What did you do at the range today?

[BLJ]

I knocked out some repeats. Started at the target run to 10/25yds and shoot two rounds, continue until empty.

10yds x 20 rounds with the pistol.
25yds x 20 rounds with the rifle.

I went 17/20 on both.

Sounds like a good drill and looks like some good shooting.

What size targets do you use?

 

[justinspicher]

 

[DB29]

Shot a 30rnd group of a new load for my M70 .270. 16in barrel with a Reaper on it. 145eldx over 54gr of H4350, going about 2840fps.

Waiting for a rokstock to drop this into.

 

[justinspicher]

Shot steel today, worked off the tripod, mostly standing, a little kneeling and sitting. Shot at 425yds, 20rds.

 

[RifleJunkie]

Finally got a decent enough day to sight in the new Waypoint 7mm mag. 180 grain ELDms in the 1-8" barrel performed quite nicely at 2880 Fps. Also played around a bit more with a 110 Trail Hunter in 6.5 PRC

 

[KY_coop]

Been helping a friend learn to reload. He met me to shoot some of his first loads for a new rifle. I decided to try some 160 tmk's in the 284. We shot in a sloping bean field in some cold 20ish mph wind and i had one of my junky amazon bipods on the rifle( its terrible). May revisit the tmks later but will keep loading 162 eldm for this rifle this year.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Practice like you play. I drove to the farm yesterday afternoon and the weather wasn’t too bad. Woke up this morning to about an inch of snow, 15 degrees, and heavy gusting winds.

I took the .223 trainer and went for a walk. Went in a loop around the farm, covering about a mile over the rolling terrain. My dogs scared a doe up out of her bed in one of the bale yards and I felt bad for her.

Towards the end of the walk, I stopped and shot the 8” steel target from about 218 yards. I fired 20 rounds rapid fire prone, using the Spartan javelin lite for a front rest and my Sentinel SG binocular harness for a rear rest.

No issues with mirage today, but I did have to hold for wind. Not used to having to do that on an 8” target at around 200 yards.

The “ping” didn’t sound quite the same in the cold and with the wind howling, but I was happy to see the steel move 17 times and three close dirt splashes to the left or right of the target when I got the wind hold wrong.

I didn’t even bother shooting at the 425 yard target. There’s no way I would have attempted that shot in these conditions.

Today was definitely Type 2 fun. I don’t think I am ever going to attend the winter S2H course. A tip of the hat to those who do!

When I go back out this afternoon, I’ll practice seated shots.

 

[Chris in TN]

Today was definitely Type 2 fun. I don’t think I am ever going to attend the winter S2H course. A tip of the hat to those who do!

Like you - maybe much worse - I have near zero interest in being a cold-weather shooting guru. But your mention of type-2 fun hooked me.

I dug my trek poles out (the ones with the arrow shaft shooting sticks hair-tied to them) and took the kids' 5.56 - the pink-trimmed one with the old duplex Leupold on it - and, since there's been several discussions of 400-yard holdovers here in the last few weeks, I went to do exactly that.

I walked to my 100-yard berm and plopped down in the driest spot I could find in the grass. It's cold here today, upper 20's when I was out, and windy/gusty, but fortunately my range is oriented to just south of east, and the wind today is mostly from the NW - almost a straight tailwind.

16" AR, 77TMKs over 23.0 of Benchmark, zeroed (confirmed the other day) at 225 yards. From my dry grass spot it was 396 yards, per rangefinder, to the target at my 500-yard berm.

Weather a minute ago (it was earlier and slightly cooler when I was out):





First two shots are the low-center splotch. I think the first was to the right, second more to the left, and the second obscured the first. Third was higher and right. The smaller splotch further low/left is .22lr from a week ago. 16" plate.

The duplex thick/thin intersection on the older Leupolds (3.5-10x set to 10x) is roughly 3moa. The steel plate is 16", so from the top of the plate to the center is roughly 2moa in this case. Drop, per my app, for this scenario is about 5.9MOA. Or, in short, use the bottom of the duplex as an aiming point and put it more or less 1moa above the top of the steel plate. Or 3+2+1=~6moa.

Easy enough on nice painted steel. Much more complex on an animal. To be completely honest I was expecting a larger cluster and the 'group' you see here exceeded my expectations. I do *not* want to attempt this on game. I simply have better options now. Three shots into MOA-ish, but to be clear this load over several dozen shots in the last six months has been ~1.75moa, so anything less than that is chance, not skill, and I'll be clear about that. But, yeah, it's do-able and in better light conditions (today I was more or less facing the sun which played heck with my eye focus) I'd do it *if I had to*. I'm glad I don't have to. We use this rifle almost entirely for hunting inside of ~300ish yards. Once in a while I'll let the kids shoot it beyond 300 but teaching them holdovers is fairly low on my list of stuff to do.

At 450 yards this particular setup would require another ~2moa of holdover. Heck no. I'd be lobbing them at that point.

 

[Hunt4lyf]

It’s been a couple weeks since I could get to the range

Offhand 3.5” circle at 50 yds. I was 83% in the circle with my first 40 rds and should’ve stopped there but didn’t so ended up with 67% in the circle



I’ve been working on a 10 shot cold bore group with my 25-06 just because I feel like it, halfway there

 

[Steve300xcw]

Carved out room for a real mag in the 223 the other day. Feeling like shit, but ran up and made sure it all worked



Factory 73's...plenty of room for 75elds

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I went out on my skis and took my 6.5cm along. I have a spot near my house where I have a 5” steel plate hanging, I just worked on shooting off my pack at around 300yds. I shot 40 rounds, my scythe still didn’t blow up. It would have been a good place for it to happen since I was shooting over snow that hadn’t been tracked through. If the scythe went flying off it would be the only hole in the snow.

 

[The Harbor Master]

Tried to zero .223 trainer today, with new 3-9 SWFA. Started off great, as a new .mil adopter sighting in was WAY easier. Shot 2 rounds at 50yds after boresighting, then used the reticle to measure. Made the adjustment, and was where I needed to be. (55gr PMC Bronze). Everything was shot off bags, prone. My goal was to get this dialed in and move into positional practice all off-season.





No math, no stupid "how many MOA is 8 inches at 50yds?" mental gymnastics. Measure, click, shoot. As expected, the 55gr was all over the place, so instead of chasing it around trying to fine tune a zero, I moved on. AAC 77gr OTM shot like garbage (2.5"-4" groups) but that's nothing new... before this rifle was cut/threaded it did the same. And similar to before the cut, 73gr ELD-M seems to shoot at 1"-1.25" which is good enough for me. Unfortunately, I accidentally grabbed the wrong range bag and only had 7rds of it. The 6th and 7th rd did start to trend up and left, but not terribly... enough to make me wonder what was going on.

I then tried some 75gr Horandy BLACK (HPBT) and had 3rds in a "not great but acceptable" group. Planning to shoot at least 10rds to get cone of fire, the next 3 grouped roughly the same, but high and left. What the hell!? It's 29⁰ out, so I didn't think I'd have mirage issues, but maybe?



To rule it out, I let the suppressor cool completely until cold to the touch. Fired another 3 and they came right back down to POA.



Let the suppressor fully cool again and shot the last 3 hoping to confirm that mirage was the problem...



Well damn; I guess mirage is for real, even in sub-freezing temps. I'll measure this group when I get home but very happy with the BLACK. I've read some posts about hunting success with them in the .223 thread, and while it seems to do okay, I'll likely train with it due to price and hunt with the ELD-M... at least until I get my hands on some 77gr TMK. If those shoot anywhere near the BLACK or ELDm, they'll get the nod for hunting.

I may give the AAC OTM another fair shot, as the poor groupings mimicked the BLACK's shift with mirage. Heck even the PMC Bronze might be better than I thought, chasing it around may have been mirage as well.

 

[justinspicher]

Yesterday I did pistol work.
1rd x 10 from compressed draw at 5, 7, 10yds.
1rd x 10 from concealed draw at 5,7, 10yds.

10rds of doubles from compressed draw at 5,7,10yds.

10yd sprint repeats x 2rds.

 

[justinspicher]

Today I went out with a buddy and we did position work at 200, 315, and 400 yards. Steel was a 12” square. He shot of his pack, I shot off my tripod. We did all shots sitting. Finished with prone work at 200yds shooting 4”-12” plates, working on a follow up shot on a swinging plate.

 

[Chris in TN]

Today I went out with a buddy and we did position work at 200, 315, and 400 yards. Steel was a 12” square. He shot of his pack, I shot off my tripod. We did all shots sitting. Finished with prone work at 200yds shooting 4”-12” plates, working on a follow up shot on a swinging plate.

I have a hanging rubber ball I shoot wirh .22lr at 25 to 70 yards or so. It’s 3” and if you hit it centered it swings almost straight back, and follow-ups are easy. Hit the sides and it swings side to side and it’s tough. Fun though.

 

[waspocrew]

Wind was howling today, so figured the range would be empty. Ran up there and fireformed 45 pieces of 270 Win brass to 6.5 Sherman.

Found some new Federal Gold Medal 6 ARC ammo on sale at Scheels, so will likely head back tomorrow to try it out in the Tikka 6 ARC.

 

[ThunderJack49]

Did some hiking and shooting this weekend.
Ruger American in 6 creedmoor and a tikka in 223.
Shooting rocks of various sizes from 300-600 yards.
The day got a little off track when the black dog got caught in a wolf trap. We got him released relatively quickly and he shook it off pretty quickly.
Interestingly we realized a creek was possibly creating a down draft we couldn’t notice and pulling our shots farther than we had anticipated at 600. Not 100% that was the cause but it seemed possible.
Constantly being humbled on this journey and realizing what it takes to be a better shooter. Also, brushed up on my knowledge of how traps work this morning.