I spent the weekend at the hunting lease. Just about all of the guys were there because it was "Bushhog Weekend" for everyone to cut grass and weeds off their food plots in preparation for plowing and planting in early October.
I knew I wouldn't have much time for shooting but brought along the Omega X7 in hopes of getting a short range session in. I managed to do that Sunday morning.
Back in January of 2009 I purchased a canister of Blackhorn 209 to try in the Mustang. I shot it with .25 ACP primers charged with small rifle magnum primers and had poor ignition with that set-up. About 3/4 of that canister has been sitting in my closet ever since. So I decided to give it a try in the X7.
Now this gun gives me two-inch 100 yard groups with anything from 85 to 105 grains of GOEX and either 250 or 300 grain Speer Deep Curls in Harvester short black sabots. What will Blackhorn do?
Checking the X7's target file I found that it is presently sighted in for "dead on" at 100 yards with 250 grain DCs and 95 grains GOEX. I had no idea where a Blackhorn load would shoot, but I set a target out at 100 yards and took five shots with
250 DCs and
110 grains Blackhorn.
WOW-WHEE! Did that little gun kick with that load. I'm not recoil shy at all. Rather enjoy it actually. But that load was a punisher that I wouldn't want to shoot much.
Here's the target.
As you can see, the group hit a lot lower than the GOEX load the gun is sighted in for. Two of the shots were off the target, but I could tell where they hit on the backer board and wasn't impressed with a 3.5" group.
So I put another target out at 100 and dropped the load from
110 grains to
90 grains. Recoil was still pretty stiff, but no where near as brutal as that 110 grain load. I didn't make any adjustments to the scope for the 90 grain load. Here's that target.
I'm not impressed yet. But I suspected from the recoil that this load is shooting faster than any of the GOEX loads I've shot. So I dropped the load another ten grains to
80 grains and took five more shots at 100 yards on a fresh target. I judged the recoil to be in the neighborhood of what I get with a 95 grain GOEX load, so I was hoping to see a nice tight group when I walked out to the target.
This is what I found.
DAMN! Four of the five shots went over the top of the target. The target was pinned to the very top of the backer board so there's no way to tell how tight the group was. I can make myself believe it was likely smaller than the 90 grain load - but that's just a guess. It was getting too late on Sunday afternoon to change the scope setting and shoot another group. I needed to pack up and head home. So that will have to wait until another day.
I have to admit it felt strange loading and shooting without wiping the barrel between shots. But wiping has never been a big deal to me.
As a side note, I tried to use Winchester W209 primers in this gun for the first time and could not close the breech block with them. They were just too long. I used CCI 209Ms for the shoot. The breech block closes with a fair amount of resistance on the CCI's
Here's a picture of the X7's
uncleaned breech after the 15 shots with BH.
Not All Range Sessions Go Well
