By Pudge
I am fortunate enough to have just returned from some long range, high-angle, high-wind shooting up in northern Idaho. This was an amazing week of shooting with Bryan Morgan of Hat Creek Training. Most of you reading this know that I usually prefer up close and personal blasting but I figured it was time to grow up and learn some new things. So, because of that, it was time to really delve into some long-range shooting. And this was exactly that. More of a plummet though!
The tip I wanted to share after this amazing experience has to do with zeroing your long guns. All of us that went used a flavor of .308s and .300 WINMAGs. No matter what we used, we all zeroed at 100 meters. After getting the best possible zero we moved into a 10x 1” dots drill. (Let me note that we did not slip our turrets just yet.) The first 5 dots were shot to confirm our zero and also help bring out any tendencies to shoot to one direction or another. For this, you shoot 1 dot and then get up from your rifle and take a couple minutes relaxing. You will do this for each of the first 5 dots. Shoot 1, get up for a couple minutes, then repeat.
After verifying your zero is good you can slip your turrets. Now, you repeat the exact same steps as above another 5 times. This will validate that nothing moved while getting your turrets set. The reason that you do this drill is that you will see most people/weapon system have a tendency to shoot in one direction. I could have a perfect zero and still almost always shoot the bottom right of the 1” dot. (Not sure but it might just be the way me and my rifle shoot as a complete system.) Also, the reason that you get up after each shot and have to reposition yourself behind the gun is to make sure that you are in a correct, repeatable position. If your shots are all scattered then you are not getting the same sight picture or eye to scope alignment each time.
Sometimes you gotta use your ride to get high enough.
A little downhill shooting.
Hopefully the future will see Mack getting a slow down from hocking firearms and some predictable connectivity for myself so that we can keep everyone in virtual reading material.
Hey Pudge;
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of Long gun and scope combination were you using? The election season and Biden and kamela scaring the crap out of gun owners plus the assorted riots and other social drama has kept Mack hocking guns to newbie gun owners.
Mr. Garabaldi,
ReplyDeleteI used 3 different guns during this training. The first was a .308 SR25 with Nightforce B.E.A.S.T. 5-25, second was a .300WINMAG CTSR 2010 with a second Nightforce B.E.A.S.T. 5-25, and lastly was my personal .308 Savage Model 11VT with Vortex Strike Eagle 5-25. The .308s were used out to 1000m and the .300WIN for everything past that. I really like the Nightforce scopes but they are expensive which is why I went with the Vortex on my personal gun and I am extremely pleased with it.
I was talking to Mack and we were trying to decide which panic people were buying for!