Nevermind the fact that I was the only one shooting F T/R, or even a scoped rifle for that matter (everyone else was shooting service rifle).
All joking aside, I felt I did pretty good considering I was using Southwest Ammo's run-n-gun ammo (which by my research is 175smk's stuffed into LC remanufactured brass with 42.8gr of Varget, not sure about the primer though) and this was the first time that I've actually shot my rifle in F T/R conditions. The match was a 3x300 on the F-Class reduced targets. I feel that this ammo is a little on the slow side for my rifle, which for those of you that don't know is a REM700 .308 w/ Kreiger 30" 5R in 1:10". The weather conditions weren't bad but the day started out a little cool and damp.
There was a foggy haze the entire time. I found it very interesting that with the cooler temperature and the moisture in the air that when other shooters would fire, their hot gases would float (with the wind) across the course right through my lane and cause a crazy mirage effect for me while looking through my scope. I have the NightForce Benchrest 12-42x56. At first, I was trying to power down to compensate for the mirage. My first string ended up being a 183-4x. On the next string I was able to start picking up on the rhythm of the other shooters on the line and was able to power back up a little and shoot between the blobs of floating gas. I shot a 188-5x on that string. For the third and final string, I had the other shooters rhythm figured out and was able to get into a rhythm myself but by this time the winds were picking up and I was shooting down the extreme left side of the course. There was a nice tall berm down that side that blocked the wind but there was two large openings in the berm that allowed the wind to blow through. That wouldn't have been a big deal except the wind was blowing between 5 and 10 mph and there was absolutely nothing to use to gauge the wind by. I was just shooting blind in those regards. However, I was able to pull out a 190-4x. I'm pretty proud of my scores considering the only matches I have ever shot prior to this was an XTC match at Benning last summer and the event at HardRock just a few weeks ago. Hopefully I'll be able to get my load testing done this week or weekend (I'm looking at you lal357, let you know as soon as possible) and have nice healthy pills for my stick before the next match.
All in all, I feel as though I did pretty dang good considering this was my first match, and only second time shooting a scoped rifle prone from a bipod in my entire life. The only other time was with lal357 at his club's range. Not too shabby for a newbie, huh?
All joking aside, I felt I did pretty good considering I was using Southwest Ammo's run-n-gun ammo (which by my research is 175smk's stuffed into LC remanufactured brass with 42.8gr of Varget, not sure about the primer though) and this was the first time that I've actually shot my rifle in F T/R conditions. The match was a 3x300 on the F-Class reduced targets. I feel that this ammo is a little on the slow side for my rifle, which for those of you that don't know is a REM700 .308 w/ Kreiger 30" 5R in 1:10". The weather conditions weren't bad but the day started out a little cool and damp.
There was a foggy haze the entire time. I found it very interesting that with the cooler temperature and the moisture in the air that when other shooters would fire, their hot gases would float (with the wind) across the course right through my lane and cause a crazy mirage effect for me while looking through my scope. I have the NightForce Benchrest 12-42x56. At first, I was trying to power down to compensate for the mirage. My first string ended up being a 183-4x. On the next string I was able to start picking up on the rhythm of the other shooters on the line and was able to power back up a little and shoot between the blobs of floating gas. I shot a 188-5x on that string. For the third and final string, I had the other shooters rhythm figured out and was able to get into a rhythm myself but by this time the winds were picking up and I was shooting down the extreme left side of the course. There was a nice tall berm down that side that blocked the wind but there was two large openings in the berm that allowed the wind to blow through. That wouldn't have been a big deal except the wind was blowing between 5 and 10 mph and there was absolutely nothing to use to gauge the wind by. I was just shooting blind in those regards. However, I was able to pull out a 190-4x. I'm pretty proud of my scores considering the only matches I have ever shot prior to this was an XTC match at Benning last summer and the event at HardRock just a few weeks ago. Hopefully I'll be able to get my load testing done this week or weekend (I'm looking at you lal357, let you know as soon as possible) and have nice healthy pills for my stick before the next match.
All in all, I feel as though I did pretty dang good considering this was my first match, and only second time shooting a scoped rifle prone from a bipod in my entire life. The only other time was with lal357 at his club's range. Not too shabby for a newbie, huh?
