Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Mid range prone AR tactical

Yep that’s what I’m looking at one of the Harris ones. Also that moa challenge here, actually helps. You have to do 20 shots with sighters in 25 minutes. I ended up shooting 25 rounds. So by the 15th rd your barrels is getting pretty warm so shooting 10rd groups will let you know what the hell is going on with a warm/hot barrel.

I'm not familiar with all the new bullets, but usually VLD are the best BC. An 80 in a 20 inch tube you should be in the mid 2700 to 2800 FPS no problems with the right powder etc..

Longer than mag length, means I can get to the rifling, if you can get to it without goign longer than the ASC thats cool. A plus really.

Pit duty, I"ve done my share. If you keep a hand on the frame you can feel the bullet hit the paper. And you can almost always hear which shot is yours, but you have to have a bit of practice there. I loved the whole thing including pits. It was part of the match so I enjoyed it. Lots are going to electronic targets though these days I hear from shooting friends.

I'll have to google all this new bullet stuff. And old and compare BC. Generally speaking a mag suitable 75/77 could not be run as fast as a VLD 80, due to bearing surfaces. And the VLD 80 had the higher BC.

But I do realize some dont care, shoot for fun, don't take all the advantages you can and thats very cool too. Sometimes I wish my parents woudl not have put the drive in me to win when I did anything or be top of class etc... and it really sucked when you finished 2/3 in something at Perry and they said well if you couldn't win, thats good enough then... yeah...

BTW a good barrel, floated, will not wonder much in 25 shots. Even in our horrible TX heat, but there are patterns, I did come down 1/4 moa at shot 13 in prone slow, but that typically was only maybe 7-8 minutes in the string if good pit service and somewhat constant readable conditions.

Rost,

Not sure how much it's changed since you last competed, but bullets are getting better and better. Berger has a 80.5gr bullet designed to be seated to 2.260. AR 15 magazines are getting better as long as you aren't buying Magpul. (Nothing wrong with Magpul). Anyhow make your way down here for a shoot. Also if you are in the delta jct area keep your ears open this club does shoots up there as well. Only 2, 1000 yd ranges in Alaska and one of them is on fort greely.

thought the other 1000 yards was at talkeetna. Do they shoot at Greely here?

Mag length bullets never will be, unless I totally miss it, as high a BC as a VLD will be. If BC doesn't matter to you, then its ok. But again I'm going to snoop. IIRC 80 JLKs were about .480 BC and if a mag lenth bullet can do that, well they have come a long way. Last time I shot a match was spring of 2004 IIRC. LOTS changes in that many years. Might even snoop on BC stuff later tonight.

I've had long mag uses for a LONG time. Read Black Magic. LOL. Way before they were made that I know of.

Shooting. Yep. Hopefully one day. Junk scope on the one gun. Didn't bring any of our service rifles. So I'm kind of out there, but you just never know, a better scope mount, and some kind of acceptable scope, get my wife to send up 80 jlks and you never know.

Best of luck! And if nothing else maybe I can just make a match to watch. Being on a range again would be nice.

BTW remember I was playing to win so I tried to take every advantage. And wife and I started with the M1A. When the AR came on a bit, wife shot 69s at 600 once at Bullis, and that sealed the AR fate at taht time, she demanded and shot an M1A nicely. Took better bullets to swap to the AR, appx 1994 or 96 IIRC. Sometimes I get a bit serious with taking every advantage one can, but right now I can't afford a March scope etc... and not sure I ever want to shoot seriosly again.

Jeff

Yes the other 1k is at talkeetna. From what I got from Alaska rifle club website they will host a match up ft greely. The 80.5 gr Berger Fullbore has a BC of .441 and was designed for mag length ar 15. Today I was messing with the hornady 80gr eld-m im getting velocity the accuracy is not there. Different powder maybe I think the bullet is to far into the case and it's jumping way too much too the lands. The good thing with this class I can use any cartridge as long as it's in a AR platform. So was really looking hard at the 224 Valkyrie. I know where some of those 80.5 Berger's are at might give them a try. Also the nosler 85gr rdf was designed for mag length has a BC of .490 something. Im running a 10x swfa and I'm extremely happy with it so far. Things are getting better and better for us far as bullets.

Did not have time to play on the slow internet last night.

Maybe this morning. Sounds like I"m missing a LOT.

What I learned, at least lets say my opinion, was that 100 fps was worth chasing and .050 BC was worth chasing. Less than that made such little difference in wind drift that it mostly wasn't worth the effort.

So IF you are twisted for a high BC bullet use the best you can find.

Speeds, and you may not find this powder in AK easily, were best with moly bullets(man I"m old) and use of N540( NOT N550) powder. It does NOT like mild loads, it can look like a horrible powder until you get to the top side of charges and those often are above what a book might tell you, but had my stuff tested with Piezo? and was within the 62KPSI limits no issues. Unfortunately its not here but I have a stash of N540 at home from shooting days.

Jumping is one issue along with powder capacity of the case, that can be overcome with a different case obviously. But we shot service rifle only exclusively.

Jumping, IF the chamber throat dimensions are snug, kind of like the Wylde reamer, you can get decent accuracy out of a longer jump. Recalling I shot 75 amax at 2.3XX something in my cut out mags. Ogive was down in the case mouth. Lots of jump. Shot very good groups at 300 tests on the order of about 2 inches for 10 shot group averages.

But my rule on bullets is either at least .015 engaged for single loading or at least .015 off regardless if off. Anything in between due to ogive variances gets weird pressures/speeds/ES/SD from our testing.

The other thing about single loading, usually you can get the base of the shank of the bullet above the donut area in a case eliminating any possible issue there.

I have the 6.8 necked to 6mm for hunting round. Its ok, but done on a 22, IE get a bit more powder, more speed and use a top bullet will never hurt you. And still cheaper than buying 6.5 Lapua bullets like the scenar to shoot.

SWFA. Yeah, maybe I might have to cheap out on this. Have to start fishing to get some cash first though.

Interesting RE Greely. I sure wish our local TX bases would have kept allowing us on base to shoot, but after 9/11 it all started to fall apart. Be thankful you have the access.

Talkeetna at some point hopefully while fishing, I can wring out my 284 win and maybe the 458 just a bit. Don't need 1000 but its handy. Only had out to 600 yards out the back door in TX. But it was sure handy not to have to pack all your stuff and drive.

And at one point TAC was pretty promising RE speed and accuracy in the 223

Did some rough fast calculations at 600 wind drift.

About what I recalled, .050 BC is worth chasing, speed, needs at least 100 FPS more to start to show a difference.

Ran the .450 BC numbers at 2750 and thats reasonable in a 20 inch done correctly in 223. Most fall at 33-34 inches drift in 10mph. Up the BC to .500 and at same speed, though you can usually bump the JLK 80s a bit IE I ran em at 2820 mostly, you are down to 30 inches drift.

Get up higher to the 90 range and I was still around 2750 or just under gives you around 26 to 28 inches or so of drift.

Now I'm betting you are using the F class target that I don't know dimensions of. BUT I know the XC is X ring 6 inches, and 10 ring 12 inches. But in reality, think about this, the width of either side of the 10 ring, thats out of the X is only 3 inches. Thats exactly where, IMHO, 3 inches less drift is worth gaining, it could give you a 10 when others shoot a 9 etc...

Is it worth it to everyone? Nope, but its still worth tossing out there.

Off on a few day trip, going to help put some boats on the water in Talkeetna etc... not sure how much internet i'll have off and on the next days.

But I'll sure give this to ya, opened my eyes on how far mag length bullets have come over the last years. Impressive to a point for sure. Especially compared to trying 600 with 69s at 2950 many moons ago... that at a range where at 1000 once I had something close to 25moa on and shot an X, and we had a complete flip flop. Scorer and I laughed and talked and(match was practice) decided I was going the same out the other side.. LMAO, X. Blind hogs... the 69s on that range at 600 would bite you with a miss if you missed the changes. Which was easy to do.

Jeff

Jeff,

we are not using F class targets. I'm new to this but I'm pretty sure they said we were using what the service rifle shooters use. They were definitely bigger than the F class targets. The tipped 77gr sierra has a BC of .420 as well, I should of bought some of those 85gr nosler RDF when shooter pro shop had them on sale. I should of bought some 77gr RDF as well. There is no BC info on the 77gr BC yet but most think its in the .450 area. Right now Im going to run with those 73gr Hornady ELD-M this weekend they have a BC of .398. Im in a class all week and cannot get to the range to try out these 80.5 gr bergers. Right now AR COMP is giving me the speed and giving extremely low ES and SD. Varget wow talk about extreme SD and not making very good speed compared to AR Comp. Same with H 4895 as well, will say this about Varget even though it produced a high ES and SD it also turned in one hell of a group but the velocity was barely over 2700 fps with 75gr hornady bthp. I know from reading AR guys have been trying to find that one perfect bullet to use in across the course shoots. Instead of two as you know one for 200, 300 and the other for 600. I thought about putting together a 224 Valkyrie as well lol..

John

Here is a picture of the target. Those are all my covered holes I was the first shooter. So you can see what I was doing wrong.

Looks like you were zeroed pretty good. I'd say work on getting a handload that consistently shoots sub moa and your score would be better. Good shooting though brother... Especially for a first time match. and you had fun in the process...

I wasn’t watching the wind, the shots in the x no wind l, the wind picked up maybe 3-4 mph and that’s what happens. I tried holding for the wind you see those 2 shots in the left of the 8 ring. So I stopped and started adjusting my windage you see the two shots way off in the right 8 and 7 I went too damn far. I dialed it all the way to 1.6 mils, when it was only .3 mils. Far as dropped shots my neck was killing me due to ill fitting bipod. I talked to my buddy who was an instructor at the sniper school at ft Benning he gave me some great pointers. The main one is to be comfortable in the prone, he said when you think you are comfortable look through the scope at the target l, then close your eyes then open them. He said if your comfortable you should see the target through the scope. Lot easier to explain in person lol. It’s all a learning experience for sure. Something to remember guys shooting AR’s in the 5.56/223 at 600yds are usually doing it single shot. With the allocated time it’s possible to do all 20rds in single shot mode. But where is the fun in that. I’m going to use those 73eld-m this weekend with ar comp

What he describes is natural point of aim. Snipers shoot well. But they are rarely the best shooters, but they tend to have great form anyway. They just is WAY more to sniping than pulling a trigger.



4895 can give snug groups but never speed. Varget was ok for speed.

As to SD/ES, always believe the holes in paper over the chrono. Though the chrono and holes will coincide towards 1000 for sure.

I'm sure its fun to shoot out of the mag. I don't want a round in the chamber that long though if I can avoid it. I might wait out something for minutes... can do no good to the MV of the round at times.

Have fun with those low SD bullets. They are not the direction to go to win.

As to one bullet XC, it won't win you the matches.... but again you know where my brain is at when I say that. Used to shoot different bullets at each stage and it could be worth points for various reasons. I'm not averse to using 4 different bullets for the 4 stages at all. Its won me plenty over the years.

Get that lower bipod, if I had an idea what I have on the AR thats here and it was short you could use it if you want until I need it. And I'd be happier with a sling and a sandbag under the front hand than to tall of a bipod. That sucks.

You held pretty good elevation, it really should be about 1/2 to 2/3 the x ring for elevation, but that takes a lot of ammo work and practice. The wind, it is what it is, but I can see quite a few points lost that you would not have with .510 BC bullets.. at about 2800.. no they won't keep you out of the 7 ring though.

I'm gonna have to google this rifle club thing to find match dates.

And yes, that is a standard XC 600 yard prone target.

BTW not much over 2700 with that hornady is about all that bullet would ever take. Much over that and the accuracy fell off greatly.

Here you go

http://www.akrifleclub.com

Depends on what you buy; I got a 6.5 Grendel barrel/BCG that I ordered on the 22nd, it was delivered on the 26th. Ordered one of their premium 5.56 BCGs on the 24th, it'll be here today.

I've ordered uppers in the past that arrived in a week, and other uppers that arrived in a month. Really just depends on what you get, but they will always bust their humps to make sure the customer is happy. The one drawback is that the customer also funcitons as their QC, so if you get a complete upper make sure everything's tight and clean before shooting.

Thanks, wasn't what I thought, I don't have access to a legal rifle for that one. Doesn't mean I won't twist myself into something though, a blemish flat top upper isn't much. Float tubes cheap enough.. LOL.
They might front on my floated 26 inch AR thats the only one I have up here.

Might have to contact my gunsmith. LOL

Kind of pisses me off JLK won't make 90s right now, but I probably have a few thousand at home anyway.

I read about greely it said when the range is open they might have 800,900,1000 yd shoots. That's bummer I don't mind delta jct.

Do you know Craig P?

I googled the valkyrie some last night since I was in Wasilla with fast net. The MV they get out of 90s is what I got from a 223. So I have to do more looking RE case capacity etc... or just get wife to send a service rifle upper and strip it to parts and put it back on a flat top upper.

Stupid question I know, but do they allow any float tube? Or has to be the ones covered by hand guards like all our service rifles did.

You are possibly a bad influence on me. LOL. But to be able to not have to use all the shooting gear, and constant practice positions, and only shoot a few times a year, might sure be fun rather than work like it used to be.

Greely to 1000 would be fun too. Greely has a small fire right now, sure hope they snuff that out.

I do not know Craig P.. I looked at a 224 valkeryie, but not too sure.