Thread: Finally getting set up

It's taken a bit longer than I ever intended, but I finally got a shooting area set up on the new farm. Its one of the big things Ive missed, but it took a bit of consideration in finding an area with the distances I wanted, and that was safe as well as not going to get damaged by cattle when not in use.
Anyway a few days back I was dismantling an old kitchen bench and draws that had been turned into a garage tool bench, and I realised it had a two piece box metal frame. A light lit up in my brain as I realised it would make an awesome benchrest.

I finished stripping it and applied some anti rust spray, then went to look for a suitable top and seat. In a back shed was a couple of pieces of inch thick ply, and a tin of waterproofing paint. Bingo!
My luck was in as I didn't need to cut or anything. Both bits slotted into place like they were made for it.





A kids swing set and trampoline got salvaged from the farm dump, and now I had frames for my gongs and can put them out from 200 too 500 yards.

As the 300 yard distance will be where I do most of my testing, I set up the swing there and hung a gong. The idea being it has enough room for multiple targets and I an hang a sheet or board behind if I need to find where bullets are going.

My brother has just picked up a Browning Maral, Nordic in 308, and he wanted to sight it in with 165 superformance. So we decided to test the range last night. I also wanted to check my rifle as Ive done some tough hunts since last sight in, and also the last group I shot at 100 was an incredible 7mm centre to centre.
I wanted to see if I could replicate that at longer range.

Mikes Maral shot really well, except that it doesn't have enough elevation adjust ment and is shooting low at 100. Its ok for now in that the has a BDC type reticle and can use it out to 300, and he did fire one shot for a very pleasant confirmation at 300.

You will see his shot below my group on the plate. There was a steady left to right breeze, so Im not too upset at both guns hitting slightly right of centre.

Anyway I was stoked that my rifle performs as well at 300, as it does at 100, with a 3 shot group of .75 inch centre to centre.





Yep I do know the criticism of 3 shot groups, but this rifle has never shot any 3 shot group over .75 MOA at any distance, So I'm confident that this tells me all I really need to know.

I was using the first stadia on the G4i Drop reticle on my GPO 1.5-9 x 44, and this is shooting a touch high at 300. But that's fine for how I use the rifle and I know that with my maximum shooting range of 400 on game, I have all bases coved with just two hold points.

later on Ill do some testing at 500 just out of interest sake.