Ben and I went out to scout some deer hunting areas and look for some rockchucks today. The scouting was pretty slow but we did come upon a pretty good rockchuck colony late in the morning. We had several spotted between 550 and 575 yards. After our difficulty with our long range stuff a couple of weeks ago, we weren't sure what to expect. But, we were game to give it a try.
Ben set up first with his .243AI. I got the spotting scope out. Ben asked what I was doing with the spotting scope and I tongue-in-cheek told him that I was doing what dads do--telling him what he was doing wrong. He dialed in his drops for the biggest rockchuck in view, held some windage and made an incredible first shot hit at 575 yards! He then sarcastically asked what he had done wrong.
I told him that it appeared that he'd done nothing wrong.
First-round 575 yarder.
We traded places as I pulled out my .243 Ackley. I again tongue-in-cheek told him I had brought 150 rounds of ammo so I hoped I could get one killed before it was over. I dialed my drops for another 'chuck at the end of the rim and proceeded to surprise both of us with another solid first-round hit at 550. This was a little more like it! Trading places again, I watched as Ben put another first-round 550 yard hit on the next 'chuck. Why is this LR stuff so unpredictable?
My next turn let us down with a third-round hit and Ben struggled about the same on his next attempt. But, hey, when you're batting around 50% at that range, I can deal with that! Our furthest miss was probably four inches off target. We had a couple more first-round hits and a couple more misses. We ended up at close to 50% overall according to our spotter calls. There were quite a few deep cracks in the rocks so even though we found some blood, we were only able to retrieve four of the eight or nine rockchucks.
Shots were taken from where the pickup is parked.
We checked a few other places that normally hold 'chucks but only found singles or doubles so we left them alone. It felt like sweet redemption after our poorer showing last week. I guess that's what keeps us going in this long range varmint hunting game.
The hero shot.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Ben set up first with his .243AI. I got the spotting scope out. Ben asked what I was doing with the spotting scope and I tongue-in-cheek told him that I was doing what dads do--telling him what he was doing wrong. He dialed in his drops for the biggest rockchuck in view, held some windage and made an incredible first shot hit at 575 yards! He then sarcastically asked what he had done wrong.
I told him that it appeared that he'd done nothing wrong. First-round 575 yarder.
We traded places as I pulled out my .243 Ackley. I again tongue-in-cheek told him I had brought 150 rounds of ammo so I hoped I could get one killed before it was over. I dialed my drops for another 'chuck at the end of the rim and proceeded to surprise both of us with another solid first-round hit at 550. This was a little more like it! Trading places again, I watched as Ben put another first-round 550 yard hit on the next 'chuck. Why is this LR stuff so unpredictable?
My next turn let us down with a third-round hit and Ben struggled about the same on his next attempt. But, hey, when you're batting around 50% at that range, I can deal with that! Our furthest miss was probably four inches off target. We had a couple more first-round hits and a couple more misses. We ended up at close to 50% overall according to our spotter calls. There were quite a few deep cracks in the rocks so even though we found some blood, we were only able to retrieve four of the eight or nine rockchucks.
Shots were taken from where the pickup is parked.
We checked a few other places that normally hold 'chucks but only found singles or doubles so we left them alone. It felt like sweet redemption after our poorer showing last week. I guess that's what keeps us going in this long range varmint hunting game.
The hero shot.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
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