How to drink water

[specweldtom]

There is a large population of German descendants all around Frdericksburg, Texas. A farmer saw a man getting a drink of water out of his stock tank (pond) with his hand. He shouted to the man: Trink das wasser nicht! Die kuhen haben dahin gesheissen! Translates (I hope), don't drink that water, the cows have **** in it!

The man shouted back, I'm from Chicago, and I'm down here campaigning for Obama's health care plan. Speak English! The farmer, then said in perfect English; Use both hands, you can get more water.

Fredericksburg is a great town!

It's also Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz's home town. Tom

 

[winmag]

Loved it. Thanks for posting

 

[roaddog1m]

Waaaaaaahahahahaha!

 

[FEENIX]

LL!

 

[specweldtom]

Roaddog, glad I smoked you out. Been wondering how things are going for you (and Zeus). This is a good place to catch us up. All your readers watch this forum.

Saw a news report on Fox couple of days ago where a woman adopted a retired drug dog and was offering private searches to individuals and companies. Doing well too. The Fox guy shocked me by asking if her dog was a Malinois. Sure enough, he is!

+1 for Fox!

Tom

 

[roaddog1m]

I'm doing pretty good actually. I've been pretty consumed lately with fishing, hunting mushrooms, shooting prairie puppies, getting ready for a match on the 1st and just generally loosening primer pockets. When the weather warms up, I stay pretty busy with all the things that need ventilated around the area.
I recently made a new friend who just happens to own a large ranch, complete with p-dogs and antygoats! It also borders the Moreau River where there is a bit of catfishing and stuff like that. He also had a 1000yd range on his place. Were trying to get a mile target set up. We have the room but my only long range rifle is a .308 and I run out of vertical adjustment at about 1400yds. I think I have it figured out though. 49.75moa + 20 mils holdover. (second mildot) It's supposed to rain this weekend but after that I'll find out how close my calculations are. I'm shooting a 155Palma Match @ 2800. Maybe someone out there can lend some advice or tell me if I'm on the right track.

How you been doing?

 

[specweldtom]

I used to shoot .308 match rifle and M1-A service rifle. The .308's are good at 1000 yds in the hands of shooters who can really dope wind. An example: a 10 mph 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock crosswind would deflect the LC 173gr Match bullet 6 feet at 1000Yds. If you couldn't read wind and correct for it, you either couldn't print on your own target at all, or you unintentionally hit the target on either side of yours. I shot the Any Rifle - Any Sight matches at 600 and 1000 with a homebuilt 7mm Rem Mag (168gr Matchkings) and a homebuilt .300 Win Mag (200gr Win full patch bullets). Average come-up from a 600 yd zero to 1000 yds with the .308 match round was 24 minutes. My come-up with the 7 Rem was 11 minutes. That flatter trajectory (higher velocity with high B/C bullets) also gave me a big advantage on wind bucking. I didn't have to be near as good with the 7 or the .300 to get on and shoot good scores.

The moral of this novel is that the .308 just gives away too much at 1000 yds, let alone a mile. I don't have the exterior ballistics handy, but I think that not far past 1000 yds, the .308 is going to go transonic and unstable. You're going to need a lot of rifle for 1760 yds. I would go with a boomer .338, like the Wby .338 x .378, the .338 Rum or Edge, the .338 Lapua, or the .338 Excalibur. A .50 Browning rifle would be great, but they are expensive, very large and heavy and not really a shoulder fired arm. The .408's and .416's are mostly proprietary (EVERYTHING is expensive) and also not very versatile. The .308 will reach a mile, but I predict that you will be lucky if you can find where it hits the ground, let alone a target. Sorry, but that's my opinion.

The ranch deal sounds great....Enjoy.

You didn't say how Zeus is doing.

As for me, other than getting long-winded, I'm doing pretty good, for a crippled old fat man.

Tom

 

[roaddog1m]

Tom,

Ya, I realize the shortcomings of the .308 but unfortunately, I'm shooting what I carry in my patrol vehicle (known out here west river as an "outfit") I get under a half moa @100yds but shot at 900 have been getting an average of 21". The wind is a big factor. I've shot some smaller groups but that's pretty much what I can do on average. I suppose if I could find a day without any wind I could get a smaller group. The mile shot is something that some other cops thought up and I got to wondering if I could wing one out that far and if so, how would I go about trying it. My load is 47gr. of Varget. I'm only getting 2800 but I see that some guys get over 2900 with the same load. I suspect that velocity is a lot like group size and other things that guys like to embellish. LoL I'm also loading Varget in my 5.56 ammo. It was my Dad's favorite all around powder and I really like it too. I'm starting to really like RL17 myself. But that's for another rifle.

On the other hand, I hit a 200yd gong with my .45 yesterday! Missed it the first 3 shots but gonged it twice in a row after that. Not as much drop as you would think. Shot over the top of it twice and once on the left.

Zeus is ****ed at the world right now. I took in an old retired hunting dog (13yrs old) and it seems to have made him jealous. I don't need another **** dog but I have a soft spot for old dogs I guess. He was going to be put down for biting someone so I took him. He's pretty good around here and seems to actually be rather greatful. He never leaves me and follows me around the house constantly. When I'm loading, he comes in and leans against my stool.

Looks like some weather coming in now. About 30mph wind today. A good day for loading ammo.

Tom

 

[specweldtom]

Tom,

I get under a half moa @100yds but shot at 900 have been getting an average of 21". The wind is a big factor. I've shot some smaller groups but that's pretty much what I can do on average. I suppose if I could find a day without any wind I could get a smaller group.

Zeus is ****ed at the world right now.


I couldn't figure out how to get the edited quote to highlight. Tom





Theoretically, if you can shoot 1/2 moa, you could shoot a 4.5" group at 900 yds (in a dead calm and no mirage), but realistically under the best conditions, you might shoot an average 8-10" group, which is not bad shooting. With the right rifle, in the same good conditions you could probably get into 4 - 5" groups. 900 yds is a good test. The next 100 yards to reach 1000 is not that much more difficult, but even theoretically, will open groups a little. I don't trust 3 shot strings, I do trust 5 shot strings, and 10 shot strings leave absolutely no doubt.

If you use a good scope and fire a shot every minute or so, you may be seeing barrel heat mirage. It can screw you up. I used to use a barrel mirage strap to block it. It helps. I don't know what the rules are now, but we used to have 33 minutes to fire 22 shots (including 2 sighters), so we were steady plunkin' away. Also, once you decided what conditions you were going to fire on (the most prevalent combination of wind, light, and mirage), sometimes you would shoot just as fast as they could get the target back up, while those conditions lasted. Then you might have to wait for several minutes for conditions to get back where you needed them to be. It was a crap shoot for me, because I was basically a lousy wind doper, but I loved the 1000 yd matches. I believed they separated the real riflemen from the rest. I also needed really good long range rifles to compensate for my own shortcomings. I always wanted to know that when I booted one out, it was me, not my rifle. Bottom line, if I did my job, the rifle always delivered. Unlike F-class, this was all belly shooting, and no part of the rifle was allowed to touch the ground. Only meat and bone. Oh yeah, don't leave your ammo in the sun. It can really screw with you at long range.

I like your decision to take in Old Dog. You're lucky if they don't go to the ground once in awhile. I still think Zeus might be in a better mood if you let him have his own child molester to gnaw on.

Good hearing from you again, Tom

 

[roaddog1m]

Tom,
Thanks for all the good advice. The wind here in the Dakota's never stops blowing. 15 to 20 today! I just plan on match day being a lousy windy day. Actually, I'm kinda counting on it. I'm not the best wind doper either but I like the idea of another problem being thrown at us for some reason. The pistol/carbine stage is going on at the same time as the long range stage so I think I'll try to get my long range out of the way as early as possible. The wind tends to pick up as it gets later. The pistol/carbine stage is a real *** kicker. Over a mile through the river bottoms (no water crossings this year) while you carry all your gear and try to make your hits. Heavy breathing really kills accuracy! Going to be fun though and I've lost almost 20lbs while getting ready for this thing! I figure that I'm older and slower than most of these boys so I'll have to shoot better. (gotta remember my glasses) The RO follows you on an ATV and calls your hits on steel. Limited number of rounds can be carried for each weapon.

I've shot some Military High Power, IPSC 3gun and 4gun and a lot of IPSC pistol matches but no 1000yd matches. This will be my first one. I'm doing it on the cheap. My M-4gery is an issued Bushmaster with a relatively inexpensive optic. My pistol is the 1911 that I carry every day/night on duty and my rifle is the Rem 700 PSS that rides in the back of my outfit too. No expensive optics, just a 16x Super Sniper on top and a Shilen trigger set at 2lbs. It really does shoot well though, my biggest problem with be the changing winds I think. I'm pretty sure that 31.5MOA gets me to 1000 from a 100yd zero. I'll have to find a day here soon and get a shot or two off at 1000yds. If it's blowing like this on match day I might run out of horizontal adjustment. LoL

Tom