a question on long range gun?

C

champ198

New member
so was bored last night and nothing on the tv so broke out the netflix...found a show on there was a few years old that was the Ft Benning Sniper matches...was pretty cool to watch some of the stuff and competitions they do. one thing i noticed was that a lot of the teams they showed were shooting guns in the 7.62x51 caliber...this kind of got me wondering a little since i dont know much about the long range stuff...i thought that the 308 was one of the more popular calibers for long range "sniping" if you will.

and another question i had since it did kind of peak my interest a little about the long range stuff if you were going to get a rifle for some long range shooting what would get on the cheap to start with?
 
Cheap and Long Range are mutually exclusive terms, choose one.

The best advice is to begin by finding out where the long range shooting club in your area is and visiting. Members will often have excess rifles, sights and other equipment that are adequate to get a new member going in their game and that they'll let go of a lot cheaper than anything you'll see on the auction sites. One thing to keep in mind though, NOTHING you can buy at the mass market retailers is of any use to target shooters so don't waste your money there. Also, try to be sitting down when you ask about the price of long range target rifles so you don't show weakness by getting rubber knees.
 
OK thanks for the info guys....did not realize that the 7.62x51 was the metric of the 308...makes sense there

on rifles what would you all suggest for someone starting out in a rifle to look for?
im sure some of these can go way up there in price but im not going to be shooting national competitions with just something to use for fun for myself really

theres only one range that i know of thats fairly close to me that you can shoot any distance on and that range is a 500 or 550 yard range..i know they do a lot of M1 Garand stuff there but dont know much about the place
 
You'll not go wrong with the 308 for long range (up to 1000 yards)

When I was shooting for the National Guard I shot a lot of 1000 yard matches.

Normally you had 4 matches, 20 rounds Any Rifle - Any Sight, 20 rounds Any Rifle - Iron Sights, 20 rounds Service Rifle, and a 20 rounds Team Match.

My Any Rifle, both Any Sight and Iron Sight was a Model 70 in 300 WM. My service rifle, which I also used in the team match was my Super Match M1A or a NG M14.

Looking through some of my old data books, almost always I out shot my 300 WM with my M1A.

My Model 70 is quite heavy, but still shooting two matches a day will get to you.

There is plenty of info out there on 308 ammo and reloading, lots of choices in reloading components, and because its so popular, ammo/components are cheap.

BUT:

If I was to start all over today, I'd go with the 223. In Service rifle Matches, (even at 1000 yards) its beating the records set by the 308s. Again, its cheap to shoot.

Price of ammo/components should be a major factor in one's choice of a long range target gun. In long range work, its the shooter not the gun, the cheaper the ammo the more practice you'll get.
 
scopes

Youthink rifles are expensive,............ wait till you price a decent long range scope. Ouch

Contrary to other posts, I think an off the rack HB Savage or Rem 700 would do fine as a starter for long range.
 
I'd get a good used varmint rifle in .223, with a fast twist. I'd also invest in reloading gear.

Get some lessons, join a club with a long distance range, and get involved in competition.
 
Getting started in "long range rifle" on the cheap would only be an AR in .223 if you want to compete with iron sights. If you want to get started with a scope then any bolt action rifle will do, 223 or 308 for F Class shooting, and Savage is the way to go for "cheap" although other companies make good rifles in the same price bracket such as Howa, Tikka, and Remington.

It is possible to put together a really nice AR match rifle by shopping around. You want a 1:8 twist if possible although 1:7 might be easier to find. A 1:9 twist will work if you don't plan on shooting past 600 much.

I bought a complete Colt upper for 250 a few years ago and wish I could find a few more deals like that. I put it on top of a 250 dollar lower, added a National Match free float tube and ended up with a very accurate setup for right around 600 bucks. I just ordered a Geissele trigger for 176 dollars, so now the grand total for my "match rifle" is around $776. Later on I'll upgrade the rear sight to a pinned version, but that can wait for a bit.

Now that flat top ARs with quad rail free float tubes are competition legal, you might find that more to your liking (and it increases the odds of finding a used upper greatly).

Jimro
 
I'm with Silent Titan, go with a Savage 10.
If you want to get good results, you're scope will probably cost just as much as your rifle. Affordable quality scopes would be Falcon Menace for example, I like Leupold too.
 
I started Long range with a Savage 10 in .308, and at first topped it with a BSA 6-24x50. Although it gave some good practice (out to 600 yrds), for sight adjustments and the use of hold over with mil-dots and such, it was not repeatable enough to hold a candle to the other rifles. Nightforce and U.S. optics are the top makers of LR optics in use. But other makes are used also. Prices for optics at the local club would range from $1500 to $2500. A good base and rings combo would be Badger 10MOA to 20MOA ($180+ per set) depending on optics adjust-ability as a .308 has around 80+ inches of drop even at 800 yards. Then drops like a stone after that. I use a 10MOA base and a scope not of the brands mentioned. But 30mm tube is very useful.
My Savage barrel did great for practice and did reach 1000. About a 10" (which is MOA@1000) group from factory barrel on next to a perfect day. My next will be a Douglas air gauge 24" 1 in 8 stainless.
Buy a membership at a good range as load work-up and initial sight in will work out to be close to 500 rounds and a few months of work. And unless you are made of money reloading is the only way to go. Hazmat and shipping cost of ammo every time you need ammo eats up a budget real fast. Jeff

Sniper's Hide is a site dedicated to LR shooting. A great place for info if you know how to use the search function. Also find good used equipment and maybe a local shooter in your area to start training with.
 
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Top sniper 2 is one of my favorites :D

The ideal caliber to start out with is .308, is it the most practical choice? no. But it will get the job done, while sustaining a incredibly long barrel life. There is literally tons of data on .308 loads, and it isn't very hard to find an accurate load. It's an all around great platform really. Good luck, it's definitely an obsession and a pretty expensive one at that ;)

Here's a great article by Zak Smith he covers pretty much everything you'd want to know.
http://demigodllc.com/articles/practical-long-range-rifle-shooting-equipment/
 
Contrary to other posts, I think an off the rack HB Savage or Rem 700 would do fine as a starter for long range.
Click to expand...

Yep.

A 20 min base and a 30MM tube scope are really good ideas as well.
 
I would recommend you start off with a good AR in 5.56, a 20" Hbar possibly. Buy a case of ammo and go shoot, a lot! There are several other calibers for the AR platform, plus you can go with the AR10 size 7.62 platform.

This AR10 is capable of 1k yds, finding a area with that range can be challenging.

AR10noveske01.jpg


My 6.5G may be a little better past 600 yds than the 7.62, I'm not good enough to know for certain. The 6.5G cost a bit more for ammo but the prices have come way down with Hornady and Wolf producing ammo in 6.5g now.

Aarms01.jpg
 
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