Baby Shower or Range Day???

Daughter-in-law's baby shower was Saturday.  So I called the boys out to the farm to do some shooting whilst the womenfolk were busy.  I had Nick, Alex, Dad, and Nick's father-in-law Rod out.
But first, we met at the South Fork restaurant in Mulberry for their Saturday lunch special of catfish, chicken wings, Rocky Mt. Oysters, and fries!  That already makes it a GREAT DAY and we haven't even fired the first shot.

We set a steel plate in the fence row, angled down to deflect any bullets into the ground.  And we guessed at the distance.  I speculated "over 400 yards."  I was right, and I was also way off.  Laser ranged distance was 550 yards (503 metres) from bench to steel.

And then we set off to a shootin'.  Folks pulled out whatever they had and wanted to fire.  Ole Rod is a pistol dude and had never shot a rifle before in his life.  I set him up on the .300 Win Mag, followed by the .243, .223, and the suppressed .22.  He laughed the entire time.  I think he's hooked and will be looking for a rifle in the near future.

Our targets were set up at 100 yards, 200 yards, and 550 yards.

We finished with the rifles and broke out the pistols.  Of course, we moved to the 25-yard line with the backstop to shoot pistols.  We fired .38's, .40's, .45's and 9mm's.  We picked up all the brass we could find for reloading as well.

And then we jumped on the gator to go check out the "gong" hits.

Pictured below are 3 2-shot groups fired by Nick, Alex, and myself - at 550 yards!  The upper left-hand group is less than one inch.  The top right side is close to 1/2".  And the bottom group is about 2.5" - all eye-balled and not measured.  5.5" at 550 yards would be 1 MOA.  We are WELL UNDER that!  Yes, I know, it's only two shots, but still - that's awesome shooting!

We all used my Ruger Precision Rifle in .243 caliber.  I have it zeroed at 500 yards.  Due to the wind, we all held LEFT of where you can see in this picture (upper left-hand side of the white paint) to compensate for drift.  We also used hand-loads with Sierra Match King bullets weighing 95 grains.  All bullets were also extended to seat 2 thousandths off the lands.  So we were using a pretty great rifle with matched bullets to the weapon.  But with scope and all, I still have only about $1,200 in the entire set-up.  Winning!


3 2-shot groups from a Ruger Precision Rifle chambered in .243 fired from 550 yards out
by three different shooters.

We called it off after about 3 hours of shooting.  We did not calculate the expense of the bullets because you cannot put a price on FUN.  And trust me, we had fun!  Better than an ole baby shower on any day of the week and twice on Sunday.


Comments

  1. Dave PorrillMay 24, 2017 at 10:50 AM

    Jealous!! Sounds like a really good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

    ReplyDelete

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