Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Choosing between two loads

The 88 is never not my first pitch,when RPM/COAL allow. That especially in 223. Hint.

Lever’ is never not my first pitch to fuel same. Hint.

The 88 is my FAVORITE in several dozen,platforms(Custom all),though only in 223,223AI,224 Grendel,22 BR,22-250,22-250 AI and Speedmire. Hint.

The 88 offers a fhuqking sensational blend of Accuracy,Precision and Terminal Effects. Hint………..

If you have a load that works, go with it. BTDT...The biggest problem you will have is you. Wind and mirage. A good Load will not beat either, if you don`t do your job. If you don`t already have a good spotting scope, get one. You can see both wind and mirage through the scope, but the spotting scope is better. I have a 20x..plenty.
Shooting 4 will give you some idea what the wind will do, but 8-9-1k is a different animal. I`ve seen wind coming from two different directions at once, with range wind flags. Find something at least 600, and practice.
Hope for a dark day with consistant light wind.

My experience, FWIW..

BSA, I did look up my 600 yard 2.51" 5 shot group picture, but I already posted that last June at your request and if you are like me you hate it when the same pictures are re-posted over and over again.

So instead I went out to my clubs 600 yard practice this morning to shoot up my remaining Palma ammo from last weeks Southwest Nationals match.

The obligatory equipment shots





First MTM box had 2 rounds so I decided to make my wind call, shoot, break position and stand up, rebuild position, make wind call and shoot. A good practice drill for prone shooting. Not perfect, but happy enough with this pair.



Next box had 5 cartridges. Shot straight through with 3 wind corrections IIRC. Group opened up some to 5 inches



Last box had the most... but the wind had really picked up and corrections were in a 2.75 minute spread. Got behind and ping ponged the last two. Did have a decent vertical of a little over 4.2" as you can see. To the O.P., when the wind is sporty, you will still get good load feedback by looking at the vertical dispersion in my opinion.



Have you had any luck locating those 1000 yard targets you promised to post last June?

😂

Good shooten...I never did shoot with all that electronic stuff. And proves a point...the "best" load you develope will not go center target if you miss condition calls.

Is this electronic target tablet the club/facilities or yours or? Can you spill the beans on it?

That’s cool stuff Mike. Thanks for posting. Shooting like that with irons is enviable!

Thanks, these days I get more enjoyment out of "tuning" myself as a shooter than the loads or rifle, although I can handle that well enough . You are absolutely right about the condition calls!

Regarding the electronics, my E Target was a great investment that allows for early morning practice during our Phoenix summers without too much discomfort. A pretty cool electronic trainer that I have just started using was developed by my pair fire training partner who is a software designer in addition to being a shooting member of the US Palma team. With $75 worth of laser, webcam and USB cable your laptop or tablet becomes a dryfire trainer similar to the expensive SCATT systems. Really cool to see your aiming trace throughout the entire shot execution process.





At the 22' distance I use this set up the scaled 1000yard black is .30 inch diameter.

Thanks beretzs. The human eye is great at lining up concentric circles, which is how the match sights work. Its just getting over the intimidation factor when you start out.

For sure Mike. I remember shooting the M16A2 at at 500 meters the first time. I was amazed how easy it actually was to make pretty fair groups with a tight sling and old green tip ammo.

I’d not shot big rifles any further than that. Definitely an eye opener. Made me appreciate aperture sights. Went to OIF I with them and never had a problem engaging with them either.

Keep the pics coming. It’s great to see folks still sling up and shoot rifles on the deck and make itty bitty groups.

This one I own. It's a Silver Mountain Solo purchased 4 or 5 years ago. There is another good one called Shotmarker, which is more available and likely more popular. One of our local clubs has 10 of them and another was waiting for the Solo model to become available but may end up buying the Shotmarkers. Here is a 500 yard club match group I fired on a Shotmarker.

Super cool. Thanks for the tip on ShotMarker - y'all make a guy spend money.

I know this is a thread from a bit back but wanted to give an update and say thanks for all the comments and advice. I never could find some VV powder locally so I had to stay with CFE223 with the 85.5 Bergers but refined the COAL and got consistant .5-.6 MOA with 10 shot groups. MV was probably my weak point in the whole process. I would get 2654-2658 most of the time but would get 2620-2630 or 2670-2680 occasionally. I still have not figured out why but I had to use it with what I had and restrictions in my time before the shoot.

I just got back from the shoot and had an absolute blast. I was really surprised how accurate the Hornady 4DOF ballistics calculator was for elevation. Wind was steady at 5 but had gusts to 10mph, and changed directions by 180 degrees between the bench and the target..really hard to estimate! Mirage was not too terrible. I became pretty proficient out to 750 yards but the last 150 to the 900 yard target really showed how the 223 was running out of steam. I was able to make quite a few hits on steel at 900. A new feat for me. The clay pigeons at 650 and under were toast with my rig. When shooting at 900, if the MV was one of the occasional outliers, I would miss. If it was in the 2650s then it was a hit if I called the wind right.

The other members of the class were shooting a Ruger Precision Rifle in 300PRC, an AR-10 in 308 and a Remington 700BDL with a target stock in 30-06. My rig was a Rem 700 with a 23" Lilja 7 twist barrel. The 308 and 30-06 were shooting 168gr match bullets. I was not able to see how the guy with the AR-10 did but the guy with the RPR was floundering with his optics. It was a Vortex that its max magnification of 50x! He just seemed to not know how it worked. The guy with the 30-06 did really well but his barrel would heat up and throw shots. With a cool barrel, it was deadly. As for me, and the spotter (an RSO) were really surprised how little the wind pushed the 85.5 Bergers vs the 168gr SMKs out of the 30-06 next to me.

In the end, I realize I have a lot more to learn and really need to get better with wind calls and get my ES down on my loads. Now, to build a rifle that is not as retricted as the 223. ANY SUGGESTIONS???

Sounds like you are hooked, the fun is just begining. I wouldn't give up on your .223 yet for the distances you are shooting. I would try N135 under those 85.5s though. Holding vertical is the biggest issue my friend's shooting .223s at 1000 seem to have and they have all switched to N135. I also think one learns to read wind better and more quickly with a little less efficient cartridge/bullet combination.

A step up, which I don't shoot but may start, is a 6 BR. Doesn't use a lot of powder and barrels last a long time. That may be best for single loading or a straight stack detachable mag which I have no firsthand experience with. Plenty of hotter rounds to choose from as you move up from there, and the extra length will feed better from a magazine. Have fun.

.524 vs .462 BC, so why the surprise?

I know for me, the BCs "seem" close but the my wind holds were about half of the guy with the 168s. It is probably my inexperience with BCs at longer ranges. Before this weekend, I never shot past 300 yards.

Wind drift is roughly quadratic with distance. So in going from 300 to 900 you tripled the distance, so the wind effects will show up nine times as much.

We use Shotmarkers at our club( we own eight units)
They are super for shooting, whether doing load workup at 100 yards or for shooting at distance.
I personally shoot three .223 match rifles with sling'n'irons a 1:9, a 1:8, and am lately shooting a great little 1:6.5 that was built on a sleeved 600 action by Jim Dugan, and rebarrelrd by tbe late great Bill Wylde.
All these guns shoot well out to 900 meters, but I keep the 1:9 with 69's at 500 and the other two for the longer stuff.
I use 95 Match Kings and a boat load of Varget in tbe Wylde rifle, and 80.5 Bergers in the 1:8 Sportco.

I have a bit of a time keeping up compared to the Fclass guys shooting 308's , bipod and scopes but I can occasionally scare the crap out of them , placing in the top three. 50 years of shooting in big crazy winds helps!
These are not hunting rifles , and we shoot either 10 or 15 rounds each target, depending on the match.
However , If I threw a scope on any of them I would not hesitate to shoot a coyote at 600 meters with any of them.
An Fclass target has a Vbull of 1/2 MOA, and the
" mouse gun" is quite capable of doing that .
Cat

I'm inclined to believe none of them is shooting the 168 SMK either.

Great 300 meter bullet!