A morning at the range 3/22/12
I had a pretty disappointing morning at the range yesterday. I brought my rifle and 25 rounds each of 70gr KIK 2f loaded with MBW Lyman 457132 Postell and Saeco 645. You might remember from above that my rifle was pretty well locked onto the target at 80 yards. I stapled up targets at 100 and 200 yards.
Problem number 1, I’m still not comfortable with my tang sight adjustments. It took me probably 10 rounds of Postells to get it acceptable and I could not get a good group. In retrospect I probably should have pushed a wet patch or two through the barrel at this point but I didn’t until about round 30.
Next I tried the Saeco….not even hitting the paper. Not sure what was wrong, once I finally got a couple hit the black I decided to move on to the 200yd target before I ran out of ammo.
problem number 2, I should have had a spotter. I incremented the vernier about .125″ which I was told would get me in the ballpark and shot a half-dozen rounds, making little adjustments here and there and no paper. I had no idea where I was and nobody around to help me see where I was going. I probably missed the paper 20 times or more.
Next time I’m bringing a large piece of cardboard to tack up so I can see where my hits are.
I adjusted my stance to that I had a very solid hold. Used my bench sticks and my elbows on the bench. Still not much luck. One would have thought I never shot before. I was pretty bummed and my shoulder was sore. I fired my last 2 shots at a very large gong at 200yrds and missed, packed my bags and went home.
My barrel cleaned up well and there was no leading so I cant blame the rifle. The Postells seemed to work way better than the Saeco’s though not anywhere close to what I was doing at 80yrds. I only have 25 bullets left and MBW is out of Postells for a few weeks so I’ll just lick my wounds and shoot in the back yard for a couple of weeks until I’m restocked.
From an equipment perspective there were a couple of lessons learned. First, I should have tried shooting prone in order to get a solid, stable hold. When I got home I Googled “shooting mats” can came up with a bunch of options. This one from Midway was on sale at $49, has light colored (ie. not black which will get real hot in the sun) non skid surfaces for the elbows and knees, and is wider than most at 35″ (most are 27″) which will work better when sitting on it as well.
I also realized that shooting more than 20 rounds made my shoulder a bit sore so I have a PAST 1/2″ shoulder pad coming as well as more bullets and 10lbs of KIK (today). My next outing will use the prone sticks and pad so I have a stable hold and see what happens.
Also just received the Boonie Packer Chamber Checker Safety Flag from Midway. All the pictures of the product on the web depict these as being flimsy, cheap pieces of plastic, and for just over a buck each I can see where one might come to that conclusion….but they are substantial, work great and are definitely not chincy. The photo above shows me inserting the curved stem into the chamber, the curvature of the long stem is what keeps the flag in your chamber. Below is the flag seated in my chamber. As you can see by the one I’m holding, there is a lot of material in these $1.50 (5/$5.99) flags. You can find these on Amazon as well but the price ranges from inexpensive to way overpriced. I think Midway has the best deal if you can add them to a current order.
