Reloading on the Bench I built in March

Back in March of this year, I build a heavy duty bench that I can use for reloading bullets and working on stuff in the basement.  Last night I finally got around to reloading my first batch here at my house.  For this round, I reloaded 308 bullets with 178 grain Hornady A-Max tips, CCI 200 Primers, and 45 grains of Hogden Varget powder. Here are some pics of the set up.

7/21/12 - Mill Canyon Trail Ride (AF Canyon)

 Lower Mill Canyon trail Head parking lot.

 

After the ride at Tibble Fork Reservoir

Lower Mill Canyon Trail Head

Tonight I decided to load the family up in the truck, along with the bike, and head out for a ride.  Konnor and I went camping (just the two of us) last week up above Silver Lake, and we discovered that there are trail heads for riding dirt bikes up near Tibble Fork Reservoir, so I decided to start my exploration of the AF Canyon trails from there. 

This picture shows the view from the Mill Canyon Spring.  It's about 5.5 miles up from the trail head. The ride up trail 040 was amazing.  It was awesome single track through thick pines and aspens.  Tons of tight switch-backs, roots, rocks, creeks, and steep hills.  It's definitely not a beginner trail.  A lot of it is intermediate, but there are a number of spots that are advanced riding while you weave your way up steeps slopes dodging tall rocks and roots, all the while making sure that you don't clip a handle bar on a tree!  It was tons of fun.  Once I got here, I pulled up the pdf map of the trails and noticed that I could catch up with trial 157, and then connect with 041 which would talk me back down to Tibble Fork Reservoir when Karen and the kids would be waiting. 

 Every so often you get signs like this letting you know where are

 Trails 157 and 041 proved to be just a beautiful, and just as fun.  I'd say they are both intermediate trials with elements of advanced sections mixed in.  Ironically, the only pictures I took were when the trial widened out, so you can't see how tight the single track is... you'll have to take my word for it.  All told, the ride ended up being a little over 11 miles and took me about an hour since I stopped to check the map a couple of times.  It was a really fun introduction into this massive trail system.  I know that there are trails that can take you all over the mountain and also up into the Alta/Snowbird area.  I can't wait to check more of this mountain out.

7/13/12 - Konnor and I Camping on Friday the 13th

Even though I knew it was going to rain, I really wanted to get out camping.  Karen had a "cul-de-sac reunion" that she went to with Kaylee and Kase, but Konnor and I went in search of a camp spot up American Fork Canyon.  We didn't have a ton of time to check out different spots, but we ended up about a mile or so above Silver Lake Reservoir.  It rained on us while we were driving up, and the rain continued till a little while after we had the tent set up.  It's a decent camping area that we found.  It's unimproved but it must be a favorite spot for many people because it's quite well used with lots of pull out spots along a creek leading into Silver Lake below.  In the tent, we watched a movie on the iPad after getting back from the "Bear Hunt" that Konnor wanted to go on.  We had donuts for breakfast and had some more fun in the creek hunting for cool rocks.  On the way down the mountain, I found one of the trail heads for riding dirt bikes in the area.  It will be a blast to get back up here for more camping and dirt biking.

6/13/2012 - Because I Can

 Need I say more?  The target was set up for 60 yard shots from the backyard, but then I figured this shot might be fun from about 65... and 3 stories up... from the master bedroom.

5/12/2012 - 1000 Yards with Dad

Dad stayed over night and we hit the range at about 5:45 a.m.  We took the Savage .308 with my special hand-loads that I've been using lately.   It was a clear morning with a very light breeze from right to left. Dad and I walked up the hill at 1K and set up the target.  He then stayed right there so that he could call out my shots.  I drove back to the shooting position and set up for the shot. about 3 minutes after the sunrise it was 46 degrees, and the station pressure was 24.86.  I used 90 clicks in the scope (due to the heavier air), and shot 2 shots.  Both of them appeared to be high to me, so I had Dad walk over and check it out.  We used our phones and he showed me (I watched him through the scope with the bolt open) where I had missed high and left.  I then dropped the Vortex Viper PST 4-16x50 scope 1 click, and held about 18 inches right for wind correction. I fired a shot and had him check it out.  It landed in the cardboard, so now I knew what had to happen. I then took 3 more shots in quick succession.  Those are the 4 shots along the top in the picture.  I took 1 more click out of the scope (now at 88 clicks like the previous outing), and shot the bottom 2 shots you see under the bulls eye.

Now that we had things dialed in pretty well, Dad set up a clay pigeon for me to hit.  I've never tried trap shooting at 1000 yards before, but it was fun.  Overall, I took 6 shots at the clay pigeon and hit all around it.  I wasn't able to break it this time, but I'll try again!

It was fun shooting at that range with Dad there.  He got pretty brave after a few shots and was only standing about 25 feet away from the target!  It was pretty crazy, because even at about 12x (the scope setting I used for most of the shots) I could see him standing there just inside my field of view in the scope!  He said it was much louder than he though it would be.  Dad said that the impact noise of the bullets were somewhere between a .22 LR and a 9mm pistol.  Then 1.5 seconds later, he would rear the report of the rifle.  As expected, since the .308 is still super-sonic (especially my reloads) at 1000 yards, he couldn't hear anything before the bullets impacted. 

4/21/2012 - Bang on Target at 1K

Success again at 1000 yards.  Today I used my .308 Savage, 175 gr Sierra BTHP, 45 grs of Hogden Varget Power, with CCI 200 Primers.  It was 55 degrees and 25.45 on the station pressure.  I used the Vortex Viper PST 4-16 power scope.  I was a beautiful morning with very little wind.  I dialed 88 clicks of elevation into the scope (1/10th Mil clicks on this scope), and it was bang on.  I took 6 shot, and all of them found the cardboard.

3/24/2012 - It's Been Too Long

After shooting last August, I ran out of hand-loads so I was out of commission for a little while.  I got so busy with work and life (finishing my basement took a lot of my time), that it took at long time to get back out to the rang.  I'm back after a 7.5 month hiatus.  A couple of weeks ago, I built a bench that I can use for reloading.  I'll have to post some pictures of it later.   Last night, I estimated what I thought the temperature and the station pressure would be for this morning.  The ballistics calculator suggested 92 clicks on Dad's Vortex PST scope with 1/10th mil clicks to get to 1000 yards.  This time, I took my little weather station so I could get an accurate reading on the station pressure and temperature. at about 7:30 a.m. it was 52 degrees and 24.75 station pressure.  This meant that the air was significantly less dense that what I had foretasted, so I shouldn't need as much elevation in the scope. I decided to use 90 clicks.  All told, I shot 8 shots.  It did appear that one of the shots was high, but on the other shots, I couldn't see anything.  I wondered if that was just because I was making direct hits directly behind the target.  That made sense in my mind since the ground isn't really dusty yet, so you wouldn't expect to see too much of a spray of dirt.  As you can see from the pictures, only 1 of the 8 shots made it to the cardboard.  The other shots all seemed to pulverize a rock that was just above the target.  You could see 4-5 distinct spots on that rock where I had hit it.  That meant that it was a good grouping, but for 52 degrees and 24.75 pressure, I should have used 88 clicks on the Vortex Viper PST Scope.  Gun: Savage 10FP, 308 cal.  Hand-loads of Sierra 175 gr BTHP, Lapua brass, 45 grains of Hogden Varget powder, CCI 200 primers.

8/2/2011 - I Now Have Witnesses of 1K

Tonight I tested out the new scope that Dad bought.  It is the Vortex Viper PST (Precision Shooting Tactical) 4-16X50.  I needed to sight it in.  The pic below shows the last 6 six shots I took while sighting in.  I used some of my older reloads that were 168 gr bullets with IMR 4064 powder. All these shots were taken at 100 yards. After sighting the target down the bore with the bolt removed, I produced the very tight group of 3 shot just under the number 7 on the tape.  Then I moved the scope 2 clicks (this scope uses 1/10 MIL clicks) to the left and produced the 3 bulls-eye shots.  I was pretty impressed with the gun, scope, and hand-loads at that point.  After all, as you can see, they are .5 MOA groups.  I used a quarter to cover them up, but I could have also used a nickel.

There we 2 guys and 2 girls that pulled up to shoot about the same time I was setting up.  I'm sure they were confused as to why I had the four-wheeler there to go check my target when I was only shooting at 100 yards.  It became more apparent, I'm sure, when picked up the target and drove it another 900 yards away!  Before leaving the house, the ballistics calculator at vortex.com suggested that I would need to use 89 clicks (1/10 MIL clicks) up from Zero to reach 1000 yards given the conditions which were approximately 85 degrees, 25.25 pressure, and 8 percent humidity, while using my newest, hottest loads that produce about 2750 fps. I went for 90 clicks to start.  From what I could tell after making 4 shots, it appeared to be very close laterally, but a bit high.  I then removed 2 clicks from the scope (so it was now set to 88 clicks) and shot 4 more shots fairly quickly since it was getting dark.  By this time, I had garnered the attention of the other people shooting.  They came over and asked how far I was shooting and asked a bunch of other questions.  They said that from what they could tell they thought that my first few shots looked high, and then the later shots didn't show much of a spray.  By this time, it was getting quite dark, and I went over to retrieve the target.  When I got back to the truck, they were very interested in seeing if I was able to make any hits.  As you can see from the picture, only 1 of the first 4 shots landed in the paper.  After making the adjustment in the scope, all of the remaining 4 shots found pay-dirt in some form or another.  It was awesome to finally have someone out of the range to witness some decent shots.  Funny thing is that if I had listened to the computer and used 89 clicks, this would have been spot on!

7/9/2011 - Exploding Targets

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.

 

 

6/24/2011 - Testing My Metal..(well, lead really)

Now, I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that these are pretty boring pictures.  I guess you're right, they are kind of boring.  I'll do my best to explain why I even uploaded them.  In the top picture, that is a "cold barrel" shot right in the bulls eye.  The next two shots decided to share a single hole together, and the fourth shot is the one off to the left.  This was shot at 100 yards with my newest hand loads.  They are Lapua Brass, with Sierra BTHP 175 gr bullets.  CCI 200 primers, with 45 grains of Hodgon Varget power pushing the 308 bullets.  I almost forgot to mention that this is the Savage 10FP rifle, with the Vortex Viper 6.5-20x44 scope.  This particular load is hotter than any that I have shot before from this gun, so I wanted to check the zero point.  As you can see it wasn't far off, but after making this 4 shot group I dropped the scope 2 clicks for good measure.

The Second picture is the target that I had set up at 1000 yards.  After checking my zero, I sent some shots down range.  I went shooting much later than normal (it was about 10 a.m.), and I was quickly reminded why I like to shoot either early morning, or just before dusk.  Yes, it was a little breezy.  So much so, that the bullets were being pushed 2 to 3 feet off the right hand side of the target.  Luckily with the time that it takes the 308's to get out that far, I can reacquire the sight picture most of the time to see some dust spray up.  I used a ballistics calculator online before heading out, and with the faster muzzle velocity (these are going about 2750 fps, see earlier post), the computer suggested using 121 clicks, so that's what I tried.  It was actually really close for 25.10 on the pressure, and about 75-80 degrees, with very low humidity. I shot about 6 shots, while trying to aim into the wind.  Although only one shot is actually recorded on the cardboard, there was a decent little grouping in the ground, off to the right of the target.  Some of those shots looked like 121 clicks was enough to reach the distance, but I think I might give use a couple extra clicks given the same situation.

6/11/11 The Chrony Results Are In

Today Konnor and I went to see how consistent my most recent 308 hand-loads are.  Here are the results.  It appears I have made a round that is 138-117 fps faster (taking my avg. speeds compared) than the Black Hills Match ammo (comparing today's two 10 shot strings against a string of 8 that was shot on 5/7/10), and more consistent (my Extreme Spreads today were about 40 fps, while the Black Hills Match was 60.99).  Obviously I would have to put more Black Hills Match ammo through the Chrony to confirm, but these results are promising.

10 Shots - 175 gr Sierra BTHP, 45 Grains of Varget Powder, CCI 200 primers, Lapua Brass

Low: 2731
High: 2770
Avg: 2751
Extreme Spread: 39.39
Standard Deviation: 14.03

2770
2755
2754
2745
2770
2747
2761
2740
2731
2732

10 More Shots - 175 gr Sierra BTHP, 45 Grains of Varget Powder, CCI 200 primers, Lapua Brass

Low:2716
High:2758
Avg: 2730
Extreme Spread: 41.47
Standard Deviation: 13.00

2736
2739
2723
2716
2739
2758
2728
2719
2725
2718


10 Shot of Lenny's Guns-n-Ammo - 175 gr Sierra BTHP Custom Ammo

I forgot to store the exact figures, but this is what I wrote down real quick from memory:


Low: 2642
High: 2692
Avg: 2670
Extreme Spread: 50
Standard Deviation: 17-19

4/2/2011 Bench Rest Shooting - Resetting the Zero

They say that a picture paints a thousand words.  Certainly that old adage applies here.  I got lucky enough to be there right in time for the sunrise. What a beautiful morning, and a picturesque time to go shooting.  This is a bench rest that is over by the rock/garbage pit behind our house.  I found this little bench rest last year while riding my dirt bike, but this is the first time that I have come over here to shoot.  It is a good place to shoot 100 yards, something that I haven't done much of in the last couple of years. That bag you see under the rifle is one of the many that Dad sewed together and filled with silica sand.  They work pretty well to give you a good, solid base.  In case you don't recognize the gun, this is the Savage 10FP, chambers in .308 Win. The scope is the basic Vortex Viper 6.5-20x44. The ammo used is the Black Hills Match in 175 grains. My first group was a total of 6 shots.  This is the zero I have been using for over a year now, and as you can see, it's a bit off the mark.  I think it's telling because so many of my 1000 yard shots have initially landed high and left.  I guess this grouping supports those results.  Yes, even though you can really only see 4 holes, there are 6 shots there. Three of those shots when through the same hole!  I don't know why the overall spread is about 1.5 inches because all of my shots were very good.  It must be variations in the ammo (the most likely culprit), gun, or scope...I'm not really sure.  Seeing the trend, I adjusted the scope 4 clicks down and 1 click to the right.  Those are the 4 shots that are in the bulls-eye. As you can see, the gun is definitely capable of producing 1 MOA results, and sometimes it produces sub MOA shots.  Maybe if the ammo was better, it would do that all the time, and I wouldn't get those little "strays". I used a tape measure to confirm that the second grouping is under 1" across in total.

3/5/2011 - Sooner or Later - 1000 Yards

If you keep doing something, you're bound to get it right eventually.  This same little target walked up the hill with me for the fourth time today.  He must have known his days were numbered.  I must have spent an entire box of bullets on this one piece of card board in the last six weeks.  The difference was that today the snow was just patchy enough that I was able to see the spray of my bullets upon impact.  Without a spotter it can be very difficult to know where you are hitting, and that has killed me the last 3 times that I have shot at 1000 yards.  Today I did everything I could do re-acquire the sight picture before the impact of the bullets approximately 1.6 seconds after the shot.  I started using 136 (1/4 MOA clicks) in the Vortex Viper scope.  Same gun as before, the Savage 10FP, chambered in .308 Winchester.  I was using 175 grain Black Hills Match 308 ammo.  The first couple of shots appeared to be high and left, so I took one click of elevation out, and gave myself 2 clicks to the right.  In summary, these 3 shots were at 135 clicks up from Zero.

2/12/2011 - It Ain't Easy

For the 3rd time in a row shooting at 1000 yards, I failed to produce a shot in the paper.  It was about 23 degrees, no noticeable wind, but I did have a slight mirage in the scope as the area began to warm in the early morning sun.  I shot eight shots total.  I was using the Savage 308 with Black Hills Match 175 grain bullets.  The scope was the Vortex Viper.  I was using 138 clicks of elevation in the scope to start out.  On the 5th shot, I finally saw a little splash of snow and realized that I was shooting high and left (too bad that the shot I saw was the worst of the day, just above the text... it caused me to over correct, since you can see that the scope elevation setting was almost dead on).  I dialed back down to 134 clicks, and entered 2 clicks of right windage and shot 3 more shots.  I'm not sure if the second grouping seen in the photos (the one at the right base of the target) consists of 2 or 3 shots.

2/5/2011 - Microwave Heaven

Today Dad came up and we swapped the scopes on a couple of his guns.  We put my Burris scope on his 7mm Remington Magnum, and a Tasco scope on his old .243 Winchester. We wanted to test the newly installed Timney trigger on the 7mm.  It isn't quite right.  The safety doesn't work properly and it sometimes won't allow you to fire.  That is going to need some extra TLC to get it working correctly.  I brought some exploding targets along and we found an old shot up microwave sitting there.  The door had been broken off, so I set the target on the ground and then placed the microwave over the target.  Then I simply shot through the microwave and into the exploding target.  Hind-sight is usually clearer than fore-sight, and as it turns out, we were probably a little close to the target in this case.  As you will see in the video, debris was falling ALL AROUND us.  We were about 40 yards away from it, and the camera was about 25 yard away.  There was also another shot with a smaller exploding target.  That is the one with the plywood board on top of it.

1/22/2011 - Foiled Again!!

Determined to not repeat last weeks failure, I gave the scope 138 clicks (5 more than last week) in an attempt to score hits on my target at 1000 yards.  Conditions were very similar to last week.  The temp gauge on the truck registered 29 degrees.  I squeezed off 5 rounds of Black Hills Match 308 from the Savage 10FP, using the Vortex Viper Scope.  It's pretty disappointing to drive all the way over to the hill, and then hike up only to find that you have not registered a single hit in the paper for the second week in a row!  As you can see, the elevation was pretty good, but I got pushed off to the left.  From the thermals that I could see in the scope, I didn't think that would happen, but there was a slight breeze at the target when I was checking it out.  I didn't notice any breeze when setting the target up, and there didn't seem to be any wind from my firing position.

1/15/2011 - Live and learn

Early this morning, before the sun came out, I set up another target at 1000 yards.  The last successful attempt at 1000 yards had been on October 1st 2010, and the dope on the Vortex Viper scope with these 308 loads was 133 clicks.  I knew that it was colder today, but I didn't know how much that would affect the bullet trajectory so I used the same input of elevation.  As you can see from this picture it produced less that desirable results.  You can see that all 4 of my shots were low.  The density of the air had a dramatic effect on my shots.  I think it was about 25 degrees when I was shooting.  133 clicks was not enough for today's conditions. Gun: Savage 308, shooting Black Hills Match 175 gr. with the Vortex Viper 6.5-20x44

 Somewhere off in the distance is my target at 1K yards.

This is a view from where the target was.

12/23/10 - Shooting with the Private

Today Private Jake Cox and I did some firing drills upon some exploding targets.  After that fun, I set up a target at the familiar 425 yards for some twilight shooting.  It was muddy, wet and cold, but we still managed to have a little fun.  As you can see, I have 3 sets of groups here.  I used the last few times at this distance as a starting point, dialing 32 clicks of elevation into the scope.  The result was the 3 shot grouping on the right had side of this 12 inch target.  Jake called my shots for me, so I then put to clicks of windage into the scopes which resulted in the upper left two shot grouping.  Then I removed one of the two clicks and recorded the middle grouping of two shots.  I have no idea what caused my point of impact to shift up... still these groupings are 2"-3" apart, meaning sub MOA grouping.  Not terrible when you consider that I haven't taken any shots since the first part of October.

This little video shows how much fun Private Cox and I had.

10/1/2010 - 1000 Yards .5 MOA

You could not have asked for a better night for shooting.  It was 75 degrees at 6:30 p.m. for this little outing.  I set up the target, and then ate an MRE using it's own heater (Lynn gave me some MREs).  Given how my shots were low last time when using 175 gr. Black Hills Match ammo in my Savage .308, I started out with 135 clicks of elevation.  After a couple of shots, it was clear that I was high and right.  So 2 clicks back down, and 3 to the left produced the best grouping yet at 1000 yards.  As you can see there is one shot that is sort of an outlier, but those other 3 shots rival, if not beat the best 3 shots I have taken.  They are .5 MOA at 1K.

To sum up, this took 133 clicks of elevation with Black Hills Match 308, using my Savage 308 with the Vortex Viper Scope.