This shoot was conducted by NRA guidelines at 300, 500 and 600 yards at Nashua Fish and Game’s 600 yard range.  A 20 dollar entry fee and compliance with the equipment I was using for F Class. Below is a 500 yard target for F Class as an example.

See the Chuck Hawkes article on getting started below.

http://chuckhawks.com/f-class_shooting.htm

I tried to register for the new F- AR-15 class but since I was the only shooter, I was placed in F class Open with scope and bi-pod. Attending were approximately 18 shooters give or take, I didn’t count them. . My son Jason was shooting his .308 Winchester in a target model. This was his and my first of many rifle competitions. His schedule works ideal for these weekend shoots and my schedule does not, but I will find the time for more.

Shoot info can be found on the Nashua F&G website under High Power.

At the outset there was concern that my 600 yard 223 cartridge a few days earlier was hitting the target subsonic.

I remedied that with a heavier load and it worked just fine for the 600 yard targets. I was able to use my slower loads at 300 and 500 no problem. The day began with wind in the 10-12 mph class blowing directly at us for the most part. Liuckily at 11:30 AM the wind dropped to near zero to five mph for my turn at 600 yards.  I was able with the AR-15 with 16 inch barrel 1/7 twist to hit 10 ring more than I thought and lots of 9 ring hits, and to a lesser extent some 8, 7,6,5 rings were in the mix of hits as well. I was very lucky to have done so well because the wind was not a large factor today. I shot right beside my son so it was a father son event as it were. You can shoot in this event whether young or older like me. I did not have time to do justice to the many photo ops I missed because I shot instead but we will remedy that in the future. Our score cards were turned in and we will be notified as to the score. Personally the score is unimportant at this point, it was the learning by shooting – that is the real prize.

Good Shooting! If I have more photo’s that come available I will update this article.

© 2016

Below is my first sight-in for the Nosler 223 77g heads at Nashua’s 600 yards range at an F class target in single shot mode with my AR-15 w/16 inch barrel.

I told the range officer that my JBM calculation said that from my zero at 100 yards, it needed 26 minutes up but he wanted me to start at 15 minutes up and thought my calculation was in error (that was being kind).  It took all of 26 minutes virtical adjust to get it zeroed after 5 shots and 11 more minutes up. My software was correct but you must follow the range officer’s guidance as we do not want to overshoot the target. The scope was terrific at 18x as was the 2 stage Timney Trigger. The Nosler Custom bullets and Custom Brass is superb. I just need more speed.

After the first 5 shots in the 8/9 ring the bullets began to drop so I kept bringing it up to 27 minutes to get back near the 9 ring. Bullet speed at muzzle was 2320 fps but at 600 yards there was no crack from the sound barrier, thus at the target I was subsonic. Perhaps at around 1000 fps where 1100 fps breaks the sound barrier. There was little wind to affect the lateral movement seriously. The only thing I could figure is that just warming the barrel a bit was enough to drop 8 inches, so I had to keep adjusting to compensate. I will reload for Saturday’s shoot. I expect I will not win or place but burning powder is the only way to see what all the front end works does. I had fun and learned a lot! Others shooting 6mm, 6.5 mm and .308 did so much better group wise as the bullets traveled faster and with heavy bull barrels most bullets hit the 9 or 10 ring.

If the wind blew just 5 mph laterally I could be right or left by 25 or so inches. Yep that much! A faster bullet helps immensely. I will try the 69 grain Nosler’s at a future practice to see the difference. I will keep you posted on Saturdays shoot.

Good Shooting!

© 2016

Nashua High Power Match – Mid Range Prone this Saturday will be a first father/son event for me.

http://www.nfga.org/highpower/2016_NFGA_Schedule.pdfpdfs/

My Son Jason and I will compete in different categories perhaps at 300, 500 and 600 yards. He will likely use his  Savage Model in .308 Winchester. I think his Savage is the 10/110 and it shoots 1/4 inch groups at 100 yards on a good day. I will be debuting my AR-15 .223 with Nosler 77 grain Custom Competition Bullets in my first high power prone rifle competition ever dispite my many years of hunting and plinking.

It is likely I will shoot in the Open Class with bipod. Most ranges have forbidden the use of 55 and 62 grain bullets at these longer ranges because they tend to lose stability at those ranges. My 77 grain Nosler’s are slow at 2320 fps and drop nearly 28 MOA at 600 yards but are very stable in flight. I do not have a 20 MOA rail add-on yet but am considering one to give me more range flexibility. I will load up and practice this Thursday at Nashua. Stay tuned for my pre-match and post match report.

Good Shooting!

The 6.5 Creedmoor Cartridge is taking the High Power competitive target world to a new level of excellence especially for 600 and 1000 yards. The 6.5 Creedmoor developed by Hornady in 2007 and manufactured since 2008. It is a collaboration of Dave Emary, Hornady’s Senior Ballistician, and Dennis DeMille, General Manager of Creedmoor Sports.

As a hunting cartridge it is mighty fine for deer, bear, elk and African Plains game like Gemsbok, Kudu, Impala, Blesbok and the like. Down range energy with the Nosler AccuBond 130 or 140 grain delivering more than 1500 ft-lbs at 250 yards according to JMB ballistics.

As with all shots at game, with good bullet choice and shot placement. at long range too provided the hunter does his or her part.

The problem, it seems, is that the cartridge is not widely available like the 308 Winchester or .243 Winchester. This leaves the hunter and target shooter to purchase cartridges way ahead of time or get the components and load  it yourself as I am. You can’t go to the local sporting goods store and pick up a box.

Image below courtesy Wikipedia 6.5 Creedmoor.

Left to right: 308 Winchester, 6.5 Creedmoor, .243 Winchester 6.5 Grendel and .223 Remington.

For bench-rest and the target population it begins with a good brass case. Hornady today is the king of availability for new brass but when target folks have a chance there are other makers that do custom brass work but are in such short supply.

The primers? There are many on the market like Winchester and Federal but I like CCI Benchrest Primers like the BR-2 as do many target folks that you can follow on-line. These primers are hard to come by as well.

On powders, my research finds that there are several that work well such as H4350, Varget, RL 17, and Superformance. I don’t have the RL 17 to test yet but have the others. Recoil is mild to moderate. In a heavy target rifle it is mild.

Do your homework as I am doing and you will be rewarded. Bullets for hunting or target and you will find Berger, Hornady, Sierra (shown above) , and Nosler in good stead and with very high ballistic coefficients above a G1 of  0.6 for target and in the 0.3 to 0.4 for hunting long range, if you have that proven skill and practice.

One can say that I am new to high power target shooting but I can prepare with the best of them with over 30 years of reloading.  Reloading for 6.5 Creedmoor needs special purchases.

Things I need:

Redding Competition Seating dies for bullets. I have the RCBS reloading die set but need a better seating die. Not cheap at around $130 dollars. It is the best!

Bullets for long range target: Nosler, Sierra, Berger and Hornady among others.

Below, a Sierra 142 grain HPBT Match bullet

Brass Cases Hornady

Lock N Load Cartridge COL Gage used to determine bullet distance to barrel rifling.

I have not worked up target loads as of this writing but I will with Rifle

in hand.

Good Shooting!

© 2016

By the end of May, in less than 60 days, New Hampshire Rifleman will have a spanking new Model 12 LRP Rifle to test. It is a rifle that hopefully can shoot groups so tight that there is only 1 ragged hole in the target at 100 yards and tight groups at 600 yards. It will be great fun if we can achieve that. We shall see…

Here are the Model 12 Long Range Precision stat’s:

This rifle is a bit heavy to carry all day in the woods but from a blind or stand or from shooting sticks, bi-pod or mono-pod this rifle can hunt too, though it is at its best in Competition. I prefer a lighter rifle for hunting but this rifle can do the job at really long distances if a laser rangefinder and perfect practice are employed. In the meantime, I have to get ready with the Cartridge, a labor of love. See the next article in this series.

Good Shooting!

by Jon Draper – Monday, January 11, 2016

Casey’s gaze was steady. Her form exemplary. Raising and drawing her bow, the world around her faded to black. The coyote took off, reaching full stride in mere seconds. Tracking the predator for a fraction of a moment, Casey’s trigger finger reacted on instinct and her arrow sailed and hit home. A perfect shot behind the shoulder. Under normal circumstances, Casey’s next action would be admiring a trophy and a shot few hunters ever get a chance to take, let alone make. Today, however, 15-year-old Casey would simply move on, pleased with the addition of 10 points to her score, and the coyote-on-a-string target would be reset for the next hunter.

The girl I just described, though fictitious, is as real as they come, and the feat she displayed occurs all across the country at various NRA Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) events.

I should have retested at 100 yards but I wanted to see how this bullet handles groups at 150 yards. I want to shoot competitively in F class at 600 yards. I expect that this .223 is not ideal but I am new to long range rifle competition but an inexpensive way to try it!

Earlier test show a best 100 yard group at 5/8 inch with 77 grain Nosler Competition hollow point bullets but the second group a few days back was much larger and I blamed myself and not the set-up. I thought the 77 grain deserved more attention as it can punch paper at 1000 yard targets and favored weight for the caliber.

I used the same powder and volume and Cartridge Overall Length at 2.256 inches to fit the clip length. It was a bit windy 5 to 10mph swirling but coming from behind at 160 degrees. But also added a Vortex bubble level to the scope and used it. Works great and I can see it as I aim. I used a plumb line to get the cross hairs straight at 50 yards and adjusted the bubble to match it. At long range it will pay big dividends.

Groups below:

I took 5 shots Group 1 with PMC 55g fmj to warm me and the rifle up and surprisingly at 150 yards the group was 2.5 inches “if I throw out the first shot.”  Not bad for off the shelf ammo.

Group 2 was 15/16inch for 3 shots at 150 yards. This is Sub MOA for sure. Wow!

Group 3 was 2 1/8 inch for 3 shot group but a bit more windy and gusting.

When I left the wind was 15 mph gusts but I was done by then..

So there you have it! A winning combination!

And I am better at my cheek weld too and that can explain a lot with a collapsable stock not really designed for Lon Range Shooting. The Colt upper barrel is very accurate, the Timney Trigger was essential to pull groups in as I have stated before, I loved the drop-in mode for the trigger, Scope, Bubble, Nosler Competition heads and Custom Brass made this Rifle “jump to light speed” for an off the shelf rifle.

I want to thank my friends at Nosler, Leupold and Timney for their products to be evaluated at New Hampshire Rifleman. Outstanding products all!! 

Bragging rights “perhaps” here at 100 yards 5/8 inch at 150 yards 15/16 inch for best shots and different days. I clean it every 100 to 200 shots and just feel it out. I run a dry snake through each session. No more tests to confirm what some data suggests is sub-MOA we need to shoot it at 600 yards and then we shall see.

Good Shooting!

© 2016

Using the same AR-15 now updated with Timney Trigger, Leupold scope and mounting system I shot in single shot mode with 77 grain Nosler Custom Competition bullets and 23 grains of Reloader 15. The cartridge overall length was 2.435 inches. I expected the rifle to shoot tighter groups at least 1 inch at 100 yards as the bullet was closer to the rifle lands. Best case was one group at just over 5/8 inch and two groups at around 1 1/4 inches. This is good but this rifle can do better, I think.

Back at the reloading bench today, I tried three different powders but I really did not want to shoot them in single shot mode so I shot them at just under the max cartridge overall length of 2.260 so they would fit in the clip. I shot 3 shot groups at 100 yards with wind under 5mph.

GROUP#         BULLET                                POWDER                SPREAD                                         

Group 1       69 grain Nosler CC Bullet with  23 grains Varget       1 3/4 inches

Group 2      69 grain Nosler CC Bullet with  23 grains Varget         1 3/16 inches

Group 3      69 grain Nosler CC Bullet with  23 grains Varget          1.0 inches

Group 4      69 grain Nosler CC Bullet with  22.5 grains IMR 4895  1.0 inches

Group 5      69 grain Nosler CC Bullet with 22.5 grains IMR 4895  1 1/4 inches

Group 6      77 grain Nosler CC Bullet with 23 grains RL-15           1 1/16 inches

Group 7      77 grain Nosler CC Bullet with 23 grains RL-15           1.0 inches

Group 8      77 grain Nosler CC Bullet with 23 grains RL-15 1.5 inches (two of the bullets are 1/2 inch apart, one looks like a flyer)

Analysis

Each group had at least 1 group at 1.0 but the 77 grain Nosler CC has two groups (6 &7) basically at 1.0 or 1 MOA and the other 77 grain group may have a flyer. This preliminary data was expected that the heavier bullet will outperform. From a Mil-Spec Semi-Auto Carbine with a 16 inch barrel this is very good. Thus it translates to keeping 6 inch groups at 600 yards and 10 inch groups at 1000 yards if there were no wind. I need to repeat this test  with 77 grain bullets but at 150 yards, the farthest at my club before trying 600 yards.

After Thoughts

Group 1 was way out of line and it is likely that I was not warmed up and relaxed. Hitting the bench cold can sometimes do that.  Thus I think that the Varget Group 1,2,3 needs repeating after a warm up of a few practice shots. I used the scopes power at 12x to split an orange 1 inch square on each target into 1/4 inch quadrants as I squeezed the trigger.

© 2016