This is the compilation of my posts from the Scout site. I intend to continue posting on this subject here 
When I started long range shooting, I was focused on form, taking notes, and really paying attention to the environment. Over the last couple years I got most of the basics nailed down, then moved more into the PRS style thing with local matches, and got more worried about speed and the follow-up shot. I’ve decided to slow back down a bit and rehash some fundamentals, albeit at longer ranges. I’ve recently rebarreled my M5 Mausingfield from .260 to a Proof Research 6.5 SAUM, and figured if I was going to take the time to do what I plan to do, I might as well post it up on the Hide so others can see it, maybe learn something, or give feedback so I can learn something. I’ve got a collection of new, unusual, and/or untested stuff here that people are often curious about (March, M5, Proof, 6.5 SAUM), so hopefully I can get some reliable information out there on it.
The overall goal with this rifle is to not dip closer than 600yd very often. I’m going to work my way into it, but I’d like to push over 1000 regularly—2000 if I can. I’m looking at it as an exercise in reading enivronmentals, and it’s going to force me to get my crap together to have much success. I’m going to try my best whenever I take this rifle out to keep track of what’s going on, what the results are, and what I learn. Then when I get the chance it’ll end up here.
The rifle:
American Rifle Co. M5 Short action w/.525” (magnum) bolt face
Proof Research 28” 1:8” twist 6.5mm SAUM, 5/8-24 muzzle threads
Chamber is the .296” neck 0.081” freebore flavor from Jon Addis’ shop at Area 419
Trigger Tech Trigger
KRG X-ray chassis
ARC M10 30mm Low rings
March 3-24x52mm, FML-1 reticle
Vortex 30mm level
Harris BRMS 6-9 swivel bipod
SRT Arms Shadow XL Ti .30 cal suppressor (sometimes)
Weighs in at ~12.7lb without the can (plus a pound with it)
SIDEBAR: This action has about 3500 live cycles on it between 6mm Comp Match and .260 barrels. Many, many more dry fire cycles. I remain impressed as hell with it. Two years worth of local matches, hunting, and practice in wind, dust, rain, sleet, snow, and it refuses to suck. When I pulled the last barrel, the lug recesses had a different surface finish (like 600 grit sandpaper vs. the semi-polished normal M5 finish). That was it—no galling, no setback, no wear. Anyway… I like it.
I’m reloading on a LEE 50 BMG press (an artifact of prior projects) with an adapter for standard dies. I use a RCBS 750 electronic scale, and got Whidden Gunworks FL Bushing die set with the micrometer seater for this project. I’m using a .290” bushing and loaded rounds are .293”, so a guy assumes roughly .003” of ‘tension’.
Before I had the barrel spun up, I collected 1800 140gr ELD-M’s (lot: 26331 ), 2 8lb kegs of H1000 (matching lot: 8082218 5599 ), 2,000 CCI 250’s of the same lot, and 200 Hornady 6.5 GAP 4s cases from the 2016 yearly run.
The 140 ELD-M’s touch the rifling at a COAL of roughly 2.824”, and all of my loads so far have been at 2.809”—0.015” jump. I might play with this a little, it’s my generic “go-to” to jump 15 thou. I haven’t done any serious load development yet so things may change.
Historically I have not sorted anything by weight/length/volume. I have played with it and never seen any consistent success that warrants the extra work. I do have a Magnetospeed chronograph now, though, and ES/SD numbers are going to be something that I look into and may test some sorting methods again.
I should be set for about 1800 rounds before I run dry on powder. I should still have barrel life left, if the internet isn’t lying (…), but I’m going to wait and see how things look when I get there before I decide what to do next. I’m thinking about experimenting with 95 and 120gr class projectiles just to see what the SAUM can do with them before it peters out, or may just keep with the tried and true 140’s.
From what I’ve read and talked to folks about, carbon rings seem to be a real threat to this caliber. I can see why. H1000 is a sooty bastard of a powder, and there’s no shortage of it in this fat little case. I am debating whether I want to consistently run the suppressor or not. It does make shooting more enjoyable, but also increases my chance of zero shift and carbon build up in the barrel and the can. At any rate, in the next several months I’m likely to pick up a borescope to further monitor this experiment and make sure carbon rings don’t piss on my parade.
To date I have 100 rounds through the rifle. The first 51 rounds were 58.0 gr H1000. These were to get a rough zero, and kind of “ease” the barrel in. I had heard reports that the Hornady brass wasn’t holding up and didn’t want to overpressure cases in a new, clean barrel.
Following that I shot one round each of 60.0, 60.5, 61.0, 61.5, and 62.0 grains of H1000 to see if I’d run into pressure signs, as well as get ballpark velocities. No serious pressure signs were noted on the case or primers, but 62.0 did give slightly sticky bolt lift (the last 1/3—primary extraction).
To put my mind at ease about the Hornady brass, I loaded the same case up 9 more times with 62.0gr and fired it a total of 10 times. The primer pocket still holds a primer. I milled the case in half to see if there was any head separation starting, and there really wasn’t much, a very shallow dip was kind of wishing it could start forming. So this tells me two things: 1) The brass is good. 2) My die setup isn’t working the brass too hard (FL size with a .001-.0015” shoulder bump).
All of that was done with a Vortex 2.5-10x32 as a place-holder. Yesterday I got the March 3-24x52mm in the mail from another Hide member and got it mounted.
Which brings us to today! Last night I loaded up 25x 61.0gr loads, and 10x 61.5gr loads. My intentions were to get a 100yd zero nailed down and test a 5rnd group at 300-400yd for both loads with and without the suppressor.
Temp: 5 degrees
Baro: 27.77 inHg
Humidity: unknown, need to get a better Kestrel
Wind: Pretty consistent 2.5-3.5mph from 2:30.
I was able to get my 100yd zero nailed down without the can, then shot 61.0gr and 61.5gr at 305yd. Then I put the suppressor on, rezeroed, and shot the same 2 loads at 305. On account of how cold it was I’m not putting too much faith in today’s results because I was not performing (unless shivering counts as performance), and I’m not sure what effect being 5 degrees Fahrenheit has on powder burn. I’ll edit in the pictures of the target later on. My shootNsee targets would not stick to the backer it was so fucking cold, so I put them on the backer, spray painted the whole thing (which never dried over the 2 hours I was out there), then pulled the stickers off to leave white aiming points.
I kind of knew today was going to suck but wanted the 100yd zero and to find out the POI shift from the suppressor. I found out that adding the suppressor moves the POI down .6 mils and moves it to the left .1 or .2 mils at 100yd.
There is a small plate, I’m guessing a 12x12” that someone else has left out where I shoot. It’s at 1068yd from where I was. Strelok gave me 7.5mil elevation and .5 mil windage. I ended up hitting 2/5 after working my way to 7.2 mils elevation and .6-.7 mils windage.
I got home to a Fedex box containing my new cell phone (Samsung S7 Edge) and promptly bought/downloaded Trasol. Plugging in today’s conditions with no “fitting” gives 7.1 mils elevation and 0.6 windage so that’s promising. I’ve been wanting to get Trasol for a couple weeks now, but figured it could wait until I upgraded phones.
I'm not going to go back out until it's 30 degrees or warmer. However, on the horizon:
1. Scope tracking test-- I'm still not sure if this is a 6283 or 6400 mil March, and want to know if there's any error, also.
2. Another, more extensive load dev, probably 60.7-61.6gr H1000 every 0.3gr
3. Chrono the "winner" of the load dev, especially over a couple different temps. I'll recheck this periodically.
I was able to get out and shoot a few rounds on Monday. Learned a little.
40 deg F
25.27 inHg
40% humidity
NW of Las Vegas about 60 miles.
I started out with a 100yd zero check, which was 0.3 mils to the right. This is something that I'm going to continue to monitor. I did drive 1000 miles, warm up 35 degrees, and may have bumped the windage knob setting the last zero and not noticed-- my hands were fucking freezing.
I shot 2, moved 0.4 left, then shot 3. I backed off 0.1 mil to a total of 0.3 left after shooting these 5 rounds.
I also shot 5 rounds at various rocks from 500-700yd with my magnetospeed attached which gave an average of 3155fps. There wasn't any noticeable POI shift from the magnetospeed, but I was just shooting at rocks. Elevation at those ranges given by Trasol appeared pretty spot on. The barrel is speeding up a bit because in the first 40 rounds I shot the same load (61.0gr H1000) and it was giving 3111-3119fps.
I walked out my 2/3 IPSC plate target 1274 yards. When I got back to the rifle I figured I'd give Frank's "Have a plan" a try. I measured windspeed for about 3 minutes, got the high (5.2mph), low (1.8mph) and average (3.4 mph) speeds and plugged it all into Trasol. Wind was coming at me from about 240 degrees (8 o'clock). Trasol gave me 0.6 (low) to 1.0 (high) mils for wind and 8.6 mils for elevation. I fired my first round; 0.4 mils right and 0.4 mils low. I corrected and fired again and just missed off the right side of the plate. 3rd round hit, 4th round hit, and 5th round was just off the right side. I think the target is like 13" wide and 18 or 19" tall so 1-1.5 MOA roughly.
Trasol was giving me 8.6 mils and I had to use 9.0 to get there, and was 50-70% short on wind. Kick in hindsight:
1) I was using true MRADS as the unit selection on Trasol. Using 0.097 mil (6400 mil) turrets, Trasol gives 9.0 mils.
2) Wind at the shooter isn't all you need to pay attention to. Looking at the target, the mirage looked worse than 3.3 mph average and my dumb ass ignored it.
So to make sure I wasn't crazy, I swung to the right about 130 degrees and found some distinguishable rocks at 1070yd, and 1234yd.
1070yd gave 6.5 mils, and it took me 6.7.
1234 gave 8.2 mils, and it took me 8.5.
For both of these ranges I used a wind speed of 7.0mph (which is what gave 1.5 mils at the previous target), and adjusted the angle accordingly. That matched up pretty well. It gives me confidence that my scope level is level with the world. The "same" wind pushing left and right (relative to my firing angle) matches the calculator, so the indication is that there's no bias/cant. Obviously the wind can change and hide the truth so I'm not 100% putting weight on it, but it points in the right direction.
Apply the 3% error between 6400 mil circle and 6283 mil circle, and those numbers match up exactly. I was trying to bend the BC and form factor to make it match, and it just wasn't working within reason. It wasn't until I got back to my parent's place that the lightbulb turned on that my tracking test had error and I had 6400 mil turrets. I double checked all of those ranges with Hornady's 4DOF calculator and they match Trasol pretty exactly for the "true Mrad" values. I got on Google Earth and measured distance and was within 1-2 yards of all of the target points I could see from space. I'm still well above the trans-sonic region here so G7 BC's should still be accurate, and they are if I can pull my head out of my ass.
I left the plate out there. I have a buddy from when I was in the Corps coming out and we're going to go back out there tomorrow so I'll give it another shot with what I learned from last time. Teething problems...
I'll get some pictures of the "range", too. Kind of a pretty place for southern Nevada.
ETA: A conclusion:
1) I think now that I have 6400 mil turrets.
2) Look at the wind down range, remember wind gradient shooting over valleys.
3) Monitor 100yd zero. I think a 100yd zero check will be what I start with for the first few hundred rounds. I'm not rezeroing the turrets until I figure out it's repeatable so the windage will be left at L 0.3.
Today's Exploits.
50 degrees
24.92 inHg
61% Humidity
5675 Density altitude
Started off with the 100yd zero check. Shot 5 rounds, screwed up the 4th. Rifle went off before I was really ready for it to (wake up!). It's hard to draw hard conclusions here because the first day's group was only 3 rounds, but it seems like it may have drifted 0.1 or less to the left. In my infinite wisdom, I placed today's target directly over the first one so we can compare them directly. Today's group of 4 (that I'm counting) with the turret set on 0.3L matches up with the other day's 0.4L group of 3 pretty closely. After shooting this group I set the windage turret to 0.2 L and ran with that for the rest of the day with success.
I left my steel plate out there at 1273yd (6 degrees of incline), so I started right off at that range. Today's conditions gave me 8.6 MarchRad (should I trademark that?) elevation, and I had very similar wind conditions at my position as I did the other day. 1.7 to about 4.2 mph, with an average around 3.5 from 260 degrees (8:00-8:30). Today I spent an extra 5 minutes or so with binoculars and behind the rifle observing mirage down-range. It varied from basically a boil to a gentle drift left to right. Basically in line with what was happening at my position. I held 0.5 mils left and sent the first round. It hit the plate on the right edge, just below center. I shot 3 more holding 0.6 left, all hits. Then the mirage picked up (moved faster left to right). I held 0.75; bracketed between .5 and 1.0, and the last round missed just off the right edge. 4/5 at 1273, things are looking good!
At this point I swung around to the right to aim at a different mountain side. I found a couple of flat rock faces at 1581yd, and 1692yd. I just wanted to push further and see how my real-world trajectory compared to Trasol.
At 1581 I was about 0.2 MarchRad low, and at 1692 0.4 low. I tweaked the BC (g7) from .326 to .320, and set the drag coeff. to 0.450 (0.500 default). I ran numbers for 1273 again with the new info and it came out pretty much the same, 8.6 to 8.7 depending on wind speed/angle. Doing that gave me correct numbers at 1273, 1580, and 1692. Under 1000 it's all a wash. I'm going to keep an eye on this and see if any weirdness pops up because of it. I'll be honest I need to read into the drag coefficient on this app because I don't really know what changing it does, but what I've done matches up with everything I've shot and recorded so far. I'll continue to shoot and record to try and get more data points to compare to.
I'll be headed back to South Dakota this weekend, so this project (and everything else) might be put on ice for a while. I like pretending to be tough, but under 25 degrees or so, and it's just no fun.
In light of my last couple trips out, I decided to keep an eye open for bigger targets. I had to order some steel tubing for a project at work, and while I was in the office at the local metal/scrap shop I asked if they had any AR400 or AR500. They did have some, and after some conversation, got to an AR500, 24x24" 3/8 thick plate for $75. Take my money.
I went back to work, and dug around the scrap pile there for some stuff to make a stand out of and was able to find some stuff that works. I might put in some tumb screws on the leg "Y"s, but it works. So after the chain, clips, plate, and hanging around after hours a bit, I'm into this big bastard about $90.
Additionally, I'm finding some shortcomings with my LRF (Bushnell ARC 1600 10x binos). They work great up to about 1200yd, but much beyond 1400 requires some really big flat perpendicular surfaces. I tested it on road signs around Las Vegas and found that reflective signs are reliably picked up by the LRF out to about 1850yd.
I'd like something with a little more power. I'm holding out to hear about the Sig Kilo 2400. I almost jumped on the 2000, but heard/read enough bad reviews that I'm going to pass. Anyway, I have a set of old NV license plates, and just had to replace my SD plates with a new version, so I have 4 extra plates. I've screwed them onto about a 3ft long 1.5" wide steel bar that I intend to pound into the ground next to the plate. Hopefully this will let me range it out to a mile or more.
Sunday here is supposed to be 30 degrees, so myself and a couple of friends are planning to get out and shoot. I doubt we'll be going too far; I'm the only one with a LR rig. I think it will be a good opportunity to try a 400yd ladder test or two, though.
Talk about a real fun winter... Sheesh I think I've seen about 5 days over freezing since November. It's been continuously white since November, that's sure enough. A little weird, typically it swings from balls cold to moderate (50's, even 60's sometimes) every couple weeks which allows for the grasslands to dry out a bit and not be a gumbo greasy mess. No such luck so far this winter. Between the shorter days, work, and school, if it's not decent on the weekends I'm S.O.L.
Anyway, I was sitting on the toilet the other day thinking about load development and decided I'm going to try 4x loads of 5 rounds each, 0.2 grains apart. I'm just not sold on the ladder test. Three or four of them at 1000yd I might buy into if the results were conclusive, but I just don't like the idea of basing the impact point of a charge on 1 or 2 bullets. Also, not sure I'd be able to easily track which charge went with which hole.
So I have 60.6, 60.8, 61.0, and 61.2 grains loaded up ready to test. I'm thinking 400yd or so, and will mostly focus on vertical spread. It's kind of the same idea of a ladder test, but I can see how they group, vertical dispersion, and how POI shifts from one charge to the next. It's been my experience that precision is sinusoidal with powder charge increase, the period being about 1 grain in most cases. This will give me enough info to either pick a load or point which way I need to look. I'd like to get a day around 50-60 degrees and don't really want to go much over 61.0gr for a load to settle on before seeing how the hotter stuff performs in the summer.
When I started long range shooting, I was focused on form, taking notes, and really paying attention to the environment. Over the last couple years I got most of the basics nailed down, then moved more into the PRS style thing with local matches, and got more worried about speed and the follow-up shot. I’ve decided to slow back down a bit and rehash some fundamentals, albeit at longer ranges. I’ve recently rebarreled my M5 Mausingfield from .260 to a Proof Research 6.5 SAUM, and figured if I was going to take the time to do what I plan to do, I might as well post it up on the Hide so others can see it, maybe learn something, or give feedback so I can learn something. I’ve got a collection of new, unusual, and/or untested stuff here that people are often curious about (March, M5, Proof, 6.5 SAUM), so hopefully I can get some reliable information out there on it.
The overall goal with this rifle is to not dip closer than 600yd very often. I’m going to work my way into it, but I’d like to push over 1000 regularly—2000 if I can. I’m looking at it as an exercise in reading enivronmentals, and it’s going to force me to get my crap together to have much success. I’m going to try my best whenever I take this rifle out to keep track of what’s going on, what the results are, and what I learn. Then when I get the chance it’ll end up here.
The rifle:
American Rifle Co. M5 Short action w/.525” (magnum) bolt face
Proof Research 28” 1:8” twist 6.5mm SAUM, 5/8-24 muzzle threads
Chamber is the .296” neck 0.081” freebore flavor from Jon Addis’ shop at Area 419
Trigger Tech Trigger
KRG X-ray chassis
ARC M10 30mm Low rings
March 3-24x52mm, FML-1 reticle
Vortex 30mm level
Harris BRMS 6-9 swivel bipod
SRT Arms Shadow XL Ti .30 cal suppressor (sometimes)
Weighs in at ~12.7lb without the can (plus a pound with it)
SIDEBAR: This action has about 3500 live cycles on it between 6mm Comp Match and .260 barrels. Many, many more dry fire cycles. I remain impressed as hell with it. Two years worth of local matches, hunting, and practice in wind, dust, rain, sleet, snow, and it refuses to suck. When I pulled the last barrel, the lug recesses had a different surface finish (like 600 grit sandpaper vs. the semi-polished normal M5 finish). That was it—no galling, no setback, no wear. Anyway… I like it.
I’m reloading on a LEE 50 BMG press (an artifact of prior projects) with an adapter for standard dies. I use a RCBS 750 electronic scale, and got Whidden Gunworks FL Bushing die set with the micrometer seater for this project. I’m using a .290” bushing and loaded rounds are .293”, so a guy assumes roughly .003” of ‘tension’.
Before I had the barrel spun up, I collected 1800 140gr ELD-M’s (lot: 26331 ), 2 8lb kegs of H1000 (matching lot: 8082218 5599 ), 2,000 CCI 250’s of the same lot, and 200 Hornady 6.5 GAP 4s cases from the 2016 yearly run.
The 140 ELD-M’s touch the rifling at a COAL of roughly 2.824”, and all of my loads so far have been at 2.809”—0.015” jump. I might play with this a little, it’s my generic “go-to” to jump 15 thou. I haven’t done any serious load development yet so things may change.
Historically I have not sorted anything by weight/length/volume. I have played with it and never seen any consistent success that warrants the extra work. I do have a Magnetospeed chronograph now, though, and ES/SD numbers are going to be something that I look into and may test some sorting methods again.
I should be set for about 1800 rounds before I run dry on powder. I should still have barrel life left, if the internet isn’t lying (…), but I’m going to wait and see how things look when I get there before I decide what to do next. I’m thinking about experimenting with 95 and 120gr class projectiles just to see what the SAUM can do with them before it peters out, or may just keep with the tried and true 140’s.
From what I’ve read and talked to folks about, carbon rings seem to be a real threat to this caliber. I can see why. H1000 is a sooty bastard of a powder, and there’s no shortage of it in this fat little case. I am debating whether I want to consistently run the suppressor or not. It does make shooting more enjoyable, but also increases my chance of zero shift and carbon build up in the barrel and the can. At any rate, in the next several months I’m likely to pick up a borescope to further monitor this experiment and make sure carbon rings don’t piss on my parade.
To date I have 100 rounds through the rifle. The first 51 rounds were 58.0 gr H1000. These were to get a rough zero, and kind of “ease” the barrel in. I had heard reports that the Hornady brass wasn’t holding up and didn’t want to overpressure cases in a new, clean barrel.
Following that I shot one round each of 60.0, 60.5, 61.0, 61.5, and 62.0 grains of H1000 to see if I’d run into pressure signs, as well as get ballpark velocities. No serious pressure signs were noted on the case or primers, but 62.0 did give slightly sticky bolt lift (the last 1/3—primary extraction).
To put my mind at ease about the Hornady brass, I loaded the same case up 9 more times with 62.0gr and fired it a total of 10 times. The primer pocket still holds a primer. I milled the case in half to see if there was any head separation starting, and there really wasn’t much, a very shallow dip was kind of wishing it could start forming. So this tells me two things: 1) The brass is good. 2) My die setup isn’t working the brass too hard (FL size with a .001-.0015” shoulder bump).
All of that was done with a Vortex 2.5-10x32 as a place-holder. Yesterday I got the March 3-24x52mm in the mail from another Hide member and got it mounted.
Which brings us to today! Last night I loaded up 25x 61.0gr loads, and 10x 61.5gr loads. My intentions were to get a 100yd zero nailed down and test a 5rnd group at 300-400yd for both loads with and without the suppressor.
Temp: 5 degrees
Baro: 27.77 inHg
Humidity: unknown, need to get a better Kestrel
Wind: Pretty consistent 2.5-3.5mph from 2:30.
I was able to get my 100yd zero nailed down without the can, then shot 61.0gr and 61.5gr at 305yd. Then I put the suppressor on, rezeroed, and shot the same 2 loads at 305. On account of how cold it was I’m not putting too much faith in today’s results because I was not performing (unless shivering counts as performance), and I’m not sure what effect being 5 degrees Fahrenheit has on powder burn. I’ll edit in the pictures of the target later on. My shootNsee targets would not stick to the backer it was so fucking cold, so I put them on the backer, spray painted the whole thing (which never dried over the 2 hours I was out there), then pulled the stickers off to leave white aiming points.
I kind of knew today was going to suck but wanted the 100yd zero and to find out the POI shift from the suppressor. I found out that adding the suppressor moves the POI down .6 mils and moves it to the left .1 or .2 mils at 100yd.
There is a small plate, I’m guessing a 12x12” that someone else has left out where I shoot. It’s at 1068yd from where I was. Strelok gave me 7.5mil elevation and .5 mil windage. I ended up hitting 2/5 after working my way to 7.2 mils elevation and .6-.7 mils windage.
I got home to a Fedex box containing my new cell phone (Samsung S7 Edge) and promptly bought/downloaded Trasol. Plugging in today’s conditions with no “fitting” gives 7.1 mils elevation and 0.6 windage so that’s promising. I’ve been wanting to get Trasol for a couple weeks now, but figured it could wait until I upgraded phones.
I'm not going to go back out until it's 30 degrees or warmer. However, on the horizon:
1. Scope tracking test-- I'm still not sure if this is a 6283 or 6400 mil March, and want to know if there's any error, also.
2. Another, more extensive load dev, probably 60.7-61.6gr H1000 every 0.3gr
3. Chrono the "winner" of the load dev, especially over a couple different temps. I'll recheck this periodically.
I was able to get out and shoot a few rounds on Monday. Learned a little.
40 deg F
25.27 inHg
40% humidity
NW of Las Vegas about 60 miles.
I started out with a 100yd zero check, which was 0.3 mils to the right. This is something that I'm going to continue to monitor. I did drive 1000 miles, warm up 35 degrees, and may have bumped the windage knob setting the last zero and not noticed-- my hands were fucking freezing.
I shot 2, moved 0.4 left, then shot 3. I backed off 0.1 mil to a total of 0.3 left after shooting these 5 rounds.
I also shot 5 rounds at various rocks from 500-700yd with my magnetospeed attached which gave an average of 3155fps. There wasn't any noticeable POI shift from the magnetospeed, but I was just shooting at rocks. Elevation at those ranges given by Trasol appeared pretty spot on. The barrel is speeding up a bit because in the first 40 rounds I shot the same load (61.0gr H1000) and it was giving 3111-3119fps.
I walked out my 2/3 IPSC plate target 1274 yards. When I got back to the rifle I figured I'd give Frank's "Have a plan" a try. I measured windspeed for about 3 minutes, got the high (5.2mph), low (1.8mph) and average (3.4 mph) speeds and plugged it all into Trasol. Wind was coming at me from about 240 degrees (8 o'clock). Trasol gave me 0.6 (low) to 1.0 (high) mils for wind and 8.6 mils for elevation. I fired my first round; 0.4 mils right and 0.4 mils low. I corrected and fired again and just missed off the right side of the plate. 3rd round hit, 4th round hit, and 5th round was just off the right side. I think the target is like 13" wide and 18 or 19" tall so 1-1.5 MOA roughly.
Trasol was giving me 8.6 mils and I had to use 9.0 to get there, and was 50-70% short on wind. Kick in hindsight:
1) I was using true MRADS as the unit selection on Trasol. Using 0.097 mil (6400 mil) turrets, Trasol gives 9.0 mils.
2) Wind at the shooter isn't all you need to pay attention to. Looking at the target, the mirage looked worse than 3.3 mph average and my dumb ass ignored it.
So to make sure I wasn't crazy, I swung to the right about 130 degrees and found some distinguishable rocks at 1070yd, and 1234yd.
1070yd gave 6.5 mils, and it took me 6.7.
1234 gave 8.2 mils, and it took me 8.5.
For both of these ranges I used a wind speed of 7.0mph (which is what gave 1.5 mils at the previous target), and adjusted the angle accordingly. That matched up pretty well. It gives me confidence that my scope level is level with the world. The "same" wind pushing left and right (relative to my firing angle) matches the calculator, so the indication is that there's no bias/cant. Obviously the wind can change and hide the truth so I'm not 100% putting weight on it, but it points in the right direction.
Apply the 3% error between 6400 mil circle and 6283 mil circle, and those numbers match up exactly. I was trying to bend the BC and form factor to make it match, and it just wasn't working within reason. It wasn't until I got back to my parent's place that the lightbulb turned on that my tracking test had error and I had 6400 mil turrets. I double checked all of those ranges with Hornady's 4DOF calculator and they match Trasol pretty exactly for the "true Mrad" values. I got on Google Earth and measured distance and was within 1-2 yards of all of the target points I could see from space. I'm still well above the trans-sonic region here so G7 BC's should still be accurate, and they are if I can pull my head out of my ass.
I left the plate out there. I have a buddy from when I was in the Corps coming out and we're going to go back out there tomorrow so I'll give it another shot with what I learned from last time. Teething problems...
I'll get some pictures of the "range", too. Kind of a pretty place for southern Nevada.
ETA: A conclusion:
1) I think now that I have 6400 mil turrets.
2) Look at the wind down range, remember wind gradient shooting over valleys.
3) Monitor 100yd zero. I think a 100yd zero check will be what I start with for the first few hundred rounds. I'm not rezeroing the turrets until I figure out it's repeatable so the windage will be left at L 0.3.
Today's Exploits.
50 degrees
24.92 inHg
61% Humidity
5675 Density altitude
Started off with the 100yd zero check. Shot 5 rounds, screwed up the 4th. Rifle went off before I was really ready for it to (wake up!). It's hard to draw hard conclusions here because the first day's group was only 3 rounds, but it seems like it may have drifted 0.1 or less to the left. In my infinite wisdom, I placed today's target directly over the first one so we can compare them directly. Today's group of 4 (that I'm counting) with the turret set on 0.3L matches up with the other day's 0.4L group of 3 pretty closely. After shooting this group I set the windage turret to 0.2 L and ran with that for the rest of the day with success.
I left my steel plate out there at 1273yd (6 degrees of incline), so I started right off at that range. Today's conditions gave me 8.6 MarchRad (should I trademark that?) elevation, and I had very similar wind conditions at my position as I did the other day. 1.7 to about 4.2 mph, with an average around 3.5 from 260 degrees (8:00-8:30). Today I spent an extra 5 minutes or so with binoculars and behind the rifle observing mirage down-range. It varied from basically a boil to a gentle drift left to right. Basically in line with what was happening at my position. I held 0.5 mils left and sent the first round. It hit the plate on the right edge, just below center. I shot 3 more holding 0.6 left, all hits. Then the mirage picked up (moved faster left to right). I held 0.75; bracketed between .5 and 1.0, and the last round missed just off the right edge. 4/5 at 1273, things are looking good!
At this point I swung around to the right to aim at a different mountain side. I found a couple of flat rock faces at 1581yd, and 1692yd. I just wanted to push further and see how my real-world trajectory compared to Trasol.
At 1581 I was about 0.2 MarchRad low, and at 1692 0.4 low. I tweaked the BC (g7) from .326 to .320, and set the drag coeff. to 0.450 (0.500 default). I ran numbers for 1273 again with the new info and it came out pretty much the same, 8.6 to 8.7 depending on wind speed/angle. Doing that gave me correct numbers at 1273, 1580, and 1692. Under 1000 it's all a wash. I'm going to keep an eye on this and see if any weirdness pops up because of it. I'll be honest I need to read into the drag coefficient on this app because I don't really know what changing it does, but what I've done matches up with everything I've shot and recorded so far. I'll continue to shoot and record to try and get more data points to compare to.
I'll be headed back to South Dakota this weekend, so this project (and everything else) might be put on ice for a while. I like pretending to be tough, but under 25 degrees or so, and it's just no fun.
In light of my last couple trips out, I decided to keep an eye open for bigger targets. I had to order some steel tubing for a project at work, and while I was in the office at the local metal/scrap shop I asked if they had any AR400 or AR500. They did have some, and after some conversation, got to an AR500, 24x24" 3/8 thick plate for $75. Take my money.
I went back to work, and dug around the scrap pile there for some stuff to make a stand out of and was able to find some stuff that works. I might put in some tumb screws on the leg "Y"s, but it works. So after the chain, clips, plate, and hanging around after hours a bit, I'm into this big bastard about $90.
Additionally, I'm finding some shortcomings with my LRF (Bushnell ARC 1600 10x binos). They work great up to about 1200yd, but much beyond 1400 requires some really big flat perpendicular surfaces. I tested it on road signs around Las Vegas and found that reflective signs are reliably picked up by the LRF out to about 1850yd.
I'd like something with a little more power. I'm holding out to hear about the Sig Kilo 2400. I almost jumped on the 2000, but heard/read enough bad reviews that I'm going to pass. Anyway, I have a set of old NV license plates, and just had to replace my SD plates with a new version, so I have 4 extra plates. I've screwed them onto about a 3ft long 1.5" wide steel bar that I intend to pound into the ground next to the plate. Hopefully this will let me range it out to a mile or more.
Sunday here is supposed to be 30 degrees, so myself and a couple of friends are planning to get out and shoot. I doubt we'll be going too far; I'm the only one with a LR rig. I think it will be a good opportunity to try a 400yd ladder test or two, though.
Talk about a real fun winter... Sheesh I think I've seen about 5 days over freezing since November. It's been continuously white since November, that's sure enough. A little weird, typically it swings from balls cold to moderate (50's, even 60's sometimes) every couple weeks which allows for the grasslands to dry out a bit and not be a gumbo greasy mess. No such luck so far this winter. Between the shorter days, work, and school, if it's not decent on the weekends I'm S.O.L.
Anyway, I was sitting on the toilet the other day thinking about load development and decided I'm going to try 4x loads of 5 rounds each, 0.2 grains apart. I'm just not sold on the ladder test. Three or four of them at 1000yd I might buy into if the results were conclusive, but I just don't like the idea of basing the impact point of a charge on 1 or 2 bullets. Also, not sure I'd be able to easily track which charge went with which hole.
So I have 60.6, 60.8, 61.0, and 61.2 grains loaded up ready to test. I'm thinking 400yd or so, and will mostly focus on vertical spread. It's kind of the same idea of a ladder test, but I can see how they group, vertical dispersion, and how POI shifts from one charge to the next. It's been my experience that precision is sinusoidal with powder charge increase, the period being about 1 grain in most cases. This will give me enough info to either pick a load or point which way I need to look. I'd like to get a day around 50-60 degrees and don't really want to go much over 61.0gr for a load to settle on before seeing how the hotter stuff performs in the summer.
