ronlaughlin

Last summer i found a place where i could shoot 400 yard. The drawback is, it involves shooting on an open ridge, where it seems the wind always blows. Even so, we had great fun shooting shooken pop cans with our AR rifles, but never did try shooting a muzzle loader there. A desire to shoot a muzzle loader at that spot has been growing.

The Optima i have been shooting this year seems to shoot moa, so it would seem it might work out at 400 yard. The scope mounted on the rifle has an elevation dial that is readily reset to zero, and the dial can be spun around and around so for to reach 400 yard.









A calculator was used to see how much the elevation dial would have to be turned, to reach 400 yard.









The calculator say to dial up 33 moa for this load to reach 400 yard. However, when i turned the dial it would only go 2 turns, and then reached the end of adjustment. So... i removed the scope, and shimmed the base with a piece of shim stock.











Afterward, with the rifle unmoved, the elevation dial was turned down to set the cross hair at near the same place it was before the shim was added. The elevation dial was loosened, and set to zero. Then the elevation dial was turned up until it topped out, which thankfully revealed, there is plenty of adjustment left, to reach 400 yard.

Now... it is time to sight the rifle in again at 100 yard, and develop a load. Hopefully a day will come thereafter, with minimal wind, which will allow a try at the 400 yard shot.

BarnesAddict

Using your figures, I get the following information but, regardless shooting will be fun.

MOA.......... 31.36
MRAD.........9.12
Inches........131.38
Clicks.........131.4

cayugad

Wow that entire idea to me is just .... insane. I mean I would try shooting that far but if you don't hit.. well don't be too upset with yourself. A pop can at that distance would be very small if not impossible to see. But I am sure you will be shooting target. Just the idea of that kind of scope adjustment... and BOOM!

Good luck with your endeavor.

ModernPrimitive

I love watching vids of those long range shots: Boom...silence...tink!

Ridge Runner

if your rifle shoots 1 moa you'll do it, keep everything you can control as close as you can to exact, and the things you can't may not be too bad. if your trajectory doesn't match your chart, tweak the BC a bit till it does, it ain't that hard.
RR

ronlaughlin

How far into a 10 mi/hr cross wind is my hold?

WV Hunter

Ron, help me understand the MOA adjustment.

Are you saying that the calculator says that if you are sighted in dead on at 100yds, that you need to crank the scope up 33 moa from that point - and if 1moa=4 clicks, then crank up 132 clicks and in theory you should be on target for 400yds?

On the dial, is 1 tick line 1 click? How many ticks between numbers? I see the number 12.

Sorry if this sounds dumb, but I've never done any long range target shooting other than some at 300yds with a hp rifle with no scope adjustments, etc. I don't fully understand all that MOA speak.

BarnesAddict

moa.......... 12.9
inches.......54.02
clicks........54

That's a for a 90° wind @10 mph using a 100 yard zero.

ronlaughlin

Yes, exactly!

Twelve ticks between numbers. One tick is one click. Zero, Three, six, nine, and twelve moa are numbered. Fifteen moa per revolution of the dial.

Actually, you answered each question you asked, with no wrong answers, so it appears nothing was dumb.

ronlaughlin

So... i will hold 4' 6" into the wind from the center of the target at 400 yard?