Thread: Father and son range day

I took Archie my 8 year old son out to our local range on Sunday arvo for a couple of hours shooting.

Hes done a little bit of shooting before for the last couple of years, but not a lit really.

Hes shot 22lr and last time out some reduced 223 loads from 200 yards.

This time i started him off on the 22lr to get him back in the groove, then a couple of lighter 223 loads at 100 yds.

Then full power 55gr 223 loads from 200 yards. Told him if he could hit the 3 inch pink dot on the steel plates he could move back another 100 yards.

So he hit the bull pretty easy @200 yards so back to 300 we went.

Same deal at 300, a couple of shots on the pink bull (im dialing the scope for elavation)

So i pulled out the 243 with some light charge 80gr loads only going around 2700 fps.

He had 3 shots with that, but prefered the much lighter recoil of the 223 at this point.

Me and a mate that tagged along wanted to shoot at 400 so back we went. Once we were done, Archie said well i hit the pink at 300 so can i have a go with the 223 from 400?

So i set him up laying prone on the 400 yard bench and told him ti aim for the smaller 8 inch square plate, i made sure he was in a good position and rock solid, reminded him to squeeze the trigger rather than pull it and told him to fire when ready.

Bang...............ding! "You hit it" i said, my mate watching the plate thru the zoomed in camera announces "hes hit the pink"

The cheeky little bugger hit a 3 inch bull from 400 yards, the 8 inch plate looked pretty damn small in the 10x weaver superslam scope, let alone the pink dot.

Its fair to say he was pretty happy with himself. Proud Dad moment.

I wanted to get my mate doing some more shooting practice too. Hes just started getting keen on hunting and shooting, and i got him his first deer about 3 weeks ago up the ruahines and roared a stag up to within 20 yards of him the same day.

I wanted to use the bitsa Model 7 i put together with cheap 2nd hands parts off the forum. The action off my old M7 260 rem, a 700 take off 24 inch 6.5CM barrel and a 2nd hand B&C stock fitted with my first long range scope i ever brought, a 3-15x42 Weaver SuperSlam.

I didnt want to burn thru any components i normally use so had a look thru the cupboard to see what i had that i dont normally use, found a couple of boxes of 120gr Prohunters and some 2208 that i dont currently use in anything else.

So after a quick look at load data for those components, i loaded up a bunch at 38gr and more at 39gr. Ive often found 1gr under book max can shoot very well.

Seated the pills to fit the mag and look right, no load development what so ever.

Fired two of the 38gr load at 100 yards, .4 inch apart dead centre of target.

Took a guess at the velocity and entered the data into the shooter app.

Then shot it at 300, and 400 yards, round after round ontop of each other smack in the middle of the pink dot on my gongs.

Couldnt believe my luck at fluking a mint load just thrown together with no development at all. If only it was always that easy eh.

Im looking forward to seeing what it'll do after some fine tuning, and getting my mate to stretch it out a bit futher.

Happy lads all round.

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thats superb. what a great time

Awesome great shooting by all of you!

My mate also quite enjoyed sitting in on the instructional session with my lad, as he's only just started shooting. He's been out shooting rabbits with me a few times, and ive had one decent range session with him where we started him on the 22lr and moved on up thru 223, braked 284 and braked 300 RUM just to show him.

I've had him out der hunting with me a couple of times now, a couple of day hunts, then a two night fly camp in the Ruahines. We managed to get him his first deer on the 2nd trip, and we roared a stag into about 20 yards too which was cool for him to experience after shooting his first deer at 250 yards.

As you can see from the pic below after shooting his first deer from a somewhat awkward prone position, a bit of positioning and technique practice won't go astray ;-)

That kid is a "keeper" Way to go dad.

Awesome stuff well done both of them.
Great to see a young fella getting keen.

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Nice story. It `s so good to have a piece of land.

Originally Posted by Black Rabbit

Nice story. It `s so good to have a piece of land.

I wish this 'range' was on my own property, its on regional council land and im concerned we may loose this as a range under the new rules, even thou since the introduction of this facility all the problems both the regional council and police had to deal with due to people sighting in rifles in the river beds have mostly gone away.

@GWH is that a "weatherby eyebrow" i spy

Originally Posted by wsm junkie

@GWH is that a "weatherby eyebrow" i spy

That it is, in this case, a Tikka 284 eyebrow LOL. Due to the uphill angle of the rifle and down hill position of his body, im thinking the butt wasnt in his shoulder propely and with recoil its slid under his armpit, ouch. Something to remember his first deer by ;-)

He's not the first and won't be the last, I thought the other week on NZHunter when they did the 4x4 mission one of those young fellas took a scope to the brow but they never showed him again

Originally Posted by GWH

I wish this 'range' was on my own property, its on regional council land and im concerned we may loose this as a range under the new rules, even thou since the introduction of this facility all the problems both the regional council and police had to deal with due to people sighting in rifles in the river beds have mostly gone away.

Yeah I heard news about more restricted measures against current range operation. I hope range ranges will better after new rules, not getting less.

Well done Dad, the young fella clearly has a good eye. And he’s a leftie shooting a right hand set up.

Good on you GWH!

Archie showing great skill on the long range gongs. You have little choice but to buy him his own left handed .223, so he doesn't wear out your barrel

New rules mean no kids under 16yrs can shoot on a certified range. Full stop.