accuracy of 230 RN Reloads at 50 yds. Not the best shooting but I love the self healing targets on the dirt berm – you get instant feedback. Round 1 is standing and Round 2 are benched and bagged.
We all have things to work on… I try to be the person to at least think those words when disposition comes along. I’m starting to feel really great about breaking bad habits. In particular for today is You Tube…
So I started up Rumble and what do you know one of the first things I search for is 6ARC and nothing … dang, then “6mm ARC” and boom!, I’m rewarded with a great video from last month fresh on top of the stack so I clicky it…
Its a video about a budget build AR with a goal of 1k yds. Hooked. It happens, they walk it out from 100 to 1k and ring constant dings on target. Then the spotter pulls up and does the same with his. Dueling 6mm ARCs. Sweet. Great success! I think the total was $1350. Amazing. I was proud to be the first to comment. Here is the link.
The scene is changing. More people are tired of being censored (in our case guns specifically which is my current top hobby…) and thus I’m just going to make a pointed effort to just not watch YouTube. I’m sure there will be specific instances, Photoshop tricks, fixing old cars. I have not missed FB at all and I’m hoping YT falls to the same category eventually. I also do think that as more SM emerges people will move more toward managing their own content/servers/sites and just embed whatever they can in actual web pages. If the Video host censors or you want to change, your content structure is still there, just change the embed to the next provider as needed.
I have also posted my very first video on Rumble, Embedded below, it’s not much just a quick mag dump at 300, but we will see how they roll and prepare for more…
Notes: Watching Tim Pool’s show with the CEO of Rumble was what turned me. Currently they are Canada based but are moving to FL this year. If they don’t move to the US and support 2A vids I will leave period and find the next. So its up to you Rumble. Remember even Google started out with the “don’t be evil” mantra…
These were all ran right around 2600fps. Banged steel 6″ gong @200yds
I ended up holding -13MOA on the scope and holding the left edge to ring hits. Most fun was doing double and triple taps on the plate.
Brass Used was a mix of New, 1x and 2x fired Starline match prepped: converted 6.5 Grendel, annealed, neck turned, inner neck champhered and honed. Brass looked good, Flat primers, slight ejector mark. Max charge decided on previously, this was just to test functionality. Wolf SRM Primers and LeverEvolution.
I did have a few Failure to feeds on the 108 EHs Loading them in the mag they are very long and may need to seat them a bit deeper. It seems like the tips are hitting the top of the chamber and getting stuck and the bolt just rides over the lip to jam in the shoulder.
Ive been looing forward to this test for a while and finally made it to the range to make it happen.
The goal was to test High Velocity match ammo @200 and see if I could have a 50yd(or 100yd) zero and use BDC reticle out to 200yds.
The Rig:
Ruger Mk 4 lower
gutted for Volquartsen trigger kit
Volquartsen Gold Bolt w/ High Velocity Spring kit
MaddMacs long barrel
Nikon Buckmaster 4-12x BDC reticle
The Ammo:
CCI Mini-Mag – warm up/fouling
SK Long Range Match Ammo
Aguila Super Extra (40gn 1255fps)
Norma Tac-22 HP Target(40gn 1100fps)
Winchester Super Extra (40gn 1300fps)
The setup:
Benched and bagged(front and rear)
200yds
paper target
old spotting scope
Good conditions (light wind, slightly cloudy, hard to spot shots)
I walked past the 100yd line where some rifles were being shot. 200 yds I setup a 4″x4″ plastick self healing target on the berm for sighters and foulers. I spotted in with CCI mini-mags, I figured that would be good to start with because I have more of them than anything else and will not be shooting them with this pistol that much.
With each ammo I adjusted in on the self healing target to get proper elevation. Some required elevation adjustments. Once sighted in I took 5 shot groups on paper. It was hard to spot shots today, I’ll have to run another test with the Aguilla vs the SK ammo. I can’t be sure, but I think the closest three was SK, and aguilla was shooting a little left on the side of the plate. I need to run those 2 again.
The Winchester 1300fps was very unwieldy at 200 yds. I couldn’t even get 1 hit on the plastic self healing target – general grouping was 12″, so I just passed on paper.
The norma tac was also strange. it seemed to shoot dead on and then high, vertical stringing. The other three shots of this group were high.
Conclusions:
Run the SK and Aguila again. Confirm dope. Then setup at 100 and see if I can get BDC info/holds for 125,150,175,200.
I think I could do better with a better scope. I’m still on the fence about what to keep on it. The rifle scope option opens more scope availability and mag range.
Took the new Mile Rifle to Skyline to group in @ 200yds and run the 2n’d round of ladder loads. All rounds with H225 ELDM over 7828SSC or N565. I shot all but the hottest rounds for each powder, making a specific point to leave the hot rounds for next time – enforce the It’s OK to not shoot all bullets. I was expecting bolt lift on some of the hotter rounds but it was silky smooth through all rounds on ejection. There were a couple of rounds that were hard to chamber. In general the slower rounds were pretty soft shooting. Not doubt the EC Tuner brake helping with that. I did notice some recoil on the hotter rounds. All brass looked good with primers starting to flatten out on the hotter rounds. There were ejector marks on bras before I got it, and there are marks on these fired cases, a bit more prominent on the hotter rounds, but I’ve seen worse.
As far as velocity goes, I was able to get almost 3000 fps with both powders. N565 has better fill at 80.0gn @ 2950fps. 7828SSC had 77.0gn @ 2977. I loaded a couple of lower charge test groups with turned necks and shot them as well. The lower charge group of 7828 69.0gn had an excellent 1/2MOA 200yd 3-shot group! It was the first group I’ve ever shot with this rifle. I loaded 5 shots in these groups but the first 2 shots were to get on paper. First shot was way high because I had the base left at 25MOA. set to 0 and took another shot and spotter said I was way low, just above the lower PVC cross-pipe of the target stand. I backed the scope out to 24x where the hashes are 1MOA. I then used the hashes to measure rise to center of target to be 15MOA. Made the adjustment on scope and BANG, first shot dead nuts center. Second shot left me looking but with tighter new 50x F class glass I was able to tell that the 2nd shot piled into the same hole. I spotted it before my spotter actually and started laughing. Third shot was a tad low but I’ll take it!
I need to lower the cheek riser just a tad more if possible. The IveyTron is pretty tall, so I just use a low cheekpiece, tilt my head and use my left side dominant eye. It is just a tad too low and I can see just a shade of the top of the scope looking at the target. It’s a note when using the tall adjustable base. I will say that I didn’t notice the new 4″ brake on the end of the barrel so need to also keep that in mind when shooting LR with lots of elevation.
My shooting buddy/spotter brought his pro chrono that hooks up to blue-tooth and it worked great. Took a minute to get it settled up with the phone, but after that was smooth sailing. Additionally with that setup you can preload your groups to chrono instead of doing that at the range. That can save a lot of range time and keep things moving. The Lab Radar is nice, but the cost and functionality of the pro chrono would be my choice.
Next up is loading up some more of the 69.0gn of 7828SSC, anneal the other cases, then neck turn 40 more cases, leaving 1/2 of them turned and 1/2 1x fired.
Executive Summary – it was windy, I learned a LOT about wind today. So windy in fact many of the more experienced shooters had issues with the wind. There was “supposed” to be an option for 1250 yds, but that was nixed due to wind.
I have shot this gun 6ARC and ammo at 1k on a low wind day. There was a strong headwind of ~11 mph with gusts of 14mph at the bench throughout the day. The streamer flags at the bench were always pointed in your face, and the only real change I noticed was them tailing from left to right. I did NOT pay enough attention to the foliage and the tall flags that were put up down range. This may have been part of my downfall. In the past (when making groups on steel at a k), the wind has always been a steady 4-6mph from left to right or calm. I always thought this range was “easy” to shoot because of the tall trees surrounding most of the range on both sides. There are some fields between berms located at 600/750/1000 but it hasn’t ever been as difficult to judge/shoot as today. “Spoilt” comes to mind immediately. After today, some of the more experienced shooters said that this range is actually more difficult, because of all of the fields and wind variables as compared to say a large flat field where the wind may be stronger but more consistent. I’m still 50/50 on if this sentiment was actually true or just an excuse because of the performance degradation that most of us experienced today. I need to try other ranges for comparison – all in due time.
Learning point #1 – One shooter mentioned that when you saw the wind at the bench die and then pick back up again it was a good sign that the wind is changing direction down-range. I wasn’t able to confirm this because it was after match yip-yap, but it does make sense and I will definitely be paying more attention to this scenario in the future.
Learning point #2 – After getting “learnt” on the LR, I went back to basics on the short range and was “on” 6” steel swinger at 500, after dialing a bit for wind. It was much calmer wind and the 500 yd berm is sheltered by more trees as well. So in the middle of a string I noticed the mirage was calm, and then saw the wind “blow the boil” to the right a bit. I held to the left ~10” and scored a hit. This is the first time that I was able really able to “read the mirage” to my advantage to score a hit.
Another shooter said that the wind today caused a full MOA of elevation difference from what he is used to. He actually thought something was wrong with the barrel until he later confirmed it wasn’t the gun during lighter wind. One of the judges stated there were LOTS of “0”s or blank targets today and there was even a set of 5 targets in a row at one point without a single hit – mine being one of those. The general consensus was that this was one of the windiest days for a match in recent history.
So on to the actual match timeline.
Friday night prep: Packed the 45s and a new batch of ammo to test functionality & the ATN to be zeroed on top of the 6.5 CM along with the 6ARC
5:30AM: picked the match outfit, fairly normal today for most people. I skipped the Full Ricky and went long sleeve fishing shirt and shorts, with white socks and grey shoes and a Glock hat. Normally I sport the Adidas visor, but figured I could use the Glock hat to direct brass to the bench as opposed to the gravel. I WAS going to get a bowling outfit from the thrift store as recently watching the “Big Lebowski”, but the dude abided by support tickets and normal work hours enough to not make that happen the previous week so standard outfit was picked – perhaps this was my downfall after-all.
5:45AM: left the house, with the Miata moderately packed with guns/gear/ammo – ALL HANDLOADS BEBE!
6:07AM: Breakfast – Stopped at Jacks for a breakfast chicken biscuit combo, at it in the parking lot. The hashbrowns were perfect! Popeyes has better chicken, but they weren’t open for breakfast and their hash browns suck anyway. Hardees was an option, but I feel they have fell off the “good” breakfast in the past decade. Mainly because of their paper plate thin bacon and “add water to powder to make egg” mix. Will try for the Biscuit Express next time. They have REAL eggs, but sometimes the bacon is a bit fatty as opposed to crispy.
~7:30AM: arrived at Strategic Edge range to see no less than ~30 cars/trucks packed on the back end of the LR pavilion. Entered the gate code correctly the first time – a good sign..
Paid the $30 entry fee, skipped on the closest to the X pot ($5 buy in) – yes I’m cheap and play the percentages. Attended the match meeting and reviewed the qualifying process.
Qualifying to shoot the 1k match: to keep things safer and faster, there was a qualification process, where 1 hit was required at 600 then 750 then 1k. You had ~5 minutes for each shooter to make these hits and were limited to 9 rounds in this process. There was a Right Qualifying Bench/Spotter and a Left Qualifying Bench/Shooter. Since I was one of the last to register I was near the last of the pack for qualifying. Watching the other shooters qualify was a bit un-nearving, but my previous dope on this range held the nerves in check as I sat on the golf cart bench. Everyone did manage to qualify for 1k. The one that I remember the most was on at 600, had trouble at 750 and then had trouble at 1k also, but did score a 1k hit on the last round. I think he was shooting 6.5 CM. After watching that, the very real possibility of driving 2 hours to be sent to the short range or pistol bays did start to weigh in a bit. So when my time came, I put up my ammo box, then piled the two blue jean sand bags and the Crown Royal Squeeze bag up on the bench. Then put the looser of the sandbags on top of the box and gave it a few good Segall karate chops. The stiffer bag was used as a rear support and kept the stock elevated off the table enough for my elbow not to hit the table. The squeeze bag was double layers of CR purple velvet full of airsoft BBs. I then brought up the Poverty Pony and settled in with a mag of 9 rounds – I went to town. First shot at 600 was a slight miss, the spotter calling it, I made an adjustment for windage hold and second shot was a impact. 750 first shot impact! 1k was slightly off (I was holding a full target to the left), slight adjustment and impact! I qualified. Dropped the mag and gave the Hell Yeah rock on with the right hand as I flagged the rifle with the left hand and announced 6ARC to everyone that wondered what the hell just happened. It was quick, mostly due to the fact that I was the only one shooting a semi, coupled with using the holds on the scope for elevation as opposed to dialing. It was probably less than a minute of actual shooting from 1st shot the 5th. A calm and relief washed over me as I put away the equipment and then headed back to the golf-cart bench.
9:04AM: came back and got my relay/bench assignment. Met and spoke to a guy that was there to observe with s spotting scope on the right side. He was a new member of the range and I got him talking about pistols in addition to LR. The most interesting part of the conversation was that he helped function test a G19 once shooting 1k rounds as fast as possible. He said other classmates were helping load mags and they had to switch shooters a few times because the gun got so hot it was hard to handle. He said that the only malfunction was the guide rod blew out the front due to melting the frame enough to eject it. They kept going til 1k. I was trying to coordinate which target the shooters were on so he could watch for hits, but I don’t think he got to see many hits in live action due to zoom limits, but you could see the hits on steel even at 1k. Spotting paper was a joke though.
9:27AM: My first round I tried for the sighter plate but couldn’t see a splash or hit so I just held the same as qualifying. I got 3 hits on that target in the upper right quadrant. I was glad to just get on paper. This “Poverty Pony” was keeping with the pack of fancy bolt guns. I know there was 1 blank target at least and I suspect at least a few others as well.
10:05AM: Round #2 – Expecting the wind to hold the same, but not really checking it, I didn’t touch any dials and just held 1MOA lower and shot all 5 rounds. Big goose egg. I was crushed.
10:30AM while sipping a Mt. Dew and eating the days first Cliff bar, I noticed my left sock was inside out. Fixed that. As I was doing so, I wondered “could this be the superstitious thing that keeps me from shooting good today”.
10:55AM: Round#3 – I decided to use the sighter plate this time and didn’t see any splash or hit, so I tried the big 4’ x 4’ sighter plate. I spotted one splash in the dirt on the bottom left corner of the big plate and was like “WTH”. With the 5 minute time limit running out, I just held same as qualification and let the 5 fly. Big goose egg again. By this time I was pretty dejected. Most of the other shooters did have some groups or at least some hits on targets, but there was a fair share of zeros.
11:41AM: Round #4 – The last round was much of the same. not reading downrange wind correctly with a strong head wind. I did get a hit on the 1k large sighter plate, made a hold adjustment and shot my paper group. Still big goose egg.
12:15PM: About half of the shooters had left by the time they handed out the envelopes. I stuck around and golf clapped for them and the match directors. I was very impressed by the shooters there that day and will not forget the lessons I learned about the wind that day.
12:37PM: I still had range work to do. I wanted to make confirm dope on the short range to regain some composure/confidence and I still had the 6.5 CM to sight in and test group with new ammo/scope. In addition to that I had (3) 45s that still needed function testing with a recent ammo batch.
First up was the 6.5 CM/ATN 4k/Barnes 140 MBs over H4350 @2677fps(batch#06-08-2021-01). First off it was the first time firing the rifle since getting it back from ATN for screen jump. The rings used to mount it were way too high for my liking, but it did work well enough. I wasn’t expecting a lot, but it did prove itself with the 20 test rounds I had made up. I setup in the center of the short range pavilion to zero in on the center plate. I confirmed bore sight first, then was zeroed in with a few shots. I then put in all the ballistics info and used the BC calc to give an elevation for 200yds. At first I wasn’t able to see the green dot, but I put in 20mph of straight right wind and the dot appeared to the right of the vertical crosshair. I used that as an elevation marker and pinged some steel at 200. I then did the same at 300 and after some adjustment the 500yd steel also got some action. I got some video of shots as well so there is some footage coming. The BC was pretty accurate, but I did have to rezero at 500 with a tad bit more windage. This could be actual wind or me just not getting the 100 yd zero absolutely ON during initial setup. I did notice that after shutting the power off during painting targets that the green dot did not initially show up until I went in the menu and adjusted the target yardage. Also noticed that if you accidentally hit the range finder, it can mess up the yardage and cause the scope to show unreachable (and then default to ~1600yds) until you manually adjust the yardage back down using the dial or buttons. And when zeroing, the WHITE crosshair is the NEW zero, and the black/standard crosshairs are the OLD zero reference.
Next up was the 6ARC again to correct any windage that was dialed in the last round of the match. I switched to plinker ammo 105 Berger BTs over W748 – using up the OLD powder from the early 80s that I was gifted by my reloading mentor. I was on at 200 and 300 pretty easily and the 500 yd lg steel was pretty easy as well. The large round swinger was hit on the left edge so I adjusted windage to score center hits on it and then move down the line leaving only the last 2 targets untouched (the 2” and 4” ers). There were some misses on the 6” that I’m not sure were the wind changing or my ammo not being superb or it could have been me/tired as the day wore on. The most fun in this session however was on the 300yd popper as fast as possible. I didn’t time myself but feel that the splits were under 1 second (probably more around ~.7). There were more than a few shots that were loosed before/while I could hear the ping report/confirmation. I first tried this with double taps, then triple taps then just emptied the rest of the 10 rnd mag as fast as possible while staying on target.
After that I broke out the 45s. Being a bit lazy I didn’t want to pack up all my gear to move to the pistol pit for only ~70 rounds so I setup my box and bags centered with the 100yd steel sighter plate. CZ97 was first, aiming with about 1/3 of the front sight above the horizon of the rear sight, all shots were hits. I couldn’t tell where exactly on the big plate, but this was function testing so who cares. Next up was the SAR K2 45. It ran with only 1 feed hickup, the rest of the 30 rounds were no problem and all hits using similar hold. Lastly the 1911 finished the day with no stoppages and all hits. Packed it up and headed home after that.
Great day – lots of ups and downs – learned a LOT
One last tidbit that added greatly to the day. I was on the way to the clubhouse when, at distance, I saw a guy on the short range shooting a 1917, then on the way back I saw him shooting what I thought was the same rifle but noticed hw wasn’t working the action. Closer inspection looked like a Garand which really got me confused/excited. I yelled out to him “Garand?” and got a big yep, so I went to talk FuddRunner and take a closer look. He DID have a 1917Eddystone, A CMP Special Garand, and a Remington 1903A3! I was soooo proud to see the warsticks! I really like the sighting picture of the 1917s and need to get a full up non bubba-ed version for my collection. The rear aperture and elevation flip up sight looked like it would be fun to use and easier than any of the other fuddsticks I currently have.
I think I could have done better if I had a bit more magnification (32x or 50 x)…
Note from the Match Director:
Well, That was a fun match… I think we can agree this was the most difficult wind that most of us have competed in. I personally took it as a great learning experience, and have a much greater respect for the power of the wind.
I do plan on holding the other scheduled 1000/1250 match later this year. There will be a few tweaks to make it more efficient to qualify (I am very happy that all competitors qualified for the match. Thanks for coming prepared). The wind flag placement will be improved, and the underbrush will be removed allowing a more clear picture of our sighter. Plates.
Keep in mind that we will be using 600yd IBS targets at the 1000yd distance.
Special thanks to our match staff and helpers!!! The match would not work without you all.
Watch the calendar for upcoming matches and other information.
Its been fun riding the hell out of this Poverty Pony to the land beyond 750yds. Now I have dope, ammo, equipment, and experience to shoot the AR-15 platform from 100-1000 yards with no scope dialing.
Started off with zeroing the rifle at 100 with the yellow box of BTTs @2500. These were plinker rounds and nothing special. At 100/200/300 hits were no problem tried a couple shots at 500 but wasn’t 100% on that and it was near the buzzer so not bad for first round.
Shout out to WLS – the We Like Shooting Podcast/Youtube channel. The guys there know their stuff and keep you up on new products in a funny and charismatic way. Check out the latest episodes on You Tube.
Next buzzer round(about 30 mins) I just single fed rounds to Fire Form – shooting them at 2/3/500 pretty easily – These are slow rounds @2400. Taking slow shots on bags with the new glass is where I really settled in. The glass was crisp and the side focus was nice, the dials are nice, the mount seems solid, all in all the glass choice is greenlighted – All the money spent where you want it.
Then started dialing in elevation to get and test the 100-1000 hold theory. So The theory is just dial for 600 yd zero and then use hold under/overs so that there is no dialing. At 100 sighting plate, dialed -6MOA and test fired = 6” higher. This confirmed my dialing so I dialed in a total of -19MOA and took another test shot confirming the elevation on the 100 yd plate.
Then went back with the Slow and Low ammo @2500, and confirmed dope on the short range 1/2/3/500. I was able to hit some of the smaller swingers at 500 even the next to smallest swinger a couple times. One thing I DID notice is that when using the Hold Unders is that the windage is not marked on the upper part of the reticle like it is on the lower part of the reticle. when I was having to hold -2MOA wind and 2MOA elevation, it was a tad trying. Still I think that is a bit of nitpicking overall the new glass made hits easy. I finished the buzzer round and prepped for moving to the long range.
There was a little dialing in zero for 600 and the wind, but once that is settled, the holds worked GREAT! NO DIALING! I was able to make hits at 600 and 750.
I tried for 1k with the slow and low ammo a couple times, at 27MOA I was aiming a bit low I believe but I wasn’t getting confirmed hit so I stopped. I was holding above the “O” in MOA in the reticle. In retrospect, I believe I could make hits holding 25MOA – It appears that Strelock Pro may have lowered the velocity due to temp algorithm a bit and cause more MOA than needed.
There were some other people shooting the plates and the monitors were off, making confirmation of hits a bit more challenging. Again, the glass here made it able to spot shots easier than before. I didn’t even bring my spotting scope.
With the afternoon range day-light starting to run out, I figured this was my shot to try for 1k so broke out the good Fast ammo and and confirmed 600 yd zero. 750 seemed to be a tad less hold than I had estimated and I then tried 1k on the plate and got a hit, thus confirming holds. Next round of the buzzer with a clean paint on 1k I was able to sprinkle ~ 10 out of 15 shots on the large circle plate and even a few shots on the smaller plate as well. I just finished shooting all the ammo I had.
At the end of the day I Annealed 427 brass ready for the good stuff! Goodbye 223! Made some new Laminated Load cards.
Are you interested in Roadbikes and Race Pistols? Do you want some practice with a favorite 2A folder and see how it packs on your new Mountianbike? Come pack it and run it. Here is the contact form for upcoming training rides and possible local friendly competitions. Basically I need a draft partner(right now its […]
So, I got bored and made a new video about new(to me) old CZ97B Safety model.I got some video editing practice. Digg the 97s (CZ FuddRunner) – it was a great day! The trigger action and shape of the older one has the slight nod, but the newer model has better sights and LOK grips(upgrade). […]
We all have things to work on… I try to be the person to at least think those words when disposition comes along. I’m starting to feel really great about breaking bad habits. In particular for today is You Tube… So I started up Rumble and what do you know one of the first things […]
Disclaimer: do your own research and use common sense when reloading. I am not responsible for your results. Don’t try this at home or at home office either… Here are the steps that worked for me. I wouldn’t even attempt this without a great annealer. That thing is worth its weight in brass. Scope footage: […]
Executive Summary – it was windy, I learned a LOT about wind today. So windy in fact many of the more experienced shooters had issues with the wind. There was “supposed” to be an option for 1250 yds, but that was nixed due to wind. I have shot this gun 6ARC and ammo at 1k […]
Ive been looing forward to this test for a while and finally made it to the range to make it happen. The goal was to test High Velocity match ammo @200 and see if I could have a 50yd(or 100yd) zero and use BDC reticle out to 200yds. The Rig: Ruger Mk 4 lower gutted […]
