Long Range Shooting

[HHB Guns]

I handloaded some new loads the past few days and finally made it out to the range today for some long range testing. Honestly in my opinion there is nothing more gratifying than pulling the trigger at 0 yards and waiting 2 seconds for the impact on the steel at 800 yards. Well I couldnt be happier with the loads I developed. It held a 5" four shot group at 800. There was about a 5mph cross wind but I was nailing shot for shot on a 10" gong. I ended the day by shooting 4 shot on a paper target just so I could check the MOA. I am throughly impressed with Carolina Custom rifles work as it has offical passed the long range test. I am just over 1/2 MOA now and I plan to play with seating depth now to fine tune it below 1/2MOA.

Load Data .308 Win:
Lapua Brass
168 Gr. SMK
46.5 Gr Hogden H380
COAL: 2.805"
Fed Gold Medal match primers

 

[thebrasilian]

:shock: 800 yards!!

Remind me to stay on your good side!!

 

[Dave29461]

No matter how good the rifle is... the rifleman pulls the trigger. Great shooting, Henry.

 

[mark_b]

Henry

Very impressive shooting performance. What is the base rifle - a Remington 700 or something else?

I wold be interested to know how they set it up for you.

 

[HHB Guns]

Thanks guys!

Mark ...the gun is a Rem 700 short action that has been blueprinted and trued. It has a Lilja 23" Heavy fluted barrel. HS Precision aluminum bedded stock that has been glass skim bedded over. It has a 12oz custom two stage trigger and special firing pin and spring to decrease lock time.

Scope is the new bushnell elite tactical 6-24x50 first focal plane Illumin mil reticle....Its bad ass. I shot today with a good customer of mine thats a lawyer. He was shooting with premier scope on a Sako TRG-22..Can you say $3500 scope and $2700 gun. Needless to say he was having a very difficult time seeing the 800 today and his group showed it. He shot a 10 inch group. I was not impressed. Now I have to give him credit. He shot same bullet hole 5 shot group at 100 yards but why the hell do you need a $3500 scope to shoot close? I could see it crystal clear with my $1500 scope with no mirage at 24 power.

 

[HHB Guns]

Well I have survived 3 days of my 4 day Long Range Hunter Course at the Gun Club. All I can say is WOW!! Had a range day today and next Sunday and I had no idea how much I didn't know but it all came together 100% and now I know just enough to be deadly with my gun at 1000 Yards. The instructor has been a 50 year long range hunter and has killed anything from a grizzly to a lion. He was the best instructor I have had in a long time. He is a professional structural engineer so he knows his math but would dumb it down ofr each equation so even I could understand it. I haven't done so many math problems to include trigonometry and geometry Since high school. The difference in school was I didn't want to learn it but this is way diff story now. I cant learn enough. I find myself on the net the past 3 days just searching for more tips and info to make me a better long range shot....

If anybody is interested in shooting long range I would love to have you come shoot with me.

Also if you are into long range shooting and you have an android phone you def need to buy the program called "Shooter". Its $9.99 and it is the best program I have found for ballistics hand down.It has been right on the money everytime, gathers weather from GPS on your phone, Has an angle indicator built in to the program. (turn it on and set the phone flat on your barrel and it gets the angle and then you press "hold" and it adds that shot angle to the ballistics and tells you what to compensate for.)...I can't say enough about this app and even my instructor was impressed...I bought the program about 2 months ago but it had so many fill in the blanks I never used it cause I had no clue what they were asking for. NOW I DO.

The most valuable thing I learned is no scopes turrets are an exact MOA turn or 1/4" turn. Even the $2000 models are off. There is a formula where you shoot your scope at 10, 20, and 30 MOA and take the actual up on paper and figure out what its increase rate is....Now all you 100-300 yard shooters would never care about this at closer distances but when you are shooting at a deer at 800 yards and you go up 25 moa on your turrets....in reality your going 26.5 moa cause instead of one click being .250" its actually .266" that would be chalked up as a miss because thats a 12" difference at 800. Most good ballistics programs online allow you to put a correction on your turret turn rate which will give you more accurate comeups. Including the shooter program on my phone.

If you are looking for one of the best ballistic programs on the market my instructor would send you to www.gseven.com

Just thought I would share my weekend with you guys.

 

[jmt2566]

Thanks for sharing, that is interesting!

Jeff

 

[Clicker]

Definitely more interesting (read fun) than cutting up plywood and spraying pigmented post-catalyzed varnish all weekend.

Glad to hear that you put it all together - nice job on the math too!

 

[Enjay]

It is very interesting Henry, thank you.
I would ask if you are aware of any online resources that explains some of the things you're talking about?

 

[Dave29461]

Glad to hear you made it through. We'll all be picking your brain. I'm from the low country, born and bred, so 100 or 200 yds is a long shot for me. I would like to see how much I can wring out of the service rifles I've built. Hope I can try the long range.

 

[HHB Guns]

Glad to hear you made it through. We'll all be picking your brain. I'm from the low country, born and bred, so 100 or 200 yds is a long shot for me. I would like to see how much I can wring out of the service rifles I've built. Hope I can try the long range.

Dave I would love to shoot with you long range. You know my number. Here lately I look for any reason to go kill some 6" steel.

 

[HHB Guns]

It is very interesting Henry, thank you.
I would ask if you are aware of any online resources that explains some of the things you're talking about?

I will scan my 100 page manual into a pdf and email it to you and anybody else who might want it. It has tons of useful equations and info. Our instructor also compiled a CD with folders upon folders of tools and programs and useful resources as well.

Honestly I learned the basics about MOA and long range shooting from many sites.
1. The TV show called long range pursuit. They have an awesome website with useful how too videos and tips. They hunt on the show weekly with average shots from 500-1300 yards. http://www.longrangepursuit.com/shooting-tips
2.Long range Hunting Website- A very knowledgeable person with tons of reading material, reviews, tips. http://www.longrangehunting.com/
3.Snipers Hide- If your willing to weed through the Bull SHIAT of arse HOLES stupid mean posts you can actually find some very good informative discussions pertaining to long range guns and shooting experiences and what to do to not happen to you. I must say that most new users are harassed and I do not post anything because plainly they are 99% all the time RUDE. I would more than likely get kicked off the first day because I would tell one of these 15,000 posts butt holes to go F^&*& themselves.
http://www.snipershide.com/
4. Lilja Barrels- This is the barrel I use and he wrote a good 3 page article on long range shooting/hunting
http://www.riflebarrels.com/articles/lo ... unting.htm
5. I am currently reading this book. Everything that happens to your bullet when it leaves the barrel. Called external ballistics. http://www.appliedballisticsllc.com/ind ... s/Book.htm
6. I was also told to read this book because it has a very good chapter on internal ballistics which covers everything while its in the gun. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811703509/ref ... Code%3Dasn
7. And another good read. http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Fir ... 0964559846.
8. And last but not least. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1420066188/ref ... Code%3Dasn

I plan on reading all 4 of these books one at a time and then reselling them on amazon. If I can learn one thing from each book then I 4 steps ahead of the guy who didnt read them....

I have a pretty good goal. We have a 60 year old guy at our club named Malcolm and he builds his own rifles himself and he currently holds the PGC record at 600 yards with a 20 round group of 1.5". My goal is to be as good as him when I hit 60. Needless to say I have a lot of work ahead of me.



Between all of these websites I found everything I needed to know to be able to hit steel on good days at the club out to 800. Now with the course it has given me the beginning skills to make those bad day shots become achievable.

 

[Dave29461]

That sounds like a great idea, Henry. I'd like an organized approach to learning about long range shooting. That is quite a large list of resource material. When you are into a new pursuit there is never enough information.

 

[Pops]

Henry, Bring that gun to the ShootzenFest. I'd like to get a short exhibition. I don't see as well as I used to but, I think it'd be fun to see it in action. Of course teh Range is only 100 yards, but that's plenty far enough away for me.

I've often said I can shoot real good 500 yards as long as I can do it in 25 yard increments.

:shock:

 

[HHB Guns]

I picked up a hell of a deal this past weekend out at the club. One of my buddies bought a HS Precision tactical Adjustable stock last year and ended up not using it. He found another stock that fit his .920" barrel better. Bad for him good for me. He paid $599 and sold it to me for $200. I gave it to my rifle smith and he skim bedded with marine-tex over the aluminum block yesterday and dropped it off today. So what would have cost me $750 after bedding cost me $350. I love deals like this. I already ordered the paint and stencils yesterday to do the GA Precision GAP camo. I figured if I couldn't have the $4500 rifle I could atleast have the paint job.

Below is a few pictures of the new black stock and the last one is of a GAP rifle with the paint job I'm doing on mine.