how good can you shoot? trying to come up with some goals.

[SBruce]

Broz has made a very good point with 1st round hits.

Even shooting prarie dogs at 500-700 yds, I've seen that.

A big praire dog may be about the size of a clay pigeon (at his fattest part), and hitting them at that distance with a 1st round shot (no sighter, spotter) is way more difficult then hitting them once I've got the wind and distance figured (shooting 22 centerfires).

Lovdasnow, IMO if you are hitting clay pigeons at 1000 with 1st or 2nd shots from a cold barrel..............that's way good!

 

[RDM416]

lovdasnow, Great thread, glad you got it started. Real world stuff from everyone is very interesting, everyone who shoots much can pick a "best group" that is very impressive.

I like what Broz is saying about 1st shot cold barrel practice. I do that some, but I don't have a place to do much of it at different locations. I think a good goal for me to work on is do more practice at that and aspire to keep first round hits from 800 to 1200 yards to between 1/2 and 1 moa.

 

[RMulhern]

good shooting, very nice group. is that from a bench gun, or prone from a rifle more on the hunting side of things?

so you are saying that you could break clays at 1k most of the time? it seems that way by the looks of that group. is that group a common occurrence?

again, not doubting anything, anyone is saying, just trying to figure out what is normal for good shooters in field positions.

thanks again

lovdasnow

What I'll say is that I EXPECT such accuracy from this rifle any time I take it to the range. Clay targets?? Don't know! The law of probability says that some shots fired yes...some shots a miss! The 'degree of miss' is what must be looked at; generally it won't be the rifle or load....rather the shooter not picking up on either a condition change or improper application of the rules of marksmanship which are unyielding in their nature! Here's the rifle:



Click on photo to enlarge!

 

[sp6x6]

I have shot next to and their rifles at local range, which we lost 1000 for politics. These a 16# bench rifles w/2oz. triggers. Two of the guys I know are world record holder, penn. rules, whatever that is, certain target, time, # shoots, witness, etc. They have shot 300wsm, but are currently shooting 6mm dasher. Their best groups are around 2 1/2 1000. They used to do a fun shoot on weekend and throw like a buck a shot in, target= 2 1/2 orange sticker @1000, the winner usally hit sticker. But wind really affects their grouping, and I seen them string there whole 10 rnds fast, so they are hard on barrels as they heat them up. They have there 1000 speed goat club, and dont even shoot at the close ones. They would have a hard time with clay if any wind.

 

[rscott5028]

I'm just the spotter nowadays and my young son does the shooting.

He shoots long range with the following factory rifles:
Sendero (1st gen) 7mm Rem Mag with KDF Brake and Leupold 6.5-20x56 VX3L
Savage 12F 6.5x284 and Leupold 6.5-20x40 VX3

We don't have a whole lot of long range practice and/or hunting opportunity. But, he consistently gets MOA to 940yds. We haven't had the chance to shoot farther as yet.

I could hand select a couple of 1/2 MOA groups. But, those would be the exceptions.

First round hits on 14x14" paper at 700+yds are fairly common with good conditions. But, we usually have a much larger sheet of cardboard to find the ones that don't quite land on the target sheet of paper.

Since we're still amatures at long range, I usually have him just shoot the group without adjusting for spotters and then make the 15 minute drive through all the gates to go check the target. Hence, some groups may be a bit of course, but we're really looking to develop consistency and then theorize in arrears about how much off we were due to misreading the conditions.

Our current goal is to work on 1st round hits within an MOA circle at any range to 1000yds while holding the group size to MOA.

If we get proficient at that, we may be ready to look at a custom rebarrel and try to tighten down on the average/mode group size.

Thanks for posting the question and it's good to hear what others are getting as averages with bench, custom, or factory rifles since most of the guys I see shooting at the local range look like they're shooting buck shot at 100yds with a cylinder bore 12ga.

Thanks,
Richard

 

[rscott5028]

One other point about our method/goals is that I record copious notes from every shooting session. It would be much harder to do so if we were shooting clays or rocks which are also good parctice.

But, it would be hard for me to determine the degree to which we're making progress if I didn't have a piece of paper to look at.

My spotting basically sucks at long range and flat country.

 

[Buffalobob]

Sharpsman's 20 inch gong is basically the 9 ring of a F-class target. With a 308 and a calm day it is challenging for me to put 20 consecutive rounds into that size target. A lot depends upon the choice of rifle and the number of rounds fired.

 

[sp6x6]

There is that video of Shawn Carlock,12" disc @1602 yrds.313/4 MOA

 

[X3MHunter]

Sounds like some of you guys should be out there shooting competition and setting world records!

 

[lovdasnow]

i don't think 1/2moa will be breaking any world records anytime soon.

shooting in the .6's at 650, and then you're getting closer, but i would like to see that with my own eyes though. maybe 1-2-3 shots, but i would like to see that for 5-10 shots on a consistent basis for sure.

 

[SBruce]

i don't think 1/2moa will be breaking any world records anytime soon.

shooting in the .6's at 650, and then you're getting closer, but i would like to see that with my own eyes though. maybe 1-2-3 shots, but i would like to see that for 5-10 shots on a consistent basis for sure.

+1

Even when I was competing in 100-300 yd benchrest matches 20 yrs ago, using my great uncles custom guns and super tight ammo.........1/2 moa wasn't winning much..............at least not on calm days.

The 1/2 moa I am shooting now is calm days off the bench too, and by today's benchrest standards that's nothing.

 

[XMC]

Ya know I kind of figured this thread would go this weigh and it really kind of just makes me shake my head as always… a point .6 is not hard to run at 650 when you work at it and I mean anal; weigh sort and inspect each bullet, neck turn, mark your brass for chamber position, tweak every aspect of your rifle and get to know it, record all dope in all conditions et cetera. Hey I'm no pro; those days are gone for me so I'll retract my posts and give you this one to help you feel better.

I can hit some… most all the time…
Good luck boys I'm outta here.

 

[lovdasnow]

didn't want to **** anyone off, but you yourself said you have flyers that you couldn't explain.
so i just figured that that with your flyers you couldn't hold .6 at 650 for 5-10 rounds consistently.

if you can do that on a regular basis then i'm very impressed. no need to take your ball and leave. if you shoot like you say you do, i would really like you to stick around so i could learn something from you. that's why this thread was started, for all of us to learn what is possible out there.

again, didn't mean to **** anyone off here...

 

[SBruce]

I too think it would be great to be able to shoot the kind of group that XMC was showing.

With the factory barrel rifles I've been using for the past 20 years, I am tickled pink with 1/2" 3 shot at 200yds and 1" 3 shot groups at 300 yds (some of my best). I'd be posting everywhere if I had a .6 at 650!

Don't run off XMC, share your expertise.