I went out to the hills today with a couple friends and we were shooting a variety of rifles at 1600 and 2200.
The odd thing was the vertical stringing we were getting with my 37XC. All three of us experienced it. I was chono-ing every shot, and we'd see a few shots either hit or go slightly to one side (wind was a factor), then the next go way high or way low - like a mil+ high or low. Velocity was very similar between the shots. When we checked the target at the end of the day, we found a number of nearly intact bullets. The interesting thing was that we found a few that had packed dirt on the back side of the bullet, indicating that the bullet impacted the dirt ass end first. Either they ricocheted and impacted back in, or they were tumbling, which I find to be unlikely, considering the bullets should not go subsonic until about 2800 yards. Bullets were Lehigh 353s, muzzle velocity was roughly 3035 - 3045 fps., DA 2400', temp 55, wind at roughly 5:00, 8-12 mph and gusty.
Pic of the recovered bullets:
I'm interested in the ring around the near center of all the bullets (approximately where the neck terminates on seating). Closer in (up to ~a mile), this rifle with this bullet does pretty well. Farther out, things start to fall apart.
On a side note, all the rain we're getting in Cali is making the hills come alive with wild flowers - shooting in this environment right now is surreal.
The odd thing was the vertical stringing we were getting with my 37XC. All three of us experienced it. I was chono-ing every shot, and we'd see a few shots either hit or go slightly to one side (wind was a factor), then the next go way high or way low - like a mil+ high or low. Velocity was very similar between the shots. When we checked the target at the end of the day, we found a number of nearly intact bullets. The interesting thing was that we found a few that had packed dirt on the back side of the bullet, indicating that the bullet impacted the dirt ass end first. Either they ricocheted and impacted back in, or they were tumbling, which I find to be unlikely, considering the bullets should not go subsonic until about 2800 yards. Bullets were Lehigh 353s, muzzle velocity was roughly 3035 - 3045 fps., DA 2400', temp 55, wind at roughly 5:00, 8-12 mph and gusty.
Pic of the recovered bullets:
I'm interested in the ring around the near center of all the bullets (approximately where the neck terminates on seating). Closer in (up to ~a mile), this rifle with this bullet does pretty well. Farther out, things start to fall apart.
On a side note, all the rain we're getting in Cali is making the hills come alive with wild flowers - shooting in this environment right now is surreal.
