As promised I made it out for some long range work so here’s the good bad and ugly. (no bad or ugly really)
Upon arrival I realized I had forgot to bring my shooting mat so I was forced to shoot off a bench, which I particularly hate with a bipod but the point was moot since it rained torrentially last night, so it was too swampy to shoot prone anyway.
Winds were a little squirrely. I had 3-5 at the target from 9 o’clock. 3-5 mid range from 3 o’clock, and 2-3 in my face at the bench. It appeared wind was entering the range at the target from 9’oclock, then doing S-turns through the clearing until reaching the shooting area. Problem was that that it wasn’t always there and seemed to change direction at will.
Wind flag...
So rather than wait for the wind flags to go slack (there were enough slack windows to do this) I decided to just get on target and shoot through it without correction. For no other reason than I wanted to get as much shooting in as possible within a short 2-hour window. When you factor in setup/cleanup, driving down range to paint, mark, and photograph targets, I was shooting at a pretty good clip. One good thing was that mirage was minimal for a change and there was just a slight haze in the air. What made this really nice was that I had the range to myself so thank you to all you guys that stayed home.
I started with FGMM 168’s and just my bullet flight dope. All targets were 10 shot groups (except the first...there were 2 sighters so 12 rounds) and there were no misses until I transitioned to M118’s...my velocity in bullet flight was off so I missed a few with M118’s. This is the 1st 600 yd target which came in right around 7 inches…
Next 600 yd target came in at around 6.75 with one I pulled right...
I then moved to 800 yds and the 1st try came in at 11 inches. Notice the cold bore shot. 1st 2 shots were slack wind. This target was also a really good example of what the wind was doing. I caught a glimpse of the flag raising right after the 2nd shot…
Done with the 168’s I loaded up some M118 and this was the 1st 600 yd group which was just under 6 inches. I had 3 misses (high) on this target until I finally figured out the M118’s were shooting high…
Then on to 800 yds with M118. I missed 3 shots high then dialed down. This one measured around 10.25 and the wind had picked up. Again, I wasn’t wind correcting or waiting for slack flags. Note the vertical spread...
Now that I was pretty confident on my 800 yard dope I went for a rapid fire string at 800. I sent these pretty quickly waiting only long enough to hear the ring of the previous shot on the plate. There was one miss. Not pretty but if Mr. happy were holding an AK he’d have dropped it quickly and ran…likely not too far though...
Last target was back at 600. I sent 3 high missing one because I dialed back to my 168 dope, forgetting that I was shooting M118’s...
Overall I was very impressed. Under match conditions when taking my time to wait out intermittent winds these groups would tighten up considerably. Plus I’m wobbly shooting a bipod off of a bench so I have to factor this into the equation as well. In reality I was shooting pretty sloppy and quickly given only a 2 hour window. Not too shabby in my book and I’m quite pleased. This should be an F-TAC hammer and a deadly DM or sniper platform.
Before leaving I decided to rack a round to check out the tight chamber problem. When extracting the round I had to put a little ass on it and pulled the case off the bullet. Using a cleaning rod I seated the rod against the round, pushed gently (barely) and the round practically fell out without even so much as a tap on the rod, so it’s still a little tight. Although the way this thing is shooting I don’t feel it’s something that needs attention unless GAP tells me otherwise. Given there’s only 175 rounds through it it will surely loosen slightly. You could easily argue that you shouldn’t be racking a round into a hot chamber that you don’t intend to fire anyway. There were no feed or extraction/ejection problems and the bad PMAG I received worked flawlessly after some lube.
I really really like this thing and I believe I'm sexually aroused
Upon arrival I realized I had forgot to bring my shooting mat so I was forced to shoot off a bench, which I particularly hate with a bipod but the point was moot since it rained torrentially last night, so it was too swampy to shoot prone anyway.
Winds were a little squirrely. I had 3-5 at the target from 9 o’clock. 3-5 mid range from 3 o’clock, and 2-3 in my face at the bench. It appeared wind was entering the range at the target from 9’oclock, then doing S-turns through the clearing until reaching the shooting area. Problem was that that it wasn’t always there and seemed to change direction at will.
Wind flag...
So rather than wait for the wind flags to go slack (there were enough slack windows to do this) I decided to just get on target and shoot through it without correction. For no other reason than I wanted to get as much shooting in as possible within a short 2-hour window. When you factor in setup/cleanup, driving down range to paint, mark, and photograph targets, I was shooting at a pretty good clip. One good thing was that mirage was minimal for a change and there was just a slight haze in the air. What made this really nice was that I had the range to myself so thank you to all you guys that stayed home.
I started with FGMM 168’s and just my bullet flight dope. All targets were 10 shot groups (except the first...there were 2 sighters so 12 rounds) and there were no misses until I transitioned to M118’s...my velocity in bullet flight was off so I missed a few with M118’s. This is the 1st 600 yd target which came in right around 7 inches…
Next 600 yd target came in at around 6.75 with one I pulled right...
I then moved to 800 yds and the 1st try came in at 11 inches. Notice the cold bore shot. 1st 2 shots were slack wind. This target was also a really good example of what the wind was doing. I caught a glimpse of the flag raising right after the 2nd shot…
Done with the 168’s I loaded up some M118 and this was the 1st 600 yd group which was just under 6 inches. I had 3 misses (high) on this target until I finally figured out the M118’s were shooting high…
Then on to 800 yds with M118. I missed 3 shots high then dialed down. This one measured around 10.25 and the wind had picked up. Again, I wasn’t wind correcting or waiting for slack flags. Note the vertical spread...
Now that I was pretty confident on my 800 yard dope I went for a rapid fire string at 800. I sent these pretty quickly waiting only long enough to hear the ring of the previous shot on the plate. There was one miss. Not pretty but if Mr. happy were holding an AK he’d have dropped it quickly and ran…likely not too far though...
Last target was back at 600. I sent 3 high missing one because I dialed back to my 168 dope, forgetting that I was shooting M118’s...
Overall I was very impressed. Under match conditions when taking my time to wait out intermittent winds these groups would tighten up considerably. Plus I’m wobbly shooting a bipod off of a bench so I have to factor this into the equation as well. In reality I was shooting pretty sloppy and quickly given only a 2 hour window. Not too shabby in my book and I’m quite pleased. This should be an F-TAC hammer and a deadly DM or sniper platform.
Before leaving I decided to rack a round to check out the tight chamber problem. When extracting the round I had to put a little ass on it and pulled the case off the bullet. Using a cleaning rod I seated the rod against the round, pushed gently (barely) and the round practically fell out without even so much as a tap on the rod, so it’s still a little tight. Although the way this thing is shooting I don’t feel it’s something that needs attention unless GAP tells me otherwise. Given there’s only 175 rounds through it it will surely loosen slightly. You could easily argue that you shouldn’t be racking a round into a hot chamber that you don’t intend to fire anyway. There were no feed or extraction/ejection problems and the bad PMAG I received worked flawlessly after some lube.
I really really like this thing and I believe I'm sexually aroused