Sunday, March 18, 2012

Interesting Day on the Range

Yesterday, that is.  Before writing that long post on the nature of truth - and how to know it when you come across it - Mrs. Graybeard and I got down to our local club range for a little fun.  I put a new stock on my Remington 700 an embarrassingly long time ago, and hadn't even tried it out.  Considering the developing ammo situation*, we brought our .22 rifles for the bulk of the shooting. The 200 yard range was in use for a match (D'oh!!) so we went to the 50 yard range that has a few less seats and less room for really setting up your bench rest. 

The Remmy was excellent, although the new stock seemed to have (perhaps) moved the POI quite a bit.  At 50 yards, it had moved over 3".  Here's my first four rounds in a weird shot from my iPhone that actually focused on the dirt behind the target, leaving the important stuff blurry.  : 
The first shot is the upper one.  Shot two the one below that, and shots three/four the elongated hole next to two.  Those are .30-06 holes, so the actual diameter for the two single holes is at least .30".  It was pretty easy to move the POI with the adjustments on the scope to get into the X ring.  For the terminally curious, I put one of the "Bobby Hart AccuBlock Heritage Classic" laminated wood stocks on it, in "brandy".  The actual installation was "drop in" with no messing around required. Mrs. Graybeard only shot a few rounds, but put them all in about a 1 to 1 1/2" line (just guessing - based on memory). 

Let's face.  Major calibers like this are fun. 

The interesting (read that weird) problem was with our .22s.  These are the Savage 64F rifles we got about 18 months ago and brought to Appleseed, so we know they're good and they were pretty well zeroed last time we used them.  Mrs. Graybeard fired at the target and said, "I don't see any holes?"  Ran a magazine of 10 and still said she couldn't see impact holes.  Sure enough, nothing visible on the target.  Shortening the story somewhat, with either rifle we couldn't put a .22 in a target until I tried to shoot above the top of a vertical stack of 2 (these are 8 1/2 x 11 Caldwell targets).  Then a hole showed up about 25" below where I was aiming.  At 50 yards, with a rifle that had been zeroed on that exact range?  Both rifles POI was over two feet below the POA and I had to crank the adjustments like crazy.  They had not been handled roughly - and had just been sitting in a closet, in an air conditioned room since the last time we had them out.  One of them hit right of centerline and the other hit left of centerline. 

I find this amazingly bizarre.  Tasco scopes.  Something clearly moved around.  Either the internals of the scope or the mounting rings on the rifles' "rail" moved.  Good thing I didn't need to use it to induce a migraine in some zombie!  Anybody seen this?  Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?

*"developing ammo situation" see here...  about two weeks ago, I got an offer from Cabela's for $2 shipping on any order over $50.  That seemed like a good time to check for ammo deals.  Not one of the calibers I was looking for was in stock.  Zero, zip, nada, zilch.  There was high dollar ammo - JHP SD rounds and such.  Just no range ammo. 

6 comments:

  1. "Any ideas on how to keep it from happening again?"

    Since both rifles performed identically after previous on point performance - did you use different ammo than previously?

    it do make a difference

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    Replies
    1. I haven't really been shopping yet, just noticing the easy availability seems to be evaporating.

      The .30-06 I shot were my reloads, and I came home with more brass than I left with. The .22, of course, is different.

      Delete
    2. Well, Blogger blew it again. This was typed in response to the next comment, from RegT.

      To this one, I said:
      Same brand, same product, different lot. It just doesn't seem likely a round could fall an additional two feet (probably more - tough to measure). It takes a long time to fall that far.

      I did some back of the envelope calculations and come up with an extra 350 milliseconds to fall that far, but 120 for the flight. That means it would have had to fly four times as long, and muzzle velocity drop from rated 1280 to 1/4 of that -325 fps. It just doesn't seem likely.

      Delete
  2. SG,
    About ammo:
    Have you ever looked at ammoman.com for ammo? His prices on mil-surp are usually pretty good, and the shipping is included in the price.

    http://ammoman.com/p/201/3006-sprinfield-145-grain-wolf-full-metal-jacket

    ReplyDelete
  3. Valentine's Day: A box of chocolates.
    National Defense Authorization Act Signing Day: A warehouse full of ammo.

    You know it makes sense.

    ReplyDelete