Chickens at 500 meters..?

[Bob Mc Alice]

Yes, pigs and turkeys,too. Five of us HP shooters met up early today at CRC for a practice session. Every one else was off hunting big game. We have been in a very warm spell this fall with daytime highs in the mid seventies. Today was no different reaching 70 with full sun... and CALM conditions all day. We were all hitting very well, so we decided to add some challenge to the session. We set up several chickens, pigs and turkeys to keep the rams company. The whole barn yard was there. ;)

After apparently getting good zeros with his new 7-08, Trent set the pace by hitting two chickens with his first three shots ! Dave B. followed up hitting two for four. I was smacking pigs and turkeys pretty regular, but could not hit a chicken with my M77 with a 12x. 10 shots, 10 very close misses. That little 1/8th dot still lets a lot of chicken show at 500M. Later after running out of 7-08 ammo I switched over to my M700 Classic .308 with a Leupold 20x and redeemed myself. I hit two chickens for four shots. I fired 100 rds. from the 77, 50 from the 788 and 40 from the .308 Classic.

Today was our clubs new member orientation day. About noon two of our board members showed up with a dozen or so new members. Normally I tell the newbies all about our range and the silhouette game. This time I persuaded Mr.B to do the deed. After his speech he invited them all over to watch seasoned veteran shooters mow down steel. Trent slammed a few chickens, Dave hit four pigs in a row. He then asked me to topple a ram. Hmmmmm..OK. I set the knob to 14, picked out the fattest ram I could see and let a 150gr. Match King head north. To my delight over it went. Trent was spotting and said it was a just left of center hit. I quickly put the 77 in the rack not wanting to risk spoiling the moment for the new guys by missing a second try..

A few of them stuck around awhile to watch us and naturally we offered up guns and ammo for them to try it out. One guy was hitting our chicken gong a few times and loved it. A teen got to shoot a CZ .22 at some SB targets we had set up. After hitting some both father and son vowed they would be back for more.

We reset the whole range three times and had a blast. This is probably the last of the decent weather as we will be getting a snow/rain mix a couple of days this week. We will be out there again on the next good day in December.

[Innocent]

Out offering a taste to a new unsuspecting father son team.....you should be proud of yourself Bob.
Innocent

[Jerry G]

At Three Points Range we shoot an exploding pig in SB. If there is a shoot-off, some pigs are set on the ram line and is usualy over in just a few shots.

I do hope you lured a couple of new shooters in.

[lone ringer]

Quite a long time ago I witnessed a challenge between 3 women and three over confident guys shooting chickens at 500 meters.
This was at either Avenal or Coalinga and the participants will remain nameless at least by me. The guys had been bugging the girls for some time and finally they all got together at one of our more important matches in CA.
The guys did all the work and put together 2 banks of 5 chickens at 500 meters, the bet was that the team that hit their 5 chickens first would win and the loosing team pay for the other team's dinner at an expensive restaurant, Harris Ranch if I remember right. To make the story short the women had all their chickens knocked down before the guys could hit more than one.

At Pala CA. they hold a varmint shoot at HP distances, they shoot some things that look like seating rats at 200, crows at 300, squirrels at 385, rabbits at 500 and prairie dogs at 600. They are to be shot with .22, 6mm and 6.5 with bullets no heavier than 107gr. from the bench and also from prone position.
When I go to practice HP and I see some of those targets left on the stands I challenge myself to try to hit them from the off hand or standing position with my silhouette rifles. At those distances with any kind of wind blowing the hardest thing is to figure out how much wind to put on the scope before taking the shot, after I figure out the wind I can hit them about one or two out of three.

[Trent]

I still cannot believe the weather we had here in CO for a November 7th shoot. As always I had a great time hanging out and learning from the fellas.

Those chickens at the 500m rail are awfully tiny. After shooting at those it makes the 200m chickens look like pterodactyls!

Now, is D. Bonner gonna show off that new cartridge design that he worked up yesterday?

[Bob Mc Alice]

Now hush up ,Trent. The .260 BSN is top secret, still in the developmental stages. The silhouette world is not quite ready for this new 6.5 sensation.

[Jim T.]

Bob:

I thought it was going to be called the: .260 BFUSN?

[Bob Mc Alice]

Jim, I am not sure what final name this brilliantly designed cartridge will be called. When one of the big four ammo makers steps up to make it theirs it will most certainly have their name on it , too. I understand that the fire forming principle was heavily relied upon for its creation.
Maybe ...just maybe, there might be a picture of the brainchild fired case or even possibly a reamer drawing we could get a sneak peek at ?

[Jim T.]

Bob:

Dave has asked me to help him with identifying the positive attributes of his new design. The two that come to mind immediately are the absence of neck tension issues as well as the fact that split necks will be a thing of the past. Imagine how handloaders will flock to this cartridge. Dave will be so rich he may not talk to us anymore!

[Bob Mc Alice]

Fancy bushing neck sizing dies?...not needed. With practicly no neck you would not even need any reloading dies at all. Simply push the bullet in by hand and glue it in place. I will take charge of designing and fabricating some sort of a powder funnel to charge the neck less case.

[Trent]

I found this spy photo of the new cartridge. I'll see what I can do about locating an unedited snap shot! It is tough to find info on this wildcat this early in the design phase.

[Jim Beckley]

Tony, Just a guess but could those 3 females be T. May, K. Garvin and J. Hershey? Let someone else take a stab at the 3 guys!

[lone ringer]

Tony, Just a guess but could those 3 females be T. May, K. Garvin and J. Hershey? Let someone else take a stab at the 3 guys!

Jim, you got two out of three right, the third one was Charlie Gill's girlfriend and I do not remember her name. K. Garvin was probably living in Phoenix already when that happened.
Ask Jeanie about the guy's names if you really want to know.

[colorado shooter]

Now for the rest of the story. First off lets begin with a basic simple rule BEFORE you start shooting. Pull your head out of your a_ _ and listen for a loud pop. Let's all learn from this mistake, on Sunday it had a happy ending with no damage to the gun and nobody was hurt. The big clue I did something wrong was the bolt required a stiff hit with the palm of my hand to open the bolt. Pay attention to what you are loading into guns!!!

The details on the case are as follows: Put a short 6.5 x 47 into a longer 260 chamber, close the bolt, pull the trigger and open the bolt, Presto !!! , now you have the 6.5 x 47 blown out to short neck 260. I don't think the new cartridge will be very cost effective considering the Lapua 6.5 x 47 brass cost .85 to $1.00 each. I am going to call my new embarrassment the .260 short FU.



Quite the f_ _ _ up on me.

Bonner

[Trent]

send that bad boy through your full-length resizer. Good as new.

Glad that we can have a laugh at your expense Dave. (also glad that no harm was done to you or your firearm... just your pride a little. )