A Match report - Half MOA Tikka's do exist

And half MOA Tikka shooters too.

So today we had the finals of our summer gong competition - 11 Shooters.

Rifles ranged from full PRS match*guns to sporters, including a bog standard Tikka 6.5 PRC.

The course of fire comprised 5 rounds at a MOA dot at 100M, 55 potential points for all rounds within the dot. 12 rounds at the Eric Cortinal Blackjack Challenge plates at 480M, 162 possible points, and 10 rounds at a modified Texas Plinker challenge (2MOA to 0.5MOA plates) at 571M for a possible 37 points.

The weather was bright and sunny, but with a sneaky "puffy" westerly breeze ranging from about 0 to 10km/h (and changing within a heartbeat, literally).

We have to validate at 100M on our range so the 1.0 MOA dot is a great way to start. There were several sub MOA groups but none entirely within the dot (or point of aim). 3 shooters scored 30 points for 4 shots "in".

Back to 500Y for the "Blackjack"challenge. This is usually a good one in the wind, you're starting with a 300mm plate which is a big aid on reading the wind. Unless you cock it up like I did, I kept drifting down the left side of the plates, missed 5 consecutive shots on the 250mm plate before I got going again Aaarrrrggggh. No-one was hitting the 2" gong, until a young guy I've only see at the range once before shot his 308, he nailed it on his 7th shot but ran out of time to make any more hits (there's a 2 min limit).

Now one for the Tikka "fan-bois" - a chap who shoots a lot and comes the range quite a bit took the mound with a T3X 6.5 PRC. He hit the first 4 plates with 4 rounds, dropped his first shot at 100mm gong but got it next shot. He then hit the 50mm gong with his next 3 shots, dropped one then hit it again. missed with the last one. Absolutely phenomenal shooting, that's a score of 99 on the EC challenge with a stock hunting rifle. It left the crew stunned, me especially. Of course at that point he'd won the match. Of course he got a lot of barracking and was threatened by the Match Director (me) that if he missed the 0.5 MOA target at 600 points would be deducted.

Back to 600Y we went. A very hard day in the office ensued with two top shooters scoring zero, but there were a couple of possibles, one got the 50mm on shot 8, one on shot 5, and I finally came good and got it on shot 8 as well. The Tikka guy, well he didn't flinch (pun intended) and of course he nailed the 50mm on shot 5, so scored another 35 points, comprehensively winning the match!

Who says you can't shoot 0.5MOA eh @gimp !

Ive got quite a few different makes of rifles in my herd. Best shooters I have my tikka followed by the howa

It should be noted that due to the nature of our backstop it is very difficult to see misses splash, even with good technique and braked light recoiling rifles. This makes the whole thing a good bit more challenging, we usually start calling corrections after two misses for inexperienced/junior shooters and 3-4 for seniors (assuming the spotter has seen them, which isn't always the case)

Half-MOA tikka? Sure, depending on how you define it

Of course you can hit 0.5MOA targets with enough monkeys and typewriters, and it does indicate good things for the person that hits it. The issue I have with shooting at 0.5MOA targets is that you can learn something if you hit it, but you learn very little by missing it, which you will do a high proportion of the time with any real rifle, even if you do absolutely everything right. There just aren't rifles out there that actually are sufficiently precise to have a 100% hit probability mechanically on a target that small. Becomes a game of - amongst the people with good enough rifles, shooting well enough - who is the lucky one today?

Lot of truths in that. You need electronic targets ( or a big paper one) to see where every shot is going.

F-Open guns need to shoot sub half MOA, preferably less than 1/3 MOA, to be competitive but I'm talking 100yd testing, not at distance. The vagaries of wind and lighting will always degrade the result. The six ring on F Class targets is one MOA and you need to keep all shots inside that to not drop points, The X ring is half MOA and unless conditions are unusually benign, you're doing well to get more than half your shots inside the X. Gong shooting is way more forgiving than F Class.

The input and feedback loops are completely different from F class and NRA. We dont have any flags, you have to read the grass/trees etc. Shots aren't marked so your feedback is dependent on seeing splash, which is very difficult. Ours is a game of trusting your equipment and your zero etc. I feel quite differently about it than Gimp re the value of half MOA targets but I have learnt a lot off his statistical approach to results analysis.

Got me a 1/2 MOA gun right here, hits a 1/2 MOA plate at least once per belt.

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Originally Posted by Tentman

The input and feedback loops are completely different from F class and NRA. We dont have any flags, you have to read the grass/trees etc. Shots aren't marked so your feedback is dependent on seeing splash, which is very difficult. Ours is a game of trusting your equipment and your zero etc. I feel quite differently about it than Gimp re the value of half MOA targets but I have learnt a lot off his statistical approach to results analysis.

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F Class is similar in that yes we have flags but depending upon the rifle range we also look at trees (if present) grass (if long enough) and mirage. It's not just nicely laid out flags.

I failed to mention mirage. Correlating apparent wind strength with the mirage ( speed and direction) adds a whole lot more information. PRS shooters obviously need to consider mirage in their wind calls.