Advanced Marksmanship I'm high on 4/20, and it ain't good

[PinesAndProjectiles]

I don't partake, but I got your attention.

A friend of mine had a guy reach out to him and he was interested in the PRS style of shooting.

So, he invited my friend out to his farm for some shooting and I was lucky enough to tag along.

We set up targets out to 895 yards. Decent.

I zeroed my rifle at 100 yards and went straight to 895. Found the target and maxed out the power on my 3-18 Razor. I dialed 6.8 Mils and sent one. It hit about a Mil high. Dialed down a Mil, impact.

Then went to 805, dialed, sent it, Mil high.

Same thing at 525, and same thing at 430.

Back to 100 yards. Elevation was perfect.

Picked up a buddy's 6XC. Dialed for 805, about a Mil high.
Wtf?

I'm a Mil high on everything except 100 yards on more than 1 rifle.

Temp was 85 degrees and sunny.
Strong head winds at about 11:30/12:00 at 14 or 15 mph.

Mirage wasn't terrible, but was definitely visible.

I can't figure out why I'm consistantly a Mil high on all my targets except @100.

I read an article (link below) and I know mirage can screw with you and I'm guessing that was the problem, but I've never seen it where it caused an issue for four hours worth of shooting, however we stayed in the same general area all day long. Shooting to the South with the sun in our face, which I can't say I shoot under these conditions very often.

Needless to say, I didn't have a successful range day like I had anticipated.

Here's the link to the article, which I found helpful.

https://loadoutroom.com/12938/snipers-mirage-tip-week/

 

[Dthomas3523]

Need:

DA
Velocity
Bullet

Was your buddy a mil high when he shot the rifle as well?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

DA was around 3000.

142 Matchkings at 2822fps.

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

He wasn't, but he says that other people have shot high with his rifle also. Doesnt make sense.

 

[hlee]

Caliber?
Rifle weight?
Position?
How much recoil?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

6.5 Creedmoor
19 pounds
Prone
Shooting suppressed, so not much recoil.

 

[TACC]

Interested in the response

 

[Diver160651]

Mostly how was the range verified..

1mil is rather drastic, so if it was mirage alone, you’d start having trouble bisecting your targets as it would need to be a significant event. From your statements and the fact that others always seem to shoot high too, it would seem range needs to be suspect—-

That said, shooting into low sun angles with particle rich air can also create issue..

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

I doubt it was the range. It was the first time both of us had shot there.
I shot his 223 and was high, but he shot it just fine.

 

[Niles Coyote]

Relax your shoulder, it should have zero muscle tension, get your spine parallel with the bore and trigger your shot on the bottom of your breathing cycle.

 

[seansmd]

I doubt it was the range. It was the first time both of us had shot there.
I shot his 223 and was high, but he shot it just fine.

I think @Diver160651 meant the distance (range) was it verified with a range finder, is there angle involved?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

Oh, yes, range was verified with a rangefinder. The targets were damn near straight our from us. Slight angles, but nothing more than 5 degrees up or down.

 

[Diver160651]

Mostly how was the range verified

Oh, yes, range was verified with a rangefinder. The targets were damn near straight our from us. Slight angles, but nothing more than 5 degrees up or down.

Did you guys verify the target or the backstop?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

There were natural backstops on all the targets that couldn't have been more than 5 yards away. Not enough to make 1mil of difference.

 

[sinister]

Do either of you normally wear glasses or contacts? There may be enough astigmatic error between you to affect how one sees the image over the other's view.

 

[Nik H]

Lighting conditions the same at the remote targets as they are at the 100 yard zero target?

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

Other guy wears glasses, but I was shooting high with his rifle and mine.

We were shooting south on all targets.

 

[smoooth1]

Combination of wind lift and mirage?????????????

 

[Forrest84]

Sounds like range distance needs to be verified......

 

[CShooter92]

Make sure your rangefinder is set to actual shooting range and not direct range. Found that out the hard way yesterday shooting. Buddy had ranged a target at 990 yards. My first shot was about a mil high. I took out my range finder and ranged it at 925 because mine was set to angle modified range and his wasn't

Another thing to look at... Make sure your range and dope are both in the same units (meters or yards). Ie: don't range the target at 895 yards and dial for 895 meters. It sounds so simple but I've seen it screwed up before.

 

[LANCER]

Cosine angle? Was there any declination to the targets?

 

[hlee]

If the target ranges were off, they wound need to be off by a lot to get 1 mil of difference. For example, if range error was to blame at 430, the actual range to target would be 300 yards. That’s a fuck up that cannot be easily explained. Likewise, 1 mil high at “805 yards” would put the actual range at about 720 yards. That’s still a big error.
I think there is a difference between “I was a mil high” and “ I got a hit when I dialed down 1 mil.” How big were the targets? Circles, squares, IPSC, other? How did you measure that you were 1 mil high? Where were the impacts when you got hits?

 

[AIAW]

Same thing happens if I let others fire my rifles (typically only .5 MIL though). Seems to be more pronounced on the AW for some. Dead nuts for me. It's the thumb-hole, get's them every time. Seems less of a problem on the AX/MC or Sako.

I attribute it to a difference (or maybe lack) in fundamentals for the random person behind the rifle. Anyone on an unfamiliar platform that's only firing a handful of rounds isn't going to have time to truly learn the feel of said platform. They also aren't going to have it all adjusted the way it should for them (although I tell them to please adjust whatever they want - they don't... "Nay, it's ok. I like it like this" is the response I get.

It's not like you can strap the rifle down in a rest and test this either (which sucks) but if the owner of the rifle was getting solid hits then I think it's just a case of what others and I have described above. Rather extreme case, but not impossible by any means.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Just a wag here but if you tend to hold the rifle a little lighter than your buddy, the rifle has more time to move in its recoil impulse.
If you've ever shot short range BR, it's easy to demonstrate by shooting four bullets into the group with free recoil. Then add a tiny bit of shoulder contact and the impact will be more than 1/4" lower than the other four.

You can reverse the process and have the fifth shot impact high.

Did your buddy shoot your rifle to see if the impact point matched your dope?

 

[TheGerman]

One of you has better shoulder position and rear bag control than the other.

 

[Steel head]

 

[CATM15]

I just witnessed this at a match last month. Happened to three people. They shot a mil high all the way out to 760 with the correct adjustments. They confirmed after the match in a good prone position and they hit center. I think if falls under the “buck fever” category.

 

[Mr Flannel]

Some time ago, I went through a ‘form slump’ which involved me missing high on live animals (we do a lot of Fox culling down here in Australia). I simply didn’t understand why. Checked everything many times over. Nothing wrong with rifle, optic or load. Good trigger press, at bottom of resp cycle, good NPOA, good sight picture, correct settings on optic - blah, blah etc. Then I finally noticed that I had developed a flinch, which I caught only by chance. Flinch resulted in me pushing downwards/ducking into stock with shoulder at the same time I pressed the trigger. Hey presto, muzzle rise and over the top she went. It only takes a slight movement to put you in musings about “WTAF did that go?”

If you can’t figure anything else, try a ball and dummy shoot (partner cycles random combination of live and inert rounds into chamber while you keep your eyes closed, or loads mag filled with same into your rifle). If you’ve developed a flinch from live fire, it will show - and flinching is something virtually every shooter will need to deal with at some point or the other. Pretty natural response to a detonation occurring so close to your face..

Hope you can figure it out in the end.

Cheers

 

[sta24]

Assuming you had the correct ranges and were applying the fundamentals of precision shooting, I offer you this: About a year ago I had a student who was experiencing the same situation you explained, watched him shoot dry and live-fire to ensure. He was .7 mils high on all targets from 300m and out. Consistent. I then shot his gun; same results. I had him check zero, then I checked zero @ 100m. It was on. We went back to a 300m target and an 800m target (we're shooting 175 SMK for reference). Same results; .7 mils high.

I had another instructor go through the same procedures, and it yielded the same result. At the time, I was on a kick about weapons maintenance, so I had the shooter strip his bore (powder AND copper) that night. Next day we foul his bore with 20 rounds, then move to paper to conduct zero; achieve zero. Moved to steel and his dopes were on. I.E. his dope 1.5 hit center on a 300m target versus the adjusted dope of .8 (that we needed previously), and so on. When we looked at his gun record book he had shot about 1100 rounds without ever running more than a powder solvent through the gun. The theory I came to was his bore had become fouled to the point where it created atypical pressure, causing a velocity increase and therefore higher impacts consistently. That theory is not concrete, but cleaning (stripping) the bore reset it to normal tolerances.

Point being, if you're doing everything right mechanically (range, dope, elevation, wind, applying fundamentals throughout), it could be what I described above which was born after seeing something I hadn't before and thinking of all possible solutions.

 

[Gunfighter14e2]

Temp was 85 degrees and sunny.
Strong head winds at about 11:30/12:00 at 14 or 15 mph.

Mirage wasn't terrible, but was definitely visible.

I can't figure out why I'm consistantly a Mil high on all my targets except @100.

Where in the bullets flight path was the river of wind hitting it. I ask because I have seen head an tail winds do opposite things depending where it was most active during the bullets path. Odd it would be a perfect mil at each yardage though.