2/20/10 First 700 Yard Shots!

Earlier in the week, I scouted the shooting area and compared it with Google Earth to find a 700 yard shot. I also know where a 1000 yard shot is too, for later on in the year. I didn't get out to the range till 2 p.m. because Karen had a relief society thing to do. The weather was prefect all morning but by the time I got out to the range, and set up the target at 700 yards, it was snowing. I set up my shot and took note of the moderate snowfall and the wind. With the scope on my .308 dialed to 14x, the snow fall was quite thick to see through at that distance, but I had waited for this all week. I decided to dial 77 clicks of elevation, due to calculations I found on http://www.biggameinfo.com/index.aspx?page=%2fbalcalc.ascx. I also decided to hold about a ½ mil left of the target to compensate for wind.

I took 6 shots and was not able to see a single one of them from where I was, so I drove over to check it out. The result: 5 of 6 shots on the paper. Total spread vertically on the 5 paper hits, was 8 inches. Windage spread was 10 inches, but given the unpredictable wind and snow conditions, I was quite pleased.

Just then, while I was checking out my target, the sun peeked out, and the wind died down at the target, so I decided to drive back and shoot one more group. By the time I got back to the shooting position, the wind and snow picked back up, although not quite as strong as before. This time however, the wind was coming from the opposite direction as evidenced by the way the snow was falling. I'm not really sure why, but I decided not to compensate for wind this time around. I aimed dead center, and felt that I had pretty good trigger breaks.

Upon inspection, I was wrong not to hold to the right for the wind, because only one of my 5 shots broke the paper, and that was on the very edge of the left side. This time I had once again had 1 bad shot landing outside the pattern of the 4 others. I seem to be doing that. I wonder if it is the cold barrel shot? The 4 shot group landed a mere 7 inches apart laterally (2 shots were about 4 inches apart), with a 10 inch vertical spread.

I felt pretty good about everything when considering, I haven't shot from anything beyond 425 years before today, and I have never shot in snow with a visible wind. Technically speaking my overall groups were just a touch larger than a 1 MOA spread at the distance (if you throw out the stray shot in both groups), but I did have 2 shots in first group that are 2-3 inches from the bulls eye. Those are good shots for an amateur just getting into long distance shooting, like me. The second group also had two really good shots, but it isn't as cool if you don't actually break the paper near the bulls eye, because you don't think the wind is a big enough factor to adjust for it. That is a mistake I will try to learn from.The tape is basically where I was aiming for this grouping. I spray painted the holes black so you can see them.