First time shooting past 200 yards and in any real wind. Why so low at 300 yards?

[Mike Islander]

Here in SC my shots on deer have all been under 200 yards. All my practice has been at our little sheltered 100 yard range in the woods. Since we do have some more open country at my hunt club, I wanted to stretch out to 300 and then eventually 400 yards. Easy shot for some, but I am a complete rookie at anything 200+.

I am shooting with a fixed 6X scope (SWFA 6x42 mil quad). I sighted in my rifle at 1.5" high at 100 yards a while back (for PBR or some other reason), so I just left it at that and entered that in Strelok. Fed the data for 140gn Berger Hybrid into Strelok and shot at 200 and 300 yards, four rounds each. My results are in the photo below. Notice that 200 worked pretty well according to the dialing recommendation of Strelok. 300 was consistently low. I did have my parallax set to 100 yards or so, which I didn't notice until afterward. But I don't think parallax would introduce that much difference between 200 and 300 yards.

My gun is a Barrett Fieldcraft 6.5CM with 21" barrel. I set the velocity lower than spec, using 115 fps loss for 5" barrel length reduction. So I reduced velocity in Strelok from 2850 to 2735. Still hit lower than expected at 300 yards.

Wind: Wind was variable from 45 degrees. When I measured it from the right (90 degrees), it ranged from 3-5 mph. Actually that might be the whole problem. I entered 90 degrees at 3-5 in Strelok, ignoring the headwind part.

RESULTS: POA was the red dot. 6X fixed scope. I'm not unhappy with the grouping at 200 yards. Really even at 300 the vertical spread was good (just all low), and the left/right spread can be accounted for by my absolute lack of experience of checking wind during each shot. I just lined up and shot four, with the wind ranging from 0-5 from the right randomly. What surprised me was being low at 300 following the dialing advice by Strelok, since 200 worked so well. Maybe my velocity or their BC was too optimistic? Maybe I had headwind. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Certainly some kind of class/training would help!

 

[PinesAndProjectiles]

Here’s what I would do:

Zero your rifle at 100 yards.

Reason: When you set up Strelok, it asks for your zero range. It’s tough to enter 1.5” high at 100.

Chrony your ammo.

Throwing numbers off the box might be ok for 200 yards, but moving out your going to want real life data.

If you don’t have a chrony, shoot at the 400 yard target. Then, you could alter your data in your ballistics calculator until you are connecting at 400 yards.

This will get you close to what your muzzle velocity actually is.

 

[lash]

Your last sentence holds the key. You will definitely benefit from an intro long range class.

Despite all the things you wrote, you really didn’t give us good information that can be used to check your situation. Just guessing at your velocity will only give you a guess as a solution.
Show us a screenshot of your settings in Strelok so that we can see how you set it up. It’s very likely that you will need to adjust some settings.

As an example, I used my Ballistic calculator to estimate what you said:

Notice that there is about 9” of drop difference between 200 and 300 yards. Did you dial 1.2 mils for 300?

 

[6.5SH]

Have a pic of a group at 100 yards? Most likely you weren't truly at 100 when zeroing or your +1.5" offset is incorrect/no longer true.

Based on the parameters you've listed your 300 yard impacts are about 1/3rd as low as they should be.

ETA:
Missed that you dialed, WHAT did you dial?

 

[lash]

Here’s what I would do:

Zero your rifle at 100 yards.

Reason: When you set up Strelok, it asks for your zero range. It’s tough to enter 1.5” high at 100.

Chrony your ammo.

Throwing numbers off the box might be ok for 200 yards, but moving out your going to want real life data.

If you don’t have a chrony, shoot at the 400 yard target. Then, you could alter your data in your ballistics calculator until you are connecting at 400 yards.

This will get you close to what your muzzle velocity actually is.

^^^what he said^^^

The old trick of setting it high for hunting is good for just that. You want to do actual long range shooting, you have to know where your zero truly is and what it means to dial corrections for drop.

 

[Mike Islander]

Here’s what I would do:

Zero your rifle at 100 yards.

Reason: When you set up Strelok, it asks for your zero range. It’s tough to enter 1.5” high at 100.

Chrony your ammo.

Throwing numbers off the box might be ok for 200 yards, but moving out your going to want real life data.

If you don’t have a chrony, shoot at the 400 yard target. Then, you could alter your data in your ballistics calculator until you are connecting at 400 yards.

This will get you close to what your muzzle velocity actually is.

I will do this and try again. I do have a chronograph. I'll get actual velocity. Also will try and shoot with no wind next time, just to reduce variables. Many thanks!

 

[Mike Islander]

Have a pic of a group at 100 yards? Most likely you weren't truly at 100 when zeroing or your +1.5" offset is incorrect/no longer true.

Based on the parameters you've listed your 300 yard impacts are about 1/3rd as low as they should be.

ETA:
Missed that you dialed, WHAT did you dial?

Yes, I dialed. I believe it recommended 0.9 mills, so very different from what your system recommended. It was definitely not 1.2. Really I will have to bring a notebook, be meticulous, and write everything down. I owe you guys more information and more care in my shooting. This was just something I went out and did on the spur of the moment, so no real plan. I'll do better on the next time.

Could a 100 yard parallax setting effect it by the amount I was off? From what I have read, parallax wouldn't introduce that much error, but I am so new to this I really have no idea. Thank you!

 

[6.5SH]

I think I see where your issue is. Did you enter the +1.5" offset in Strelok? If so it should be telling you to dial down ~.4 at 100, if it was telling you to dial up .9-1.0 for 300 it thinks you are POA/POI at 100 not +1.5" high.

 

[Mike Islander]

I think I see where your issue is. Did you enter the +1.5" offset in Strelok? If so it should be telling you to dial down ~.4 at 100, if it was telling you to dial up .9-1.0 for 300 it thinks you are POA/POI at 100 not +1.5" high.

I ran the numbers on Strelok using different zero ranges until it showed 1.5" high at 100 yards. It told me to dial 9 clicks (0.9 mils) at 300. But all this is from memory. I'll try again with a chrony and a notebook. Thank you!

 

[6.5SH]

Try it the other way, the offset function is under the cartridge selection. It will put you closer to what you saw.

As stated above, chrono the ammo out of your rifle and re-zero and things will line up. Too much imprecision with the current values entered.

 

[Mike Islander]

Thank you to everyone. I really appreciate the feedback. Clearly I need to do this again, zeroing at 100 and chrono the velocity, as well as getting you my Strelok settings. I'll do that and check back in.

OFFSET: I'm a bit confused by some of the terms in the replies. My "offset" was that I shot the gun at 100 yards (99.5 yards from my bench). Four shot group was about 3/4 moa centered around 1.5" above POA. This gun shoots 1/2 - 3/4 MOA regularly, me, a little less regularly. After checking my zero and adjusting numbers on Strelok, I believe it settled on a zero range of 185 yards (guessing, as my Strelok is at home right now). Whatever the range was, Strelok predicted 1.5" high at 100 yards in the ballistic tables. Once I got there, I went out to our other range and shot 200 and 300, and you see the results. I was dialing for elevation per Strelok. It seemed to work fine at 200 and was low, as you saw, at 300. Any number of things I did could have caused this. I could have been sloppy in Strelok and done something wrong. I literally have never dialed before. I thought I dialed what it told my on both targets. It worked on one, but not the other. This was all spur of the moment, spending the night at the hunt club before opening day of turkey season. Very disorganized.

So, I'm going to start over. I'm going to zero at 100 and measure velocity and will let you know how things go.

NOTE ON VELOCITY: My guess at 115 fps was based on a test done on barrel length versus velocity here: https://rifleshooter.com/2019/03/6-5-creedmoor-effects-of-barrel-length-on-velocity-2019/. Berger measured velocity is based on a 26" barrel, and mine is 21".

I used his numbers for velocity loss per inch of barrel length reduction for bullet weights near 140 gr. As pointed out, this was a guess, so I'm looking forward to seeing what is really happening.

Again, many thanks to all for your advice. I'll do a better job at documenting everything on this next time out.

- Mike

PS My little island range. I think we have about 600 yards available. Targets are along the hedge on the right. We get a bit of wind (as this is a long peninsula), but on many days it's very calm at dawn and dusk.

 

[6.5SH]

As to offset. The normal use of it is when you have multiple loads for the same rifle and optic, or have a shift when adding a suppressor.
You'd chose a baseline load (normally the fastest) and have the scope zeroed at 100 for POA/POI with that.
Your other loads would then have the offset of their POI entered in those fields.

Example: the 2nd load was slower and impacted -1.25" low at 100 without touching the turrets. Once you entered the -1.25" value and have that cartridge selected Strelok is going to apply that to the dope it gives you. For our mixed values so far it would say to dial UP .3 mils because we have told it we are zeroed at 100 yards with -1.25" vertical offset.

 

[smoothy8500]

Wind: Wind was variable from 45 degrees. When I measured it from the right (90 degrees), it ranged from 3-5 mph. Actually that might be the whole problem. I entered 90 degrees at 3-5 in Strelok

Strelok has a correction for Aerodynamic Jump, which is listed something like elevation wind correction. I normally have it "off" or you have to input the proper direction and angle to prevent error. However, your distance and wind speed here weren't really a lot.

 

[Paradox]

Here in SC my shots on deer have all been under 200 yards. All my practice has been at our little sheltered 100 yard range in the woods. Since we do have some more open country at my hunt club, I wanted to stretch out to 300 and then eventually 400 yards. Easy shot for some, but I am a complete rookie at anything 200+.

I am shooting with a fixed 6X scope (SWFA 6x42 mil quad). I sighted in my rifle at 1.5" high at 100 yards a while back (for PBR or some other reason), so I just left it at that and entered that in Strelok. Fed the data for 140gn Berger Hybrid into Strelok and shot at 200 and 300 yards, four rounds each. My results are in the photo below. Notice that 200 worked pretty well according to the dialing recommendation of Strelok. 300 was consistently low. I did have my parallax set to 100 yards or so, which I didn't notice until afterward. But I don't think parallax would introduce that much difference between 200 and 300 yards.

My gun is a Barrett Fieldcraft 6.5CM with 21" barrel. I set the velocity lower than spec, using 115 fps loss for 5" barrel length reduction. So I reduced velocity in Strelok from 2850 to 2735. Still hit lower than expected at 300 yards.

Wind: Wind was variable from 45 degrees. When I measured it from the right (90 degrees), it ranged from 3-5 mph. Actually that might be the whole problem. I entered 90 degrees at 3-5 in Strelok, ignoring the headwind part.

RESULTS: POA was the red dot. 6X fixed scope. I'm not unhappy with the grouping at 200 yards. Really even at 300 the vertical spread was good (just all low), and the left/right spread can be accounted for by my absolute lack of experience of checking wind during each shot. I just lined up and shot four, with the wind ranging from 0-5 from the right randomly. What surprised me was being low at 300 following the dialing advice by Strelok, since 200 worked so well. Maybe my velocity or their BC was too optimistic? Maybe I had headwind. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Certainly some kind of class/training would help!

View attachment 7838376

I went to a class that used strelok, and shot 100 to 850 yds, And wind was all done manually for the reticle, that said I’d suggest getting a decent scope 5–25×50 with tactical terrats. When we set up a strelok the key is guessing velocity from ammo doesn’t work very well nor does using published figures they actually clocked the rounds so we had real velocities to work with in addition scope height had to be input in and then zeroed obviously 100 yards after That You need to shoot to 200 after dialing your elevation than 300 400 etc, and around 500 or so the calculated figures may not be exact and require more or less vertical so say the Calculated adjustment was 6.3 mills, But actually required 6.5 record that figure and then answer it to other rate is 6.3 so the next time it’ll be correct. I have to do this again for Each specific brand of ammo because say you’re all set up for 168 grain 308 and then you try and shoot 175 grain using the original strelok figures. The result will be in accurate and unusable. At any rate all the way out to 850 we never messed with windage and hundred 300 yards you need quite a bit of wind to be off. The Ammo information, Scope height and info, The only other thing he messed with was temperature because obviously temperature and humidity I will alter performance it was 80° out don’t want the computer thinking it’s 20° as you’ll be all off. You’ll never be able to estimate your way into it. Because without the exact variables in place messing with Wendy inputs just aggravates the situation and you’ll go insane trying to guess it, I could literally with a decent scope on your rifle set it up in about 15 minutes and with the proper info in strelok, hand you the gun and have you shoot any distance all the way up to 1000 and you being a rookie but I have no effect or hinder you from making any shot I gave you. It’s such short distances don’t even worry about the wind either, You do that withholdovers and another thing you always zero with a rifle at 100 exactly citing high or low will render the computer useless. I don’t know where you’re at but I live in Florida and is always all kinds of courses available so my suggestion is to look around for introductory long range course is 16 hour to a course and your rifle probably set up And you’ll leave not believing how simple it really is once you get past a few small details. You don’t prove your skill set to hundred percent

 

[lash]

Please…puh-leeze…learn how to write a proper sentence. Look up how to use some punctuation.

For gods sake, have you ever tried to read the babble you wrote?

I mean, I commend you in your desire to pass on information to others. But that’s not what is happening here. What’s happening is that people start trying to read what you’re saying and have to give up, because it’s a ridiculous mess of word streaming and barely comprehensible.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[Mike Islander]

Please…puh-leeze…learn how to write a proper sentence. Look up how to use some punctuation.

For gods sake, have you ever tried to read the babble you wrote?

I mean, I commend you in your desire to pass on information to others. But that’s not what is happening here. What’s happening is that people start trying to read what you’re saying and have to give up, because it’s a ridiculous mess of word streaming and barely comprehensible.

Thank you for your consideration.

i actually understood it and got some infromaton from hees poste but I get what your saying he dosnt take the to time profreed what he rote abnd its a runin santence and baseticsally a dome dump that takes eoms reading betwean the lines to cumprehand. ;-)

 

[lash]

i actually understood it and got some infromaton from hes post but I get what your saying he dosnt take the to time proofreed what he rote abnd its a runin santence and baseticsally a dome dump that takes eoms reading betwean the lines to cumprehand. ;-)

I didn’t say that I didn’t understand it. I can read gibberish a well as the next guy, but should we really have to?

I laughed at Dumb and Dumber too, but that doesn’t mean that I would want to hang out with people that act like them.

 

[Mike Islander]

I didn’t say that I didn’t understand it. I can read gibberish a well as the next guy, but should we really have to?

I laughed at Dumb and Dumber too, but that doesn’t mean that I would want to hang out with people that act like them.

I appreciate the poster's effort, but effort put into crafting the actual post is also a critical part of communication and much appreciate by virtually all of us.

 

[lash]

I appreciate the poster's effort, but effort put into crafting the actual post is also a critical point of communication and much appreciate by virtually all of us.

Exactly my point and more succinctly stated.

 

[Ndbowhunter]

2730 is too fast.

and ur groups at 200 and 300 aren't round.

and it looks like ur rear ring is slammed into the elevation turret.

if u don't mind, post up a 10 shot dot drill on 1/2 moa dots at 100yards. break ur position after each shot and then rebuild it.

 

[acudaowner]

your factory ammo speeds are off by a bit more than you thought ? just either need a chrono or adjust till it's correct then correct your Strelok and every time you get a different lot of bullets it will all change again and again . it just gets you around where you want to be it's up to you to true it all out .

 

[Mike Casselton]

I didn’t say that I didn’t understand it. I can read gibberish a well as the next guy, but should we really have to?

I laughed at Dumb and Dumber too, but that doesn’t mean that I would want to hang out with people that act like them.

I know for a fact that you've hung out with Dumb and Dumber.

 

[lash]

I know for a fact that you've hung out with Dumb and Dumber.

Well, since you put out that way…

 

[Mike Islander]

Correct. Parallax error wouldn’t likely give you that much deviation.
There is a formula to find theoretical max deviation due to parallax. It is can be confusing but factors objective lens diameter, target distance, parallax setting distance. In your case you might see something like 1.7” max deviation due to parallax error, if you go to both extremes with poor sight picture through scope that is.
Just center your eye behind the scope and it will be good for those distances you have.

Cataracts surgery on both eyes since I did this shoot. I'll get down there, zero at 100, and chrono the loads first, then try again and report back.

My vision is now INCREDIBLE! Definitely bad vision was a major factor. At night I could close one eye and still see 9 taillights in a circle around one actual taillight.

 

[Mike Islander]

2730 is too fast.

and ur groups at 200 and 300 aren't round.

and it looks like ur rear ring is slammed into the elevation turret.

if u don't mind, post up a 10 shot dot drill on 1/2 moa dots at 100yards. break ur position after each shot and then rebuild it.

I will do this as soon as possible.