Having issues just looking for some help
To start off, were just two regular guys looking to reach out and we have been doing fine on the closer ranges and progressively moving out to the longer ranges ie start at 200 yards push back to 300 make some changes on the scope push back to 400 ect.
Today we ran into some issues though, generally we move back progressively and on top of that our target sits on fairly level ground with the grass chewed down by gophers so splash is easy to see and we generally correct off of that. Today we switched to a more secluded area as to not annoy neighbours and to gain more range. the new area has tall grass and splash doesn't show up well if at all. trace is visible on most shot but can be missed the odd time.
Our budget is pretty limited and we cant afford a laser range finder or a good spotting scope at the moment. We range our targets with my Nightforce 8-32X56 with the NPR2 reticle and it seems to get us by. generally we range the target with the reticle, get a reading in minutes of angle and then input that information into the range estimator on the knights armament bullet flight ballistic program. from there we get our range, look up our drop on the programs range card for the particular round and put that on the scope. It generally doesn't put us right on target but it gets us close enough to see splash and from there we correct off of splash dialling till we have good elevation. The wind is usually pretty slow where were at but its rarely steady so we generally bracket from the low end to the high end, dial for the average and then estimate our hold if the wind strays from the average or wait for the wind to return.
Generally this process seems to work fairly well but today it went out the window. We fire on a 21X21" steel plate, after hanging our plate we gave it a fresh coat of paint and then headed off on the quad to find a decent shooting position. Once in place I measured the target with the NPR2 reticle to be 2MOA, perfectly framed by my vertical hash marks. inputted into the bullet flight program it spat out a range of 972 yards, that seemed long but we gave it a try and didn't come up anywhere close. From trace I could see that we were inline with the target for windage but wasn't sure of our elevation and couldn't pick up anything for splash in the grass. I checked to ensure my scope was dialled to 22X or R on the scope to ensure my power was right, I checked my parallax and still got 2MOA. then I reset my ocular focus, set parallax again still 2MOA. we fired a few more rounds and same thing inline with the target but no splash and no idea on elevation. Thinking it was the Ballistic calculator I tried the inches/MOA X 95.5 method and got 1002 yards. I dialled for that range and still got the same effect. At that point we dropped my rifle (22-250) for a .308 hoping to kick up some dirt. The 308 was zeroed for a 400 yard target we had been shooting previously at the old site and had been hitting consistently, my logic was Id spot through my scope while my partner let off with the 30, Id use my reticle to bring him up by viewing his splash and when we got him on target I would add what he had come up to the seven minutes already dialled for the 400 yard zero. We came up 15.5 MOA to get on target, added to the 7 MOA for the original 400 yard zero we had 22.5 MOA. Looking at the bullet flight range card for the .308 load at our temperature and elevation 22.4MOA is our dope for a shot at 760 yards. Then we dropped the .308 and picked up the 300WSM, we put our adjustments for 760 yards on the scope, we misjudged the wind on our first round but our elevation looked good. Holding our wind correction our second round hit dead centre on the plate. At home I pulled up our area on google earth and used the ruler feature to get a distance between where I perceived our shooting position to be vs our target position based on the features I could recognize from the air. Google confirmed 760 yards (actually 763)
what gives??? any ideas, it seems like the scope isn't ranging effectively there is a pretty big difference between 760 yards and 972, about a 200 yards difference. Have we ran into the limits of reticle ranging, that I know the marines mill targets right out to 1000 yards? Any ideas on how I can fix this should I range at a different power level then the one advised by night force. I think we burnt up $20 worth of shells finding our range and were still trying to save our pennies to buy some decent glass for spotting.
Also how come the bullet flight calculator predicts 972 instead of the 1002 formula I got on paper?? And is the Night force NPR-2 calibrated in true MOA or Shooter MOA maybe that has something to do with it?
To start off, were just two regular guys looking to reach out and we have been doing fine on the closer ranges and progressively moving out to the longer ranges ie start at 200 yards push back to 300 make some changes on the scope push back to 400 ect.
Today we ran into some issues though, generally we move back progressively and on top of that our target sits on fairly level ground with the grass chewed down by gophers so splash is easy to see and we generally correct off of that. Today we switched to a more secluded area as to not annoy neighbours and to gain more range. the new area has tall grass and splash doesn't show up well if at all. trace is visible on most shot but can be missed the odd time.
Our budget is pretty limited and we cant afford a laser range finder or a good spotting scope at the moment. We range our targets with my Nightforce 8-32X56 with the NPR2 reticle and it seems to get us by. generally we range the target with the reticle, get a reading in minutes of angle and then input that information into the range estimator on the knights armament bullet flight ballistic program. from there we get our range, look up our drop on the programs range card for the particular round and put that on the scope. It generally doesn't put us right on target but it gets us close enough to see splash and from there we correct off of splash dialling till we have good elevation. The wind is usually pretty slow where were at but its rarely steady so we generally bracket from the low end to the high end, dial for the average and then estimate our hold if the wind strays from the average or wait for the wind to return.
Generally this process seems to work fairly well but today it went out the window. We fire on a 21X21" steel plate, after hanging our plate we gave it a fresh coat of paint and then headed off on the quad to find a decent shooting position. Once in place I measured the target with the NPR2 reticle to be 2MOA, perfectly framed by my vertical hash marks. inputted into the bullet flight program it spat out a range of 972 yards, that seemed long but we gave it a try and didn't come up anywhere close. From trace I could see that we were inline with the target for windage but wasn't sure of our elevation and couldn't pick up anything for splash in the grass. I checked to ensure my scope was dialled to 22X or R on the scope to ensure my power was right, I checked my parallax and still got 2MOA. then I reset my ocular focus, set parallax again still 2MOA. we fired a few more rounds and same thing inline with the target but no splash and no idea on elevation. Thinking it was the Ballistic calculator I tried the inches/MOA X 95.5 method and got 1002 yards. I dialled for that range and still got the same effect. At that point we dropped my rifle (22-250) for a .308 hoping to kick up some dirt. The 308 was zeroed for a 400 yard target we had been shooting previously at the old site and had been hitting consistently, my logic was Id spot through my scope while my partner let off with the 30, Id use my reticle to bring him up by viewing his splash and when we got him on target I would add what he had come up to the seven minutes already dialled for the 400 yard zero. We came up 15.5 MOA to get on target, added to the 7 MOA for the original 400 yard zero we had 22.5 MOA. Looking at the bullet flight range card for the .308 load at our temperature and elevation 22.4MOA is our dope for a shot at 760 yards. Then we dropped the .308 and picked up the 300WSM, we put our adjustments for 760 yards on the scope, we misjudged the wind on our first round but our elevation looked good. Holding our wind correction our second round hit dead centre on the plate. At home I pulled up our area on google earth and used the ruler feature to get a distance between where I perceived our shooting position to be vs our target position based on the features I could recognize from the air. Google confirmed 760 yards (actually 763)
what gives??? any ideas, it seems like the scope isn't ranging effectively there is a pretty big difference between 760 yards and 972, about a 200 yards difference. Have we ran into the limits of reticle ranging, that I know the marines mill targets right out to 1000 yards? Any ideas on how I can fix this should I range at a different power level then the one advised by night force. I think we burnt up $20 worth of shells finding our range and were still trying to save our pennies to buy some decent glass for spotting.
Also how come the bullet flight calculator predicts 972 instead of the 1002 formula I got on paper?? And is the Night force NPR-2 calibrated in true MOA or Shooter MOA maybe that has something to do with it?
