Friday, April 08, 2005
Delayed Range Report
Me and the Old Man got out yesterday. I was a bit knackered last night, thus the delayed post.
The temperature was upwards of 65 degrees and the wind wasn't bad to start. I'm beginning to get my back of the neck "redneck" appearance a little early on in the year. Eventually the wind picked up, as it is wont to do around this time of the year.
We basically divided our time between the Boomershoot rifle and the Garand, which is going to be the back-up/optional event rifle.
The Garand performed excellently. The Old Man was regularly clocking 1 out of four hits at a gong that exceeded 300 yards. I always lag a bit, but was able to get the same stats on the last clip I fired through.
Initially, I started gonging the .30-06 as warm up. Past a point though, using match ammo to nail a gong starts to reveal itself as a uniquely stupid idea. Then we went to paper. I shot an initial group, pictured below, at the 400 yard range that the rifle is sighted at. Given that my spotting scope is a POS we had to wait until the range went cold to check it out. By this time the winds had picked up a bit.
I was very happy with the group and am growing more confident that I won't make an ass of myself at this event. I set up two more targets (I have, what I think to be, a bad cant problem) so as to see if the Old Man would have any problem firing a rifle I sighted.
That made no difference as the crosswind picked up with a veangance. My second target is not pictured, as there was one on paper and the other two on the board. The first pic is the Old Man's group. He was not on the board, windage wise, but it is a dynamite group for 400 yards and a rifle that he is thoroughly inexperienced with. Given the uptake in wind, I don't know where he would have clocked on paper, but that group at that range makes me think like I won't look like the amateur who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing at Boomershoot.
After that, I drove out and set the target up at 600 yards. I drove back and the range got called "hot" and the target blew over as I was sighting in on it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with the now patented Old Man-Thompson treatment of Celotex (translation: he spends a half an hour blowing a head-sized hole in the target board, for amusement.) I flipped a .22 steel target with the Model 41 and we went home.
All in all, a good day. I accomplished more than I wanted to, even with the wind and I can shoot .22 til' the cows come home.
The temperature was upwards of 65 degrees and the wind wasn't bad to start. I'm beginning to get my back of the neck "redneck" appearance a little early on in the year. Eventually the wind picked up, as it is wont to do around this time of the year.
We basically divided our time between the Boomershoot rifle and the Garand, which is going to be the back-up/optional event rifle.
The Garand performed excellently. The Old Man was regularly clocking 1 out of four hits at a gong that exceeded 300 yards. I always lag a bit, but was able to get the same stats on the last clip I fired through.
Initially, I started gonging the .30-06 as warm up. Past a point though, using match ammo to nail a gong starts to reveal itself as a uniquely stupid idea. Then we went to paper. I shot an initial group, pictured below, at the 400 yard range that the rifle is sighted at. Given that my spotting scope is a POS we had to wait until the range went cold to check it out. By this time the winds had picked up a bit.
I was very happy with the group and am growing more confident that I won't make an ass of myself at this event. I set up two more targets (I have, what I think to be, a bad cant problem) so as to see if the Old Man would have any problem firing a rifle I sighted.
That made no difference as the crosswind picked up with a veangance. My second target is not pictured, as there was one on paper and the other two on the board. The first pic is the Old Man's group. He was not on the board, windage wise, but it is a dynamite group for 400 yards and a rifle that he is thoroughly inexperienced with. Given the uptake in wind, I don't know where he would have clocked on paper, but that group at that range makes me think like I won't look like the amateur who doesn't know what the fuck he's doing at Boomershoot.
After that, I drove out and set the target up at 600 yards. I drove back and the range got called "hot" and the target blew over as I was sighting in on it.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with the now patented Old Man-Thompson treatment of Celotex (translation: he spends a half an hour blowing a head-sized hole in the target board, for amusement.) I flipped a .22 steel target with the Model 41 and we went home.
All in all, a good day. I accomplished more than I wanted to, even with the wind and I can shoot .22 til' the cows come home.
