Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Ladder test, How, why?

If in all this discussion, in a long range forum, we are after just under 2 moa, I'd just google loads and read a fair bit and come up with a few verifications by threads, that a given load is fairly commonly good... and run with it.

It doesn't take much at all to hit 8 inch steel at 500 yards. I could do that with the generic AR load of 25 varget and 69 sierras and CCIbr4 in almost any AR i've ever had. With iron sights.

Well maybe we don't understand here what folks are after. New barrels were at least 2 a year when I was shooting. That was a given.

I took an Audette, grabbed the niddle of a top node and won a regional match 3 days later. But while I won, I kept tweaking that load to verify and made it better by the time I won the next regional match, with a load that beat David Tubb in the 600 yard stage, and beat Paul LaBerge in the same stage. Setting a range record in the process. Still was not done tweaking...

I don't waste shots. I run a quick test and start shooting. You can tweak or play with it as you go.

My goal has always been .5 moa for 10 shot group at the max distance I shoot.

I don't shoot at every distance, but for XC ammo, max is 600, I test final tests at 600. Many times at matches while competing.

If you've read I use an Oehler 35 also. I don't print as I jot down what I need.

I cannot answer your question as to why. But I"ve seen it more than a few times. And as I've said its repeatable and I'm not the only one on this thread confirming that.

There are a LOT of things I can't answer when it comes to guns and why... thats why my decision was to trust targets IE the results, not teh supposed results.

I dont' win matches by having the lowest ES/SD over a chrono at a match. I win by having the most Xs in the center and not dropping a point through the string.

What folks maybe are not willing to admit here, is some of us confirm that while we feel its not smart to trust a chrono blindly... that we aren't searching for the worst ES/SD. We watch them, but believe teh paper.

If I get time to shoot a bunch again, instead of just maybe a few hundred rounds a year that I do now, I'll try to set up a ladder and keep the data and print it one day.

Probably would not believe myself and trust info like you do, if all I did was shoot a bit, and not up to 20K rounds of 223 a year when we were shooting competition.

As noted, if I really wanted to run in a hurry, Audette, grab middle of top node, and for a couple hundred yard rifle, probably never look back.

And if in a real hurry zero it with one shot and start hunting. If I have BC and MV I can probably make a hit on the 2nd shot after the single zero in round, easily on game out to 400-500 yards with a good ballistics program.

Worst part, or best part, if we were all face to face around a campfire, we'd all come to teh conclusion our needs are all different and we all basically do things somewhat the same with minor tweaks.

Though I"m glad I dont' start with 5 shot groups liek was the norm in the 70s....

Rost,

My post wasn't clear. 2-moa ain't the goal. But with hunting rifles, I'm fine with 1-moa out to 500y. Not LR rifles, but this is what we are working with this weekend.

The 8" steel is my way of weeding out shooter, rifle, load, field rest, etc. Gotta hit the 8" steel, in the center section although we sometimes let perimeter hits slide . Sometimes see 2-ft pieces of a steel or paper shot at 500y, and then guys measuring groups. A tight group on the edge of the manhole cover doesn't mean much to me unless we are shooting in wind.

I shoot my Montucky 7-08 with 6x at 500y a quite a bit. Pics below were shot on a day with slight wind right-to-left, with occasional gust left-to-right. Stuck 3 shots together, and dropped one low. I'm ok with these shooting off my pack, rapidfire with a lightweight hunting rifle. I don't know what happened with the one to the right (pulled it, gust, ?). I practice setting up quick and getting shots off fast. The rusty impacts in the center were from the previous session, and typical of what I'm looking for.

Jason

Did not hold for wind...

4th,

It's 80+ pages of Window Lickers doing their "best".

Never had a chance to go any other way,either.(grin)










SquatToPee,

Your best connect percentages,are ALWAYS gonna be when you quote me. Sweetheart,that ain't "new",to anyone but you. Hint.

Now ain't it a [bleep] perpetual hoot,that even someone as [bleep] incredibly STUPID as you,knows wayyyyyyyy better than to try and talk anything in the first hand?!? Great call,to walk miles away from all things The Rifle.

Bless your heart.

Laffin'!









'flave,

You buy floral wallpaper,hang it up and start shooting different loads at different flowers...then pick up a 4-leaf clover and summons the Imagination and Pretend requisite,to admonish your chronograph.

Culmination is breath holding,feet stomping and coming clean that the last 30+ years of doing so,just might notta been an ideal.

Laffin'!









Gibby,

Worst part bein',the dovetail crowds the aft of the ejection port.

It's an Epoxy Show.










Dooshmike,

In fairness to The Paper Hat Brigade...there likely ain't a tinged pane in their proximity.

Problem bein' there's a coupla words there,that the poor Stupid [bleep] is gonna haveta Google,before they collectively nod their heads in unison.

Laffin'!









MagnumDoosh,

You never did state and I remain curious...just how loud is your Imagination when you "shoot" it?!?

This Thread is [bleep] awesome and is only lacking Jeff-O now.

[bleep] WOW +P+,you poor poor stupid [bleep]!

Laffin'!









7mm,

I'll try to nab some fresh video footage this next pass,if'n I can leave the Chrome alone long enough,to do so.

Tough to get enough DOF,to see the shooter,chronograph and target all in the same frame. Hell...mebbe Igotsa reason to buy another camera now.(grin)









'lia,

I soooooooooooooo enjoy that Stupidity ain't an Act for you.

Congratulations?!?

Laffin'!










'247,

308's so rule,you are REALLY in the know.

Laffin'!










As an aside...what happened to Pouty Hunter?!? Haybale get her?

Laffin'!

Jason

With research and a good gun, even factory guns these days, I expect that a reseached first load will give me MOA unless I"m using a bit more picky of a bullet.

Dont' have to do load research etc... really if you don't want to. THere are known go to loads for most any caliber.

RE the right hit. you should know instantly if you pulled it. Thats kinda a given. That hit would tell me there was a condition that I missed. It happens. But I trust what I see when the gun goes off inherently. Mr La Berge taught me that some years ago... many actually... you shoot better than that, if its off its a condition, unless you know you pulled it. And that should be obvious. And thats not a swing at you at all. Just saying.

Light rifles take a lot more work to shoot well, NPA, body position/tension on the gun has to be very consistent. And of course with the light ones sometimes floating the tube istn' the answer, someitmes it needs a pressure point. Or full length bedding.
Everything is harder with the lighter guns.

I like shooting prone over a pack in teh field if I can make it work. I actually prefer it to my bipod. The bipods can be really picky and if you aren't putting forward pressure on them , they can put some strange varying harmonics in the gun. F class run slick PTFE feet for that reason.

I tell you what it would sure be fun to see everyone in this thread show up at the Whittington center Sporting Rifle Match. Seems to me we'd figure out who is talking out their @ss and who isn't.

What a co-ink-a-dink

I'm there almost every month. I share the course record with about 4 other guys since it began.

Me too! LOL.

Always wanted to shoot a sporting rifle match. Its funny when you choose a sport you tend to stick with it.

We did have fun before we got real serious about highpower service rifle... we cross trained in smallbore silhouette, bullseye pistol, 3P smallbore, and IDPA/IPSC.

Wanted to shoot highpower silhouette but nothing really close and by that time we had so much money invested in gear for highpower it just wasn't in the cards!

Load development though, either short or long, hard or easy, as long as you get to a result, isn't what wins matches, its the shooter once the gear is good.

Something was off, but I don't recall what happened with that shot. The pics were from Dec 2013. I've shot that target a bunch of times since then and have lost track of the details. Only took pics for someone complaining about a light hunting rifle.

Pretty dang cool to have that nearby. What size targets?

Wow.
Who are the other two guys?

That's the grand thing about getting the best load you can and learning to shoot. Eventually you trust yourself enough to either know you yanked or flinched or whatever... or the shot was good and there is NO reason it should be there where it is, so you learn to stop right there and really search out the reason so you can learn... hopefully avoid the next one.

http://forum.snipershide.com/tactic...ly-sporting-rifle-match-raton-nm-13.html

moosemike lives in Pennsylvania. I think he was joking and has never shot it.

crap you is a video star too!

Its a disease.
I thought my Competition days were over when I quit short range BR 20 + years ago.
Then the Ridgway rifle club started 1000 silhouette.
Its gotten pretty big.
2 years ago they had 80 guys for a match.
These days its more like 120.

True story.
Tubbs used to shoot the offhand stuff at Ridgway.500 yards.
He brought his chin gun several times...kicked butt.
And then they banned his gun.
He never came back.
dave

any shooting sport can be a disease.

The first year we quit, I had withdrawals.

But after a number of years now going to Alaska for 2 weeks instead of Perry, i'm over the withdrawals.

Tubb could kick tail without a chin gun. What about his factory class wins....

Only a window licker would have taken me serious.