What did you do at the range today?

[Chris in TN]

Neat thread.

Today I took all three kids. I focus most of my efforts on my oldest (since she has an elk tag) but I try to involve the other kids too. So today I took all three kids right before dark and they shot milk jugs at ~100 yard and closer with their new 6.5CM.

I have some scrap range brass I picked up years ago and some Nosler 123CCs left over from when I used to have a 6.5 Remington Magnum. I've been loading the 123ccs over 38 grains of IMR4895 just to get rid of them. I've noticed that, to my untrained ears, the report from the rifle (it's suppressed) with those rounds, seems lower than the regular load my oldest is shooting. I'm about out of the 123s and then I'm going to try the same thing (possibly with a lower charge) with some 130eldms, just to get rid of them. Recoil on the 4895 loads is ridiculously light and for the deer hunting we do here at home something like a 130eldm at even 2500'mv, would be perfectly sufficient for all of us. So after we get back from CO I may rezero with the 130eldms just for this year, for the kids.

No pictures today. But Thursday while my son and wife were gone the girls and I took a ride around the farm and stopped so they could both shoot from 440 yards:

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I swapped a set of scope rings on a 30-06 tikka so I went and re zeroed the rifle using my 180g accubond loads. Then I shot some steel with my Kimber 308 using some old handloads that I made back during Covid when I first got Into handloading. All of them were loads I don’t use anymore but they all hit the 4 and 6 inch steel plates I was shooting. They were all Barnes and hammer loads, it was fun to burn through 60-70 rounds with the Kimber.

I just swapped the rings on my tikka 6.5 so I’ll go out tomorrow and get that sorted out.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I installed a zero stop set in the SWFA 10x gen1 scope I have on my FN .25-06. I only had eight rounds left in my ammo bag, so I just made the most of it. Since it is a new barrel, I cleaned it this morning.

I made a -.3 mil elevation adjustment and fired the next four.

I’d say that this rifle will be ready for deer season, even if I don’t have the time to work up a load for the 134-grain ELDM.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

This is the remainder of my shooting from yesterday afternoon. After shooting the FN .25-06, I confirmed the ADI 55-grain and then went through the potentially promising, but not great .223/5.56 factory loads from the day prior to see if any would do better.

The ADI 55-grain shoots so well in my rifle that I really think of buying a pile of it too, but I think the 69-grain is a bit better for the ranges at which I plan to practice.

The Frontier 5.56, as I suspected, did really well with me as a fresh shooter and no mirage.

The Black Hills 69-grain TMK continued to disappoint me. I guess it will just have to go through my AR.

The AAC 69-grain wasn’t great, but about what I have come to expect from this budget ammo.

The Hornady Black was respectable.

The AAC 62-grain was also respectable for budget ammo.

 

[Chris in TN]

Late yesterday evening.

Teaching kids to shoot a rifle from prone (Harris front/sandbag rear) is easy. Teaching them to build positions in the field is much more time consuming. My goal this summer isn't to get her building her own positions, it's to get us working together to build her position. Which means that I'm trying to train myself into a support role. Which means that eventually it hits me that being able to shoot, and being able to teach someone else to shoot, are two different things.




She's also doing some offhand training (rimfire and centerfire) and she's actually got pretty decent at holding the forend against the side of a small tree trunk and leaning into the rifle to shoot semi-supported standing. We're also incorporating a single shooting stick (uh, trek pole) to lean her chest or belly into, to help steady her. I've used small trees in the past to make shots I couldn't have made otherwise and think it's a position worth learning.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I've used small trees in the past to make shots I couldn't have made otherwise and think it's a position worth learning.

Absolutely agree! Teaching a kid to be adaptable and look for every natural advantage is giving her a great skill. A fence post, tree trunk, stump, log, even a grape vine can provide some stability.

The number one thing my dad made us practice was dropping onto our butts for a hasty seated position (knees up, feet down, elbows on thighs) whenever terrain allowed for it.

The Marine Corps later taught me how to quickly drop into an even more stable seated position with my legs crossed. Again, it won’t work in every terrain or at every angle, but going seated doubles the potential accuracy of a shot.

Edit - I don’t watch many hunting or shooting clips, but one of the things I hate is seeing “gear dependence.” People who can’t see terrain at all and insist on trying to force their bipod or tripod into working without realizing that a tree, rock, fencepost, or whatever (supplemented with a hat, backpack, etc. as needed) can provide enough stability faster than their gear setup. It’s one of the reasons I hate tripods, even if I objectively know that they can be a very useful tool.

 

[Chris in TN]

Absolutely agree! Teaching a kid to be adaptable and look for every natural advantage is giving her a great skill. A fence post, tree trunk, stump, log, even a grape vine can provide some stability.

The number one thing my dad made us practice was dropping onto our butts for a hasty seated position (knees up, feet down, elbows on thighs) whenever terrain allowed for it.

The Marine Corps later taught me how to quickly drop into an even more stable seated position with my legs crossed. Again, it won’t work in every terrain or at every angle, but going seated doubles the potential accuracy of a shot.

Edit - I don’t watch many hunting or shooting clips, but one of the things I hate is seeing “gear dependence.” People who can’t see terrain at all and insist on trying to force their bipod or tripod into working without realizing that a tree, rock, fencepost, or whatever (supplemented with a hat, backpack, etc. as needed) can provide enough stability faster than their gear setup. It’s one of the reasons I hate tripods, even if I objectively know that they can be a very useful tool.

100% agreed.

Nothing has refined my skills at identifying and using improvised rests more than squirrel hunting with a .22lr. For pure low-key enjoyment, in a whole lot of ways, I enjoy it more than hunting big game.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Did a quick post-surgery 9 round accuracy test with my 7mm-08 Tikka in my backyard range (50 yards off a somewhat wobbly stand-up bench). I had the action out of the stock for the first time yesterday, and found that there was a film of oil/lube of some kind between the action and the stock, as well as the barrel was making too much contact in the are just ahead of the action, to the point that I don't think the action was fully seating itself flat (or if it was, it was under significant tension from the stock) - so I cleaned the oil off and sanded the barrel channel to free-float the barrel entirely.

POI dropped about 2 MOA post-surgery, and accuracy looks MUCH better. The one hole not touching the others was the cold-bore shot post-surgery (I did not count that one), and the one that hit at the bottom and opened the group to 1.4 MOA (was just over 1 otherwise) was the 9th round and the barrel was getting pretty hot by that point (I still counted that one tho). Regardless, mean radius of 0.31 is almost 50% better than I was getting before, and I usually am about +1/4 MOA or so when shooting off my wobbly bench vs shooting at the Real Range(tm), so... loaded up 20 rounds of the same load and off to the Real Range(tm) tomorrow to see what it will do for me.

8 rounds, excluding the cold-bore post-surgery flier on the left.



Even with the whole group counted, a 0.43 MOA Mean Radius is a vast improvement over the 0.6+ this gun has mostly been shooting.



For comparison, a 9 round group from the Real Range(tm) with this exact same load from a week or so ago.

 

[justinspicher]

I took my SBR for a short walk and then did 20rds of positional shooting practice between 300-500yds on steel. I was out all last week on a buddy’s archery hunt, felt good to shoot again.

 

[schmidty3]

25 prc load development was finalized! 0.2" 3 shot group

New "UL-DMR" AR build was run through it's paces. 6#12oz with a 20" barrel. Need to get the gas system all sorted, im pushing the limits with light buffer and aluminum bcg. But pmc 55 gr shot well for a quick hot group. Aac 77 tmks shot ~2750 fps. And some LE 64 gr gold dots shot like 3050 fps!!!

And I picked up a bodyguard 2.0 Carry comp 380. Put ~60 thru it to test function about as fast as I could.

Its a sweet little toy! Shot at about a half second cadence at ~7 yards (at the head...someone left me a target with a clean head ).

Im going to enjoy this little thing. Fits in a pocket wonderfully.

 

[rookieforever33]

Been shooting my bow this summer so first time I had rifles out since spring. Field positions off my bipod bringing my new shv close to zero with some cheap fmj. A tad more serious trying some different rounds through my cva scout. No pictures but found all 4 factory options I tried shot well.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Did a quick post-surgery 9 round accuracy test with my 7mm-08 Tikka in my backyard range.

Well... It's definitely improved at the big range, but I still wouldn't call that totally satisfying. Composite 10 round group.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Well... It's definitely improved at the big range, but I still wouldn't call that totally satisfying. Composite 10 round group.

Is that at 100?

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Is that at 100?

Yes.

 

[Chris in TN]

Yesterday we worked on improvised standing positions (leaned against a tree). Today we used our 'day pack' and trek poles for my daughter to shoot from 150 to 350 yards with her 6.5cm. She went 2 for 2 on an 8" plate at 150 yards and 2 for 2 in the center half of a 16" plate at 350, shooting off trek poles, seated, with her pack to stabilize her.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Yesterday, I only had an hour, but I took out the Tikka T3 .223 and checked the zero after putting it in a new wooden stock. Then I fired off 70 rounds of miscellaneous .223 (leftover from my initial ammo testing) to get some more time with the trigger, maintaining sight picture, and rapid follow-up shots.

Not my best group with the 69-grain. I know I pulled shot #9.

 

[justinspicher]

I didn’t shoot yesterday, but worked on the range. I added two more pieces of steel, moved a piece of steel to a better spot and fixed the position of another piece of steel. Then everything got fresh paint.

 

[huntsman22]

I just added a 50 yard rimfire only gong stand to my range...

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

Experiment with 160 Accubonds in my 7mm-08 that has been unsatisfying with 140 grain anything.

44 grains of H4350 at 2.855 OAL (.100 off the lands). Accuracy looking pretty good, but velocity with this particular load is waaay low (2500 FPS). Gonna heat that up to a about 2660 and see if the accuracy remains.

 

[Chris in TN]

My dad is visiting today so I didn't want to spend a ton of time shooting, but we all went on a SxS ride and I told my daughter I'd give her one shot to show off for her grandpa.

490 yards, prone, cold bore. 16" plate. I guess it'll do.