7/24/2010 - 1000 Yards...it worked once, so why not try again?

Shooting long distances is a funny thing.  It seems that the variables are endless.  Muzzle velocity from shell to shell, ballistic co-efficient, altitude, density altitude, barometric pressure, temperature, wind, thermals, sight elevation, line of sight, point of aim, lead, hold over, data cards, parallax, focal planes, elevation adjustment, clicks, minutes of angle, milli-radians, zeroing, ranging, ballistics, bi-pods, heart-rate, breathing, scopes, recoil, and caliber.  Wait, I have just forgotten what rifle I am shooting!  This morning I made my second attempt to conquer all these variables with mixed results.

I left the house at 5:35 a.m. hoping to beat the wind.  That was almost successful.  After unloading the 4-wheeler and riding over to set up the target, and get back, there was a slight left to right breeze.   I really took my time setting up the tarp, and the rifle, hoping that the wind would die down for a moment.  After about 10 minutes, I figured that it might not get any better than it was right at that moment.  By now, it was about 6:15 a.m. and light enough to make the shot without any problem.  Using last week as a guide, I entered 135 clicks into the scope.  I didn't dial wind-age because last time I zeroed the wind-age dial after making my hits.

The first shot was clearly high and left, missing the target completely.  This is becoming a trend as of late.  I can't really say that I was surprised about hitting left because I did have wind pushing me that way, but how far that wind continued downrange, I couldn't tell.  This being the case, my plan was to shoot one shot, and then make an assessment as to how much of a correction to enter into the scope.   Two clicks to the right, and two more shots still seemed to be hitting high.  Up to that point, I had not touched the elevation knob, since the conditions seemed almost identical to last week (65-70 degrees and 25.40 on the pressure) when 135 clicks seemed to be exactly the formula for good hits.   I could not argue with the dust though, so I backed it down to 133 clicks of elevation.  The next two shots punched the cardboard.  As shown in the picture, I needed another click or two, toward the right to counteract the wind.  I think I'll use this target again once I get dialed back in with the next batch of bullets (I'm all out of the Black Hills Match 308, 175 gr).  The re-loads I have are not as fast as the Black Hills Match, so I don't know how they will perform out at these distances.  This is not to mention that they are 168 gr bullets with lower BC values to boot.