Range Report Shot to a grand today with 2 semi .308's

[Awesymoto]

My 18" DPMS SASS and my buddies DPMS MA-TEN build... no, not the monolithic upper, in 16"

He was running a cheap optic and ran out of elevation, Basically learned today that Black Hills started producing hotter ammunition as my old lot shot 13.3 and my new lot shot 12.6 mills at 1k.

Also the 175's from black hills caused FTE/FTF every other round in my buddies MA-TEN... 168's from hornady were fine. PMAG 20rnd 7.62 mags were used but only some fit in the MA-TEN upper. it was odd.

well this is my crappy range report!
oh yea it was 900ft asl at 39' F 100% RH 3-4mph winds perfect day. overcast as hell.

 

[ropegun]

Re: Shot to a grand today with 2 semi .308's

How does that elevation compare to what you needed at Rifles Only last month? I didn't think you had to crank the scope that far.

How was the 175 accuracy at 1,000? I suspect the pills were subsonic, based on your elevation. Just curious, as people report the 168 SMK gets a bit goofy through transonic.

How was the 168 Hornady at 1,000? You may recall that Jack Jr. didn't like them at all past 900 -- his results at 1,000 were pretty crappy until he switched to 175's.

 

[Awesymoto]

Re: Shot to a grand today with 2 semi .308's

The 168 Amax's were all over the place, and were doping beyond 14 mills out of the 16" pipe. Switched to 175's at 1000 mid way through.

At R/O i was firing 13.5 Mils with my old lot. It shot .2 mils less... at 13.3 in MN. Accuracy was acceptable for torso sized hits. I opened a new box of 500 up and fired 3 random boxes. ALL doped around 12.6. shot another 5 from the old lot and it was 13.3 still. There was almost no wind, I held a .3 mil hold all day.

The 175's seemed to go transonic very well. there was no sideways or oblong looking holes in the targets. .5 mil targets were easy to hit but challenging to stay on for more than 3 hits in a row... Could be me.

Interesting enough the new lot doped to what the M118 LR would have. I am really suspecting BH of just changing their lots... after i get another case i'll see if its consistently hotter or if I received a hot batch. I still had 3 boxes of other BH purchased early 2010 and that was doping the same as the ammo I used at R/O.

Oh yeah, 16" pipe with a PWS brake in .308 sucks to be by. My surefire ear pro did very little to save my head.

Edit: Brad did you get my e-mail? Received the goodies...

 

[ropegun]

Re: Shot to a grand today with 2 semi .308's

I expected the 168 A-Max's to be challenged at long distance. Too bad, because they kick ass for me out to 300 yards (the farthest I've taken them to date). SMK 168 also is uber accurate in my rifle out to 300, however they supposedly don't play nice at transonic speeds. Good to have feedback that the SMK 175s weren't key holing on you.

I didn't realize you required that much elevation to get to 1,000 at RO. I heard a few students talk of 11.0 to 11.4 mils. My short-ish GAP took 40 MOA (yep, old skul, baby), or 11.5 mils if my math works.

Hope the climbing gear works well for you, once you return to places that actually have cliffs. My sister thought it was pretty cool that we found a new home for her "retired" hardware.

It's relatively warm and dry here. Skiing sucks. I shot sporting clays today, since the tournament season starts in 4 weeks. Strange -- the shotgun seemed quite different than a rifle. One shooter commented that clays at 50-60 yards just seemed too far out there to hit. I said, dude, try steel at 1,000 -- these clays seem pretty darn close to me.

Steel "prairie dog" rifle matches will start up in a couple of months. It sounds like there's a cool 40- or 50-shot match not too far from me, with targets set at various distances between 200 and 600 yards. Baby steps. Maybe the Steel Safari competition one of these years.

Shoot well. Happy new year.