Well, I took it out to the range today for the first time. First of all, this is a pretty accurate rifle right out of the box. I was shooting the fairly cheap Winchester White Box 45gr JHP varmint rounds, mostly because I want the Winchester brass, but my best 5-shot group was 1.28" and there were three shots in the same group that measured 0.47" . It was a pretty windy day with variable crosswinds as high as 10mph. Which made the groups open up a little. Those tiny little 45grain .224 bullets just don' t like the wind much. I shot one group where the wind was really whipping back and forth and the group had all 5 shots within .75" of the horizontal center of the target, but they were strung out in a straight line horizontal about 3" long. I was also very happy to see that the click adjustments on the scope were right at 1/8MOA as advertized. Makes it really easy to accuratly adjust the impact of the group. I guess it pays to buy a high-dollar scope.

Anyway, as for the scope, I found that the objective setting DOES make a difference in the whether the scope is in focus, but mostly the effect is only at higher madnifications. When I shot my first group at 25 yards to do the initial scope adjustments I found that is I didn' t take the objective all the way down to the minimum the target would be fuzzy. And at the 100 yard objective setting the 200 yard birm would be blurry. Otherwise, except for the bad mirage from the hot ground, the scope is crystal clear at 100 yards at 20x but only it the objective is set within 50 yards of the true range.

I can' t wait to see what this rifle will do with handloads on a calm day. Should be a sub- 1/2MOA rifle easily.

Here' s a pic of the best target group. The shot out on the right was wind and the high one was me jerking the trigger.

Mike