Fun day at the rifle range today

Warbirds

All of this unrest has driven me back to the rifle range lately and I am feeling pretty confident shooting off a bench.

My friend Joe & I went out this AM and a group of polite and well meaning Tactical Timmies have beat us to the 300yd rifle range. But there were plenty of bays available for everyone.

They had paper targets at 100yds & a 12” steel square hanging at 300yards (317 meters, according to the Timmie with a range finder)...

These guys were fun to watch. The “spotter” would call out every shot.

“4 inches low, 6 inches right” and then the shooter would immediately get to cranking dials on their scope before taking their next shot. Bang, “6 inches high, one inch left...” This demonstration went on for roughly an hour.

The hanging steel was never harmed during that time.

I had a cooler of gatorades and waters and offered some to the guys while we were setting up targets. So we are being friendly and I didn’t observe any bad safety practices.

I had brought to rifles, my Daniel Defense in 6.8 SPC with a Zeiss on too and an AR15 A2 with the traditional fixed sights.

The guy asks if I’d like to take a shot at his steel @300yds. I said sure & grabbed the A2 rifle resulting in much ado from the Timmies. Instead of choosing the rifle with the bog Zeiss on top.

Load up 5 rounds of 68 grain Match Kings.

Sight picture pretty much sucks because the target is really hard to distinguish from the berm, my eyes aren’t very sharp but I can get just enough to make a good WAG on where to hold the rifle.

Go Hot.

Breathe.

Gently get on the trigger.

Bang.

Ding

”Spotter” HIT!

Repeat.

Bang.

Ding

”Hit!”

And so on.

I went 5 for 5 on the steel plate which was really fun to do as these guys were baffled by my sorcery.

This rifle has the traditional “National match“ M16 sights which are the norm at Camp Perry, a 20” stainless bull barrel & I had already been shooting paper @300yds with it. The light wind was perfectly at my back, which didn’t hurt things either.

Must not have been too shabby for a USPSA shooter because my buddy Joe was texting our squad of USPSA guys as we were heading home. Overall a fun day.

hillbille

I did that once to a couple young fellows came to range with their glocks and silouet? targets set up out about 10yards emptied 8-10 magazines and were all over the target, me and a buddy had just got done shooting golf balls with 22 rifle and one went over a sand pile they had out about 40 yards, I ask the kids if I could get a target during one of their breaks came back and dropped the golf ball about where their target was and pulled out my 44 remington black powder pistol. loaded it up and told the two this may make some smoke, they just stood there grinning. first shot kicked the golf ball about 15 yards on out  through the grass, second knocked it over on the sand pile, third shot kicked it over the pile out of sight, this was from bench rest and mostly luck as I shot it pretty good but never that good, went out got ball came back and the boys were loading up and leaving, one was on his phone and my friend said he was talking to someone about the old guy hitting golf balls with a muzzleloading pistol.......  didn't even try to hit it with the other 3 shots, guess we all have a few of them days in our lives, wish my eyes were good enough to still used iron/open sights

Horse Plains Drifter

Sounds like a fun day, especially with that crew of gomers for entertainment!

MIKE WISKEY

"These guys were fun to watch. The “spotter” would call out every shot.

“4 inches low, 6 inches right” and then the shooter would immediately get to cranking dials on their scope before taking their next shot. Bang, “6 inches high, one inch left...” This demonstration went on for roughly an hour.

The hanging steel was never harmed during that time."

I suppose they never thought about shooting a 'group' to see where the rifle shot. They remind me of a silhouette shooter I knew 'back in the day', I swear he used a power screwdriver to adjust his sights ever shot.

drobs

I have a similar story from about 9 years ago. We had a 700yd range just over the border in Arkansas. Closed up now.

I got the old codgers all flustered as I was hitting their 700yd gong (about the size of a car door) with my M1A off sandbags using iron sights & S. African surplus ammo.

These old timers were using 300 win mags with high powered scopes from lead sleds.

I did have fella spotting my dirt cloud misses so I could crank up my elevation on the rear sight. Was able to get to 700 pretty easily though.

Found most of my semi-autos (AR15, M1A, & Mini-14) would go to 400yds without a sight adjustment. At 500yds I needed to start adjusting elevation.