Range Report

I had a good day at the range this last Saturday. In hopes of beating the rush (and the heat) I got there early and was shooting by 8:30. As it happened, I had the entire facility to myself until nearly 1pm.

I started out at the 300 yard line using ammo of my own creation. Batch #19 has shown real promise at the 200 yard line when fired against my other loads, and against off the shelf stuff. So this was my first opportunity to fire it at a longer distance.

My group at 300 yards was strangely out of whack, and I don’t have a good reason. It might be the clouds of mosquitoes I was fighting off, or it might have been the bug repellant that the sweat kept carrying into my eyes. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t thrilled with my 300 yard line results and moved out to the 400 yard line with some trepidation.

At 400 yards my group of three shots was 3 and 3/4 inches. At 500 yards my group measured 4 and ½ inches. Moving back to the 600 yard line I fired a 6 and ½ inch group, and at 700 yards my group measured 10 inches.

My dope as provided by Bryan Litz’s program, Point Mass Ballistics Solver was right on the money the whole way! If the day hadn’t been so blisteringly hot, and the mosquitoes and gnats not been on the assault throughout the day, I am sure that I could have done even better.

The other positive factor I am convinced is the Outer’s Foul Out barrel cleaner that I used to strip the copper fouling from my heavily used rifle. I made a mistake in not starting at the 200 yard line so I don’t have comparative data for before and after the barrel cleaning. But I was just so darned anxious to get out beyond 200 yards that I stifled my good instincts and went directly to 300 yards. That is the one part of my day at the range that I regret!