Re: My dream rifle... (pics)
Brief range report:
Took the black beast out yesterday to the local range. Brought 40 rounds of factory 250g Lapua and 300g Black Hills each. With the brand new S&B mounted on the AI 45 moa base, I dialed the scope to 0.
My first shot I took on steel at 200 yards just to get a feel for how far off the scope might be. Pow, two feet low. Made an adjustment. Pow center hit on the steel. Then I moved to 100 paper which (oddly) the club we were shooting with had poker chips glued up for a competition. I took the next shot and it was high left, but not by much... came down one mil and over .8 mils. Next shot pow, impacted the chip slightly high left and made one final adjustment for zero. Then pow, pow, pow I was breaking chips with what could only be likened to a sledgehammer on a saltine.
Then I went directly to 600 yard steel. There is an 18"? pig out there that I didn't like the looks of, so came up 4 mils (total guess) and yes I shot high over the cackling swine. Did a quick estimation with my mils and corrected back down to about 3.4 mils (I think??) and still was high. Final adjustment, I moved down to 3.1 and the pig clanged out a note like St. Peter's bells at noon.
My overall impression, it's a way bigger bang than I'm used to. It bucks hard and fast when you squeeze the trigger, necessitating the shooter to really hold with a tight cheekweld and in the pocket, staying on the sights and riding it out for the follow-through. Whatever bad habits you may have, a larger caliber is only going to magnify them. During the first few shots I noticed the gun jumped sharply to the left and it was making me nutz but then I pondered about what Lowlight teaches here, I realized that it was me pushing the rifle left, the gun wanted to simply jump straight back. So I made a few adjustment and then I was able to ride the pulse of the rife almost all the way without losing sight of the 600 yard target (it would briefly jump up) but I could def see all the hits (or misses).
The 338LM is not a round anyone should start with for obvious reasons, it's like riding an angry quatrerhorse before learning on a pony. But damn is it a fun ride.
No pics of the range but will throw some up on my desert shoot next month... and I'll be shooting steel at 1.5K.
