New long range plinker...

F

Flyboy_451

New member
Just took delivery of a new custom rifle specifically for shooting well beyond 1,000 yards. This one has been in the planning stage for quite a while and finally got all the pieces gathered up.

The Action is a Badger Ordnance 2008, Kreiger #17 heavy varmint barrel finished at 31" with a T4 Terminator muzzle brake. A KRG Whiskey 3 chassis and a Jewel HVR trigger finish out the parts list.

I wanted 1 mile+ Reliable capability without stepping up to the bank-breaking Cheytac size cartridges, so opted for 338 Lapua Ackley Improved.

Took it out for the first range testing this past weekend. Fired a total of 50 rounds to fireform brass and get a rough idea of accuracy potential. The load was a 300 grain Berger OTM in front of 95 grains of Reloader 33, yielding almost exactly 2,600fps.

After getting a solid zero at 100 yards, we moved to steel plates at 300, 400, 500 and 600 yards, getting first round hits at all distances. Great so far!!

Unfortunately, our 1 mile range is inaccessible do to flooding from a breached river levy, and it is unlikely that we will be able to use it this year at all. May have to wait until fall when I am going to Colorado to really stretch it's legs for the first time.

After plinking at plates for about 35 rounds, I decided to shoot a group on a freshly painted gong at 600 yards. 5 shots into a group that measured about 2" tall by 3 1/2" wide. Very satisfied for having done no load development and being far from the final velocity of 3,000fps that I am projecting with final loads in the fireformed brass.

Here she is in all her glory!!

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Congrats on the rifle. The cool thing about shooting at a mile is.....IT'S A FRIGGING MILE!
And very few people get the chance nor develop the skill or patience to do so.
Then there's the 2.5 seconds to target and 5 seconds for the report to come back.
The bad part is the rifle and ammo $'s can add up pretty quickly.
Congrats.
 
Re: Athlon scopes

This is my second Athlon scope, and I really am very impressed with them, especially for the money. A friend of mine is an Athlon dealer, so I get the scum brother deal. We have done side by sides with a variety of scopes, and I really can't say that more expensive scope are not better, but the degree to which they are better is not something I am will to pay the additional money for.

I have been running an Athlon Cronus on my 6.5x47 for a little over a year and it has proven to be accurate and repeatable with outstanding optics. The upper tier Athlons seem to be consistently good in both optics and mechanical accuracy and reliability, while some of their lower end equipment is much more "budget minded".

I Particularly like the reticle options. They are simple, yet effective "Christmas tree" type reticle that don't have the clutter that some of the other reticles do.
 
@TxAz

Shooting at extensive ranges is certainly a unique challenge. Out to 600 really isn't all that hard. Beyond that, every variable plays a larger role and it becomes exponentially more difficult the further out you stretch it.

I shot at one mile for the first time last year with a friend of mine and was instantly hooked. I had shot out to 1,000 for a number of years, but a mile was new territory. Hell, we shoot short barreled big bore revolvers out to 1,000 yards at the Linebaugh Shoot, and while I won't say it's easy, it's surprising how difficult it isn't. Of course, the target is a full scale steel buffalo. Lol
 
Very nice rifle and well configured. I have a Weatherby Mark V TacMark Elite in 338 Lapua Magnum. I just finished my break in with garbage ammo and getting ready to run some Black Hills 250 gr Sierra Matchkings through the LabRadar. I've had it out to 1000 yards and can't wait to get it out to the magic 1760. I've got a Leupold Mark 5HD 5x25 on it now and love it.
 
That is a very nice looking set up. I hope it does the trick for you at a mile. I'll admit I am impressed at the n600 yard shots.
 
Flyboy_451 said:
... and while I won't say it's easy, it's surprising how difficult it isn't. Of course, the target is a full scale steel buffalo. Lol
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There you go. There's one of the secrets of very long range shooting, a target that's more MOA than the MOA of the gun. :D

I saw a guy get a hit on his first cold bore shot with a new .50 he had never shot, at a little over 2 miles, IIRC, about 42 Mils of elevation (I think that's about 140 MOA). About 6 seconds after Boom, we saw the "splash" in the scope.

His target? A pond the size of a stadium at the far end of the property.
 
TXAZ said:
There you go. There's one of the secrets of very long range shooting, a target that's more MOA than the MOA of the gun. :D

I saw a guy get a hit on his first cold bore shot with a new .50 he had never shot, at a little over 2 miles, IIRC, about 42 Mils of elevation (I think that's about 140 MOA). About 6 seconds after Boom, we saw the "splash" in the scope.

His target? A pond the size of a stadium at the far end of the property.
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50 BMG accuracy is pretty amazing. I've had mine out to 500 yards with Hornady 750gr Amax's and that's nothing for it. Barrett warns you to be sure of your backstop because the round can potentially travel up to 5 miles.
 
That is one gorgeous rifle.

I love Black and yellow combo, never thought I would see it on a gun - the chrome barrel is a great addition to it all.
 
Wow is the first reaction I have to that beautiful rifle. I do have trouble comprehending a shot of a mile.
 
Very nice rifle!!! You should enjoy that rifle for a lonnnng time.

If I wanted to shoot that far, I'd have to put targets on a cell tower about a mile away, but don't think the owner would like it.
 
JWT said:
Wow is the first reaction I have to that beautiful rifle. I do have trouble comprehending a shot of a mile.
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Dont make the mistake that I am an accomplished one mile shooter. While I have done a lot of long range shooting, both with rifles and handguns over the years, Until now, I have never even owned a rifle that was reliably capable of one mile shots. This is the beginning of a new adventure for me.

The difference in difficulty of shooting at long range is hard to describe. Going from 100 to 200 is pretty easy. At around 300-350 things get a little trickier. Once you have figured that out, 600 really isn't that big of a deal. Then, somewhere around 750 yards things start getting difficult again and only get harder the farther out you go. It seems that each distance bracket is exponentially more difficult than the last, and then suddenly things kinda come into focus, and while it would never say that 1,000 yard shots are easy, they do become very reliable in average conditions.

I have no doubt that I have a lot more to learn about shooting at a mile. I'm looking forward to the challenge, if not the frustrations that I am sure will attend the endeavor.
 
Awesome looking rifle! I just "dipped my toes" in the high power 338 myself having bought the savage 338 LM LRH. And I have zero experience at anything beyond 475 yds since I always developed with hunting in mind. I don't know about the AI--but my rifle shot sweet from the very first load using H1000. One thing that is a bit of a mystery to me about this cartridge is the usual ELR baseline of 300 gr Berger (which I think is now replaced with the 285 gr as the "ideal weight") @ 3000 fps; I can't figure out how to do that without straying into psi's way above SAAMI or manual's specs; unless I guess that's the point of the custom jobs?
 
When I was shooting F class, 600 yards was fun, 800 was manageable, 1000 was tough. Might be why I only made Sharpshooter.
A mile was way out of my ambitions.
 
stagpanther said:
Awesome looking rifle! I just "dipped my toes" in the high power 338 myself having bought the savage 338 LM LRH. And I have zero experience at anything beyond 475 yds since I always developed with hunting in mind. I don't know about the AI--but my rifle shot sweet from the very first load using H1000. One thing that is a bit of a mystery to me about this cartridge is the usual ELR baseline of 300 gr Berger (which I think is now replaced with the 285 gr as the "ideal weight") @ 3000 fps; I can't figure out how to do that without straying into psi's way above SAAMI or manual's specs; unless I guess that's the point of the custom jobs?
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@StagPanther,

If you want to hit 3,000 fps with the 300s, you're going to have to seat the bullet beyond magazine length, and probably switch to RL33 powder. I am seating bullets almost a full 1/4" beyond mag length and not even pushing yet, as I am still fire forming brass to the AI chamber.

I'm currently loading 95 grains of RL33 and getting about 2,750 from the 31" barrel. In fire formed cases, I should have about 10 grains of additional powder capacity, so will be able to load in the neighborhood of 105 grains of powder. Pretty sure I will hit 3,000 without too much effort.
 
@StagPanther,

If you want to hit 3,000 fps with the 300s, you're going to have to seat the bullet beyond magazine length, and probably switch to RL33 powder. I am seating bullets almost a full 1/4" beyond mag length and not even pushing yet, as I am still fire forming brass to the AI chamber.

I'm currently loading 95 grains of RL33 and getting about 2,750 from the 31" barrel. In fire formed cases, I should have about 10 grains of additional powder capacity, so will be able to load in the neighborhood of 105 grains of powder. Pretty sure I will hit 3,000 without too much effort.
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I thought about that--savage is actually pretty generous with their mag length but I'm sure there's room to spare in the freebore to get near the lands even all the way out to their mag length. I'll have to take a look at the "pressure curve" for RL33. The Lapua case is apparently strong enough that you can stray into the "wild side" before getting any pressure warnings from the case.
 
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