6/27/2011 - 1000 Yards - Yes... my Reloads shoot pretty well too

 Tonight after family home evening with the Karen and the kids, I headed over to the shooting spot.  The sun had just peeked below the mountain, and the conditions were almost ideal for shooting.  I say "almost" because I did have a little bit of the cool evening breeze going from right to left. Tonight I was shooting the Savage 308 with my personal hand-loads.  175 gr Sierra BTHP, Lapua brass, 45 grains of Hogdon Varget powder, along with CCI 200 primers. With the conditions that I estimated I would see upon reaching the shooting range, the ballistics computer suggested that I should use 120.5 clicks in the Vortex Viper Scope.  I dialed up 121 (even though 2 days ago, 121 wasn't quite enough) and took the first shot.  I was surprised just how much the wind had pushed me off to the left.  It was an entire Mil left, and a bit high to boot!  I took 2 clicks back out of the scope, held exactly 1 Mil to the right and fired the second shot.  From what I could tell, this one was just a bit high.  After taking one more click out of the scope (so now I was at 118 clicks), I produced some really good shots in the target.  I actually shot them at a faster pace than I have ever shot before, because  I didn't want to miss the window of what I felt was consistent wind.  I was also battling mosquitoes the entire time, which was pushing me along faster than normal.  I felt that it was really good practice, having to hold a wind correction, and focus on the shot with the pests flying in my ears and biting me everywhere. After having made that last correction in the scope, I was pretty sure things were dialed in, so I was blasting away at about 3-4 rounds per minute.  In total, I fired 8 shots, and 6 of them are in this picture.  The first two were the ones I used to get the shot set up.