Long Distance Shooting Session

[Art Eatman]

A buddy of mine showed up with a new pet--a Model 700 with a heavy, fluted, 20" barrel in .308. Leupold 3.5X10 scope. It drives tacks from his benchrest, but he's limited to 100 yards.

So, I took a couple of lids from 55-gallon drums, painted them white and put 3" aiming dots in the centers. Hung them in some brush across the creek at 400 yards and 250 feet below our "settin' spot".

No bench rest, just blankets over some rocks. Variable winds, to make life interesting. He had brought some sort of surplus military ball ammo.

Had to hold some 18" above the edge of the lid to hit near center. Windage varied from dead center to one foot upwind of the edge of the lid, or some two feet + of drift.

We took turns, until he got mad at me...

I dug out "Ol' Deerbuster", and a mixed bag of various '06 stuff. Accelerator, 110-gr, 150-grain pet loads.

Comments: A 26" barrelled '06 has a higher muzzle velocity than a 20" barrelled .308, particularly with my 150-gr handloads compared to GI ball .308. It is about eight inches of vertical hold better, and about the same for windage.

For a while, we were shooting the .308 into an "incoming" wind. It noticeably slowed the bullets, resulting in hitting at low 6 o'clock.

I plan on building a benchrest at that shooting site, and moving the targets out to 500 yards. Sometime this month, maybe...Will report, if and when...

Regards, Art

 

[fal308]

I wish my club had some distance like that to shot at. Sigh........

 

[Dennis Glover]

Art,
Have your friend load some 125gr nosler bt's with 42gr of AA2015 and 168gr AMAX with 39.5gr of AA2015 and get sighted in for about 200 yd and see how they do on out with some elevation adjustment.
I shoot these and they have been very good to me on out to 450 yd's.

 

[Art Eatman]

Fal308: That's part of why I moved here. We now have two guys with bolt-action .50s, and I'm trying to promote 1,000-yard, one-mile, and two-mile shoot-offs between them...Scoring by radio, I guess.

Dennis: Thanks. Will pass that info along. I became a fan of the boat-tailed bullet when I read that the original .30-'03 (yes, '03) bullet was a 172-gr BT. Later, because of complaints about recoil with that load in the Springfield 1903, they went to the 153-gr flat-based bullet. The effective range of the BT was two miles (maximum range three miles) but the FB was listed as "only" 1-1/2 miles. Read about the aerodynamics effectiveness of the BT. Sierra was one of the first to make a 150-gr. BT...

(The .30-'03 became the .30-'06 when they shortened the case neck. If you run across any rifle marked ".30-'03", it will happily shoot the '06. There's a rare version of the Winchester Model 95, saddle-ring carbine, floating around out there...)

I was pleased with my hunting load's performance. I've only taken two deer at what I'd call long distance: One at around 450 (guessing by bullet drop) and one at around 350 (same guessing).

 

[fal308]

Art
There was a company (forget the name) selling bolt action 50 cal rifles at Knob Creek last weekend. Every time I went by their table there was at least one person writing a check or pulling out a wad of cash for one.

 

[Cheapo]

Art, you missed a step on the '03 to '06 M2 Ball development.

The .30-'03 was another example of US military being a bit behind the times. It was a 220 Gr ROUND nose, which required a pretty long neck to keep a good grip on through rough handling (lotta bullet nose out there, like old 6.5 x 55mms I've seen).

In '06, they went with the M1 round you described. Much longer range for the tripod-mounted machine gunners.

Then came the recoil complaints from the troops shooting those bolt guns. M2 Ball was born, supposedly with an "advantage" of allowing more headroom above the troops as they advanced in front of the MGs. Slightly more curved trajectory, a bit more room under the rainbow, so to speak...

BTW, all WWI ammo was still copper-nickle jackets. We fought in the trenches with "silver" bullets!

Back on topic, I like ringing gongs at 500 meters on the local HP Silhouette range.

Bang. Watch it wiggle. Then hear the smack-ring sound of success...

With the mouseguns, though, there's hardly any wiggle and you gotta strain to hear the "Pink" when they hit. There's a 600-yard line where I've done that, too. Big 24-inch gong, easy to hit prone.

It's a smile-generating activity, for sure!