My shooting partner and I have been hitting a local range and shooting matches on the weekends.
We shot a 300 yard any rifle any sight match, service rifle and this past Sunday a 100 yard BR match.
Neither of us own a BR setup so we just brought what we had and figured on having some fun.
My partner brought his Savage model 10 LE rifle in 308 with a 6.5-20 Leupy.
I brought my Rem. 700 223AI that Jered @ APA trued and barreled with a Broughton 5R for me a few years back.
It's currently set up in an HS LTR stock with a Night Force 2.5-10 x 32 scope. I installed a stainless Rem trigger but never tuned it as it was good enough for field use.
Lacking a front rest I brought 3 shot bags, 2 filled with sand & one with nylon beads, and a Protektor rear bunny ear bag.
As we were setting up we got quite a few comments about the rifles.
The other shooters were kind enough to not to laugh outright.
Everyone else was shooting custom actioned 6PPC's, one guy had a sleeved Rem action in 222.
When I got behind my rifle and looked at the target through that 10x I realized I might be in over my head.
My load is 4064 behind a hBN coated 75 AMAX. I set up on the warmup target and fired my first shot, which to my delight was right in the "mothball".
I fired 3 more warm ups that felt pretty good but when I looked at the group I saw a distinct split group.
The first two strings went well and my focus fell off for the last 3.
Between the low magnification scope and stiff trigger, I got frustrated.
After the last string we went downrange and retrieved our targets.
1 & 2 looked pretty good to me and I noticed that the split group I got on the warmup target wasn't entirely my fault.
My first shot was where it should be and the next three were .5" to the right in a little knot.
The surprise was the random 30 cal hole from my shooting partner on my target
.
I turned in my target and with little surprise ended up in dead last and agged a .5022 which might lead most of the BR shooting community to their cars with a length of hose.
On the other hand, I was pretty happy with the outcome.
The rifle obviously wants to shoot much tighter than I can hold.
With more practice I think it will agg solidly in the 3's.
I'm never going to win a BR match with the rifle but continuing in further shoots will be a motivation to be a better marksman.
In my opinion shooting BR in conjunction with other practices is a test of my loading technique and gun handling.
I'm going to shoot the match next month with the same rifle, but tune the trigger and swap out optics.
It will be interesting to see how much those factors effect my score.
My first two, and best, groups of the day:
I couldn't be happier with the rifle that APA built me.
We shot a 300 yard any rifle any sight match, service rifle and this past Sunday a 100 yard BR match.
Neither of us own a BR setup so we just brought what we had and figured on having some fun.
My partner brought his Savage model 10 LE rifle in 308 with a 6.5-20 Leupy.
I brought my Rem. 700 223AI that Jered @ APA trued and barreled with a Broughton 5R for me a few years back.
It's currently set up in an HS LTR stock with a Night Force 2.5-10 x 32 scope. I installed a stainless Rem trigger but never tuned it as it was good enough for field use.
Lacking a front rest I brought 3 shot bags, 2 filled with sand & one with nylon beads, and a Protektor rear bunny ear bag.
As we were setting up we got quite a few comments about the rifles.
The other shooters were kind enough to not to laugh outright.
Everyone else was shooting custom actioned 6PPC's, one guy had a sleeved Rem action in 222.
When I got behind my rifle and looked at the target through that 10x I realized I might be in over my head.
My load is 4064 behind a hBN coated 75 AMAX. I set up on the warmup target and fired my first shot, which to my delight was right in the "mothball".
I fired 3 more warm ups that felt pretty good but when I looked at the group I saw a distinct split group.
The first two strings went well and my focus fell off for the last 3.
Between the low magnification scope and stiff trigger, I got frustrated.
After the last string we went downrange and retrieved our targets.
1 & 2 looked pretty good to me and I noticed that the split group I got on the warmup target wasn't entirely my fault.
My first shot was where it should be and the next three were .5" to the right in a little knot.
The surprise was the random 30 cal hole from my shooting partner on my target
I turned in my target and with little surprise ended up in dead last and agged a .5022 which might lead most of the BR shooting community to their cars with a length of hose.
On the other hand, I was pretty happy with the outcome.
The rifle obviously wants to shoot much tighter than I can hold.
With more practice I think it will agg solidly in the 3's.
I'm never going to win a BR match with the rifle but continuing in further shoots will be a motivation to be a better marksman.
In my opinion shooting BR in conjunction with other practices is a test of my loading technique and gun handling.
I'm going to shoot the match next month with the same rifle, but tune the trigger and swap out optics.
It will be interesting to see how much those factors effect my score.
My first two, and best, groups of the day:
I couldn't be happier with the rifle that APA built me.
