Hooked another newbie (More Legos)
08-11-2017, 03:40 PM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
Hooked another newbie (More Legos)
Just wanted to share a few pictures from last weekend taking a new shooter out for his first time.
The "kid" started for me as an engineering intern in 2013 and interned for us until he graduated and started working full time last year. He's heard colleagues and I talk about shooting many times, so now that he's out of school and sitting on a disposable income, he decided he wanted to get into something for himself and asked me for help picking something out.
He started out with the idea of getting into a bolt action rifle for long range shooting, but then entertained the idea of a "precision AR" to save on ammo costs and have a little more "wow" factor since his buddies do a bit of shooting with AR's (mil-spec dirt blasters). He also went to a PRS-Club gas gun match with me last fall, so that shoved him towards a precision AR as well. Of course, wanting to keep a finger on longer ranges, I dangled a 6.5 grendel in front of him and he made up his mind post haste. He started ordering parts this winter into my shop, and 'round abouts the time his barrel came in, I convinced him he would be better served to come down and let me show him how to build it himself, rather than simply have me build it for him. As a mechanical engineer (I've come to forgive him), he jumped at that chance.
He made the 5hr drive Friday afternoon, and we got his lower put together that evening, then finished his upper Saturday morning just in time for the clouds to break open and ruin our hopes of an afternoon at the range. So it wasn't until Sunday we could finally get it out in the field.
The Hornady Black factory 123grn ELD-M ammo was "ok" for factory ammo, but gave a bit more ES than I would have liked; 32fps over 20 shots. I have a few pounds of 8208 he'll be loading to try and tighten that up, under the same 123 ELD-M. Before he left my place on Sunday, he had already placed an order for 500 brass and 2,000 bullets, so it's pretty safe to say he's looking forward to making noise with it.
Overall, he did a really nice job of calming his wobble area and finding his targets with his projected trajectory. The wind and weather was less than ideal, gusting 7-13mph, changing direction throughout the day, and even across the field - the boiling mirage midfield really threw a wrench into things... Great conditions to learn, but not great to really test the rifle and load, and I was worried he'd get frustrated, but he saw the wind calls as a challenge and stepped up well. Nonetheless, he held sub-moa with it out to 200yrds, and kept it inside of 1.5MOA out to 600yrds - not great, but not too bad for his first time behind a trigger. The white IPSC's were a surprising challenge in the mirage - it was easier to get rounds on a smaller orange target than on the whites - so he put a round group on it, but the contrast on the big orange was better, and his groups were consistently smaller on it and horizontally strung. I think a day without wind might shrink his horizontal spread quite a bit - the picture below is his last group on that target (repaint) which was the biggest group he fired on it, and my wind calls were anywhere from a minute left to 2moa right all within the same few minutes for that group.
600yrd gongs
Ruger AR-556 Stripped lower
Geissele G2S-E
Midwest 18" M-lok
Luth-AR
Ergo Tactical Delux Overmold
Vortex Viper HSLR MOA/MOA FFP 6-24x50mm in pro series mount
Blackhole Weaponry 20"
KVP 30cal linear comp
Rock River Chrome BCG + JP Chrome Enhanced Bolt
Radian Raptor Ambidextrous
Bushnell First Strike
Tungsten Cerakote by FTW Coatings, Wichita, KS
Probably the coolest part which I hadn't used before was the Kinetic M-lock swivel stud/bipod adapter. It locks into place automatically, then is push button to remove. With a narrower body bipod, it could be snapped on and off in seconds, and it locks in VERY securely. Pretty cool piece of hardware. His Viper HSLR was one of the better performers I've seen from Vortex, it was remarkably clear. We could spot bullet strikes on steel when the mirage caved out at 600yrds.
Overall, a great weekend helping hook another new shooter into the world of marksmanship
The "kid" started for me as an engineering intern in 2013 and interned for us until he graduated and started working full time last year. He's heard colleagues and I talk about shooting many times, so now that he's out of school and sitting on a disposable income, he decided he wanted to get into something for himself and asked me for help picking something out.
He started out with the idea of getting into a bolt action rifle for long range shooting, but then entertained the idea of a "precision AR" to save on ammo costs and have a little more "wow" factor since his buddies do a bit of shooting with AR's (mil-spec dirt blasters). He also went to a PRS-Club gas gun match with me last fall, so that shoved him towards a precision AR as well. Of course, wanting to keep a finger on longer ranges, I dangled a 6.5 grendel in front of him and he made up his mind post haste. He started ordering parts this winter into my shop, and 'round abouts the time his barrel came in, I convinced him he would be better served to come down and let me show him how to build it himself, rather than simply have me build it for him. As a mechanical engineer (I've come to forgive him), he jumped at that chance.
He made the 5hr drive Friday afternoon, and we got his lower put together that evening, then finished his upper Saturday morning just in time for the clouds to break open and ruin our hopes of an afternoon at the range. So it wasn't until Sunday we could finally get it out in the field.
The Hornady Black factory 123grn ELD-M ammo was "ok" for factory ammo, but gave a bit more ES than I would have liked; 32fps over 20 shots. I have a few pounds of 8208 he'll be loading to try and tighten that up, under the same 123 ELD-M. Before he left my place on Sunday, he had already placed an order for 500 brass and 2,000 bullets, so it's pretty safe to say he's looking forward to making noise with it.
Overall, he did a really nice job of calming his wobble area and finding his targets with his projected trajectory. The wind and weather was less than ideal, gusting 7-13mph, changing direction throughout the day, and even across the field - the boiling mirage midfield really threw a wrench into things... Great conditions to learn, but not great to really test the rifle and load, and I was worried he'd get frustrated, but he saw the wind calls as a challenge and stepped up well. Nonetheless, he held sub-moa with it out to 200yrds, and kept it inside of 1.5MOA out to 600yrds - not great, but not too bad for his first time behind a trigger. The white IPSC's were a surprising challenge in the mirage - it was easier to get rounds on a smaller orange target than on the whites - so he put a round group on it, but the contrast on the big orange was better, and his groups were consistently smaller on it and horizontally strung. I think a day without wind might shrink his horizontal spread quite a bit - the picture below is his last group on that target (repaint) which was the biggest group he fired on it, and my wind calls were anywhere from a minute left to 2moa right all within the same few minutes for that group.
600yrd gongs
Ruger AR-556 Stripped lower
Geissele G2S-E
Midwest 18" M-lok
Luth-AR
Ergo Tactical Delux Overmold
Vortex Viper HSLR MOA/MOA FFP 6-24x50mm in pro series mount
Blackhole Weaponry 20"
KVP 30cal linear comp
Rock River Chrome BCG + JP Chrome Enhanced Bolt
Radian Raptor Ambidextrous
Bushnell First Strike
Tungsten Cerakote by FTW Coatings, Wichita, KS
Probably the coolest part which I hadn't used before was the Kinetic M-lock swivel stud/bipod adapter. It locks into place automatically, then is push button to remove. With a narrower body bipod, it could be snapped on and off in seconds, and it locks in VERY securely. Pretty cool piece of hardware. His Viper HSLR was one of the better performers I've seen from Vortex, it was remarkably clear. We could spot bullet strikes on steel when the mirage caved out at 600yrds.
Overall, a great weekend helping hook another new shooter into the world of marksmanship
Last edited by Nomercy448; 08-11-2017 at 03:43 PM.
08-11-2017, 05:06 PM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Eastern wv
Posts: 3,649
fun ain't it, you see that look! the one we had back in our learning days, just got back from helping 3 first time elkhunters get their rifles tuned to 500 yards, your happiest when your hitting stuff!
RR
RR
08-11-2017, 06:37 PM
#3
Typical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 995
600 yards, gusting and variant wind directions, brand new rifle and I am assuming brand new shooter. All in all that wasn't bad shooting at all given all that. Ya do know it could have been the spotter being off a mite to don't ya? One day I fool around with this stuff and find them emoticon doodlemaflatchies.
08-12-2017, 10:59 PM
#5
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Kansas
Posts: 3,905
I'm definitely not a pro spotter, and I'll readily admit to struggling that day converting my mind back to Minutes instead of Mils to communicate his wind calls. If I were singing like an auctioneer that afternoon, I wouldn't have been talking fast enough to keep up on the changing calls. When I was shooting myself, I could simply slide back and forth on my wire, centering around my "standard call," reading and adjusting on my own in real time, but calling for Klae was a lot slower than it needed to be. So whether my calls were off because they were simply inaccurate or because they were too slow for the changing wind, I'm pretty confident saying his horizontal stringing was due to missed wind calls moreso than the rifle.
Ridge hit the nail on the head though - I LOVE living vicariously through new shooters. That big, growing smile they get when they come out of the scope after that first connection at long range makes all of the time helping them get there worth while.
I will say - what stuck out to Klae the most was how long it took to ride the 4 wheeler back and forth to the target. He said it really made sense when I reminded him - 400yrds is 'round about a quarter mile, and getting out to 600yrds is just 'round about 3/8mile... A lot of new guys aren't used to thinking about long ranges in feet or yards, so they don't really have a context for what ranges really are.
Ridge hit the nail on the head though - I LOVE living vicariously through new shooters. That big, growing smile they get when they come out of the scope after that first connection at long range makes all of the time helping them get there worth while.
I will say - what stuck out to Klae the most was how long it took to ride the 4 wheeler back and forth to the target. He said it really made sense when I reminded him - 400yrds is 'round about a quarter mile, and getting out to 600yrds is just 'round about 3/8mile... A lot of new guys aren't used to thinking about long ranges in feet or yards, so they don't really have a context for what ranges really are.
08-13-2017, 08:36 AM
#6
Typical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 995
You do know I was poking at you right Nomercy448? I know full well how the winds are in Kansas. Dad and I had a refit job there in Dodge at the Excell plant for several months back when we still did Electrical work. A person raised in Kansas shooting damn well better know how to read winds or they couldn't hit a bull in the ass with a bass fiddle.
