What did you do at the range today?

[NorthIdahoDude]

Ohhhh, yeah, dawg!!!! Now we're getting somewhere.

5 rounds at the backyard range of my semi-shaky bench. Shooting off this setup, my groups usual run around 1/4 ish MOA bigger than what I can do off of an actually stable bench at a Real Range(tm), but pretty close to what I can do prone with a backpack rest and a jacket under the butt or similar extra-stable field positions.

This is IMR 4831, CCI LR primers, 175 ELD-X, in Norma brass, clocking just shy of 2600 FPS. That load there at my elevation, is clocking north of 2,000 FPS out 500 yards, which is my "farthest I can ever imagine I'd actually huck lead at yee olde critter", and more than enough jam to flatten anything that walks the woods in North Idaho. Also super-good chance that N555 will keep the same or almost as good accuracy and ramp that up into the mid to high 2600-something FPS range in my 25 inch barrel.

I know, I know, I need a bigger sample size, but this definitely looks like the right track.

View attachment 1058983

Well, s**t... that was disappointing... I think I've still got some kind of bedding and/or scope issue going on with the Interarms Mark X. 3 groups of 5 shot. First round, high and left about 1 to 1.5 inches, next 4 into a .9 MOA group. F Me.... put gun down, barrel cool, later shot 2nd group of 5 ... first shot high and left about 1 to 1.5 inches, next 4 into a 1 MOA group... double F me... put gun down and let cool... attach chronograph, at least we can get some velocity data... 1st round high about 1.5 inches... rest lower, also moved to the right a bit (I think that' was the magnetospeed strapped to the barrel doing that). ES was amazing 261x FPS for all rounds.

Other test was my 30-06 with a new Shilen alter nut barrel. It showed some pretty good promise with 150 Accubond's and Varget, albeit at lower velocity than I wantd, so I reset to try with R16. Velocity was better, but accuracy was pretty awful. Back to the drawing board there also.

I'm going to have to take my Tikka 7x57 next range trip just to remind myself I can shoot straight. :/

 

[43.6N]

My younger brother was notified this week to pack his bags for some “out of town” work for Uncle Sam. He told us not to expect him back in time for hunting season. So we had an all hands send off for him today.

Ran handgun drills, and unknown yardage field rifle drills all day.

Of course we kept score. And of course there was a trophy. And of course we let him win. Good times

 

[sierracharlie338]

My younger brother was notified this week to pack his bags for some “out of town” work for Uncle Sam. He told us not to expect him back in time for hunting season. So we had an all hands send off for him today.

Ran handgun drills, and unknown yardage field rifle drills all day.

Of course we kept score. And of course there was a trophy. And of course we let him win. Good times View attachment 1062011

Good shit. Prayers for his safe return from doing work.

 

[Chris in TN]

Broke the plastic bolt shroud on the 595 223 the other day. Action would open but not cycle so I closed it back and dry fired it again and that apparently cleared the broken sliver enough to allow it to cycle, at which point the shroud fell out. I guess 30 years is a good run for a piece of plastic. I was able to confirm that the shroud off a T3x fits perfectly (read: I stole the shroud off the T3X) so I just ordered a used T3X shroud on eBay to fix the problem.

Shot the .22lr sitting a bit. I'm experimenting with a couple of questions - first, do I *have to* collapse the trek poles to make them work. On dry ground, yes, if I try to make them work at the shallow angle of extended poles they slide. On a grass sod or in wet ground they work well enough extended and that shaves time. Second, at what range and under what conditions is a front-rest-only good enough, then at what ranges is a single-point (one stick) rear rest enough (in conjunction with elbows on knees and knees supported by feet with legs crossed), then at what point is it best to take the extra time to make the rear two-stick cradle. I have some ideas but they are going to be shooter-specific so the rest of the summer I'll be trying to get both girls to the point where they can have an idea of what position they need, as soon as they see the target, and we can work together to get them into that position, which whatever level of rear support is needed, as fast as possible. I'm also going to start working with them on using a backpack for a rear rest - I don't anticipate either of them toting a full pack while hunting (which is why we aren't focused on shooting off a pack - can't use it as a rest if it's back in camp) but I want them to be able to, upon spotting a target, assess the options at hand and get a round in the air quickly.

 

[Hondo64d]

I changed out the chassis on my “match” rifle from an MPA Hybrid to an Aero Precision Solus chassis. I added three sets of Salmon River Solutions MLok weights to the forend of the Solus chassis. It balances perfectly and is very steady on the bag. I fired a five round group on paper to see if zero shifted at all changing chassis. Movement was minimal, no more than what is usually observed when removing and replacing the barreled action in the same chassis. I adjusted .1 up and .1 right. Precision remained unchanged, with five rounds grouping .357”. I then shot steel from standing supported off my barricade from 300 to 800 yards. I was able to shoot about 1MOA out to about 700, but opened up a bit at 800.

John

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I had a busy week of work, so I just had a short range session yesterday. I took a new female person of interest to the range yesterday to learn to shoot. She shot well with my CZ 457 and 527. It might be possible to make her into a hunter…

 

[HuntHarder]

Got out of the house too late this am. It was 94* when we arrived to our shooting spot @ 9:30am. I shot 10 rounds of .223ai ( 77tmk creedmoor sports factory loaded ammo) and 10 rounds of 6.5 cm hand loads. Then I let the kid shoot as much .223 thru his newly painted gun, as he desired.

I used the triggercam on his gun. He loved being able to watch his shooting at home on the TV. I liked that I was actually able to see his shooting style/habits and give him a little coaching for next time. Overall, the triggercam is pretty damn cool. I didn't have it set up perfect, so I got a little black on the edges in the picture. I could have also focused it a little better, but overall really happy with it. My boy is pumped to shoot pdogs with it. The triggercam app is a little clunky. I think a few more trips with it and I will have it dialed in. It was so damn hot today, I was short on patience. .
16" .223 with OG30 on it

10 shot 6.5 cm 130 vld-h

10 shots .223 factory 77tmk

 

[coyotekilla]

Worked of a preliminary load with superperformance & 140 bthpm in my 6.5 creed. Have a 1/2" group & sd's of 7.8, so its showing its value. Speed wasn't any higher than my imr4350 load, but super is easy to get right now...

 

[Chris in TN]

We practiced getting into position with the .22lr yesterday afternoon and the two youngest went through perhaps 75 rounds of .22lr. Afterwards I noticed that the spinner we’d been shooting at it slowly tearing. I'm assuming these thin steel targets are not made from AR500 and I don't expect them to last forever.
I often use Sunday mornings before church to do things that don't make a ton of noise, so I did some welding on the target this morning. I cut off a 3/8" sliver of steel bushhog blade to weld to the back side of the worst-cracked plate to help strengthen it against bending (knowing full well that the heat of welding won't help, but I don't think this was really hardened steel anyway) and welded that on then welded up the cracks on the other targets. After each pass I quenched the targets to attempt to harden them a bit. With the welds on the back I largely was able to keep the fronts flat. We'll see how they hold up.

ETA: Also, because I am slow on some things, while I own spare mags for the CZs (not to mention that we have two CZ rifles with mags anyway) I never think to bring extra mags to the range. Yesterday I did, and the kids took turns loading mags while their sibling shot. The CZ mags insert more or less the same way a Tikka mag does, so this had the bonus benefit of the two younger kids getting some mag-swap practice, which I have until now completely avoided with them. They picked it up PDQ though.

 

[elsb0048]

Went out with the intent to practice setting up positions. Shooting in a big clear cut I walked up and down the road to adjust distance and practice getting set up on berms and slash piles.
Shot from 6-8 spots from shooting stix and pack or prone on bags from 300 to 500 yds.

Overall had fewer hits than last time I was out which was kind of frustrating

I'm new to this longer range stuff so today was the first time I've ever shot at rocks. Wish I'd been filming on the spotter for the first few as I was having a hard time spotting misses into the logging slash, just doesn't kick up much dust.
There were a couple might have been hits that I first thought we're misses: was watching for rocks to topple but in retrospect I heard some impacts but hadn't quite tuned into the difference in sound.

Been some horizontal stringing in my zero checks lately on this gun so I need to dig into that and see if there's anything I can sort out in my shooting position or process driving that.