87GN
08-02-09, 17:26
This morning I woke up before down to drive a long ways to the monthly 600 yard match. It's a well run but informal affair, with no prizes awarded - not that I would have been in the running, even with the best rifle there. There were many excellent shooters, and I was lucky to have my friend Greg, a Presidents Hundred shooter, calling the wind for me, and saying "remember the fundamentals" when he would see me doing something wrong.
I had intended to bring my Saiga 308, however, I decided to bring two AR carbines, both home builds - a 16" S&W 5.45 upper and a 14.5" Sabre barrel in a MUR with a permanently attached Vortex. As you can see, they are my home defense carbines. I didn't bother taking the flashlights off, though I did swap the EOTech on the 5.45 for an A2 carry handle. In this pic, the uppers have been swapped, since the 5.45 rifle has a heavy hammer spring, resulting in a less-than-desirable trigger pull for this type of shooting. Still, I did pretty well with it before swapping the lowers. I should note that the painted lower has an RRA 2 stage trigger (modified with a pin that won't walk out by Adco), and I experienced no failures to fire with the Russian 7N6 surplus I was shooting.
http://www.545ar.com/ARsat600.jpg
I had roughly zeroed the A2 sight on the 5.45 rifle the day before, but that was at 50 yards, and I was shooting at weeds on the side of a hill. I ended up going around 24 clicks up on the rear sight for 600 yards.
http://www.545ar.com/545at600.jpg
I can't really express the difficulty of shooting a carbine with irons at 600 yards, at least, for someone who isn't a very good shot with a rifle. Especially since the 5.45 rifle has a tritium front sight that is wider than the standard FSP. At 600 yards, my front sight was approximately 1.5 times the width of the target stand.
http://www.545ar.com/notmybestshot.jpg
My first few shots were above the target, as we dialed in the elevation. As you can see here, I was less than pleased with them.
Once I dialed it in, however, I was reasonably accurate. I'm not going to lie - not every shot was in the 10 ring. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that my best 5 shot group was about 3 MOA, or 18" at 600 yards. I did have one 3 shot group that was about 1 MOA, but the 4th and 5th shots opened it up considerably. As the wind died down, I had to adjust the windage from fully to the left to dead center. These 53gr 7N6 bullets weren't designed for this sort of thing, but they did pretty well, in my opinion. If I were to average all the shots I made (around 35, and that's excluding the sighting in shots), I'd say that they were all within 5 or 6 MOA. Not great by any standards, but pretty good for an out-of-practice shooter using Russian surplus ammunition, carbine sight radius, a gritty 8-10lb trigger, etc.
http://www.545ar.com/10shot.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/10shot2.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/9shot.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/10shot3.jpg
I did shoot the midlength with the Aimpoint (CompM2 4MOA), using 75gr Prvi Partisan ammunition, but holdover and windage was very difficult using the red dot. Once I had it figured out, I fired this shot. I gave up after that, though, and went back to the 5.45 with the A2 rear, which is much better suited for this distance.
http://www.545ar.com/10shot4.jpg
I was given the option to shoot one of Greg's rifles, an XP-100 in .204 Ruger, with which he had been shooting Xs and 10s all morning, but I figured that if I shot that rifle, I wouldn't have any excuses for poor shooting, so I stuck with the carbines.
I really enjoyed getting to the range this morning, and highly encourage those of you who are so inclined to give it a shot. I should be back at the range next month with a Trijicon TR24 1-4x24 with the German #4 reticle, we'll see how that works for 600 yard shooting.
I had intended to bring my Saiga 308, however, I decided to bring two AR carbines, both home builds - a 16" S&W 5.45 upper and a 14.5" Sabre barrel in a MUR with a permanently attached Vortex. As you can see, they are my home defense carbines. I didn't bother taking the flashlights off, though I did swap the EOTech on the 5.45 for an A2 carry handle. In this pic, the uppers have been swapped, since the 5.45 rifle has a heavy hammer spring, resulting in a less-than-desirable trigger pull for this type of shooting. Still, I did pretty well with it before swapping the lowers. I should note that the painted lower has an RRA 2 stage trigger (modified with a pin that won't walk out by Adco), and I experienced no failures to fire with the Russian 7N6 surplus I was shooting.
http://www.545ar.com/ARsat600.jpg
I had roughly zeroed the A2 sight on the 5.45 rifle the day before, but that was at 50 yards, and I was shooting at weeds on the side of a hill. I ended up going around 24 clicks up on the rear sight for 600 yards.
http://www.545ar.com/545at600.jpg
I can't really express the difficulty of shooting a carbine with irons at 600 yards, at least, for someone who isn't a very good shot with a rifle. Especially since the 5.45 rifle has a tritium front sight that is wider than the standard FSP. At 600 yards, my front sight was approximately 1.5 times the width of the target stand.
http://www.545ar.com/notmybestshot.jpg
My first few shots were above the target, as we dialed in the elevation. As you can see here, I was less than pleased with them.
Once I dialed it in, however, I was reasonably accurate. I'm not going to lie - not every shot was in the 10 ring. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that my best 5 shot group was about 3 MOA, or 18" at 600 yards. I did have one 3 shot group that was about 1 MOA, but the 4th and 5th shots opened it up considerably. As the wind died down, I had to adjust the windage from fully to the left to dead center. These 53gr 7N6 bullets weren't designed for this sort of thing, but they did pretty well, in my opinion. If I were to average all the shots I made (around 35, and that's excluding the sighting in shots), I'd say that they were all within 5 or 6 MOA. Not great by any standards, but pretty good for an out-of-practice shooter using Russian surplus ammunition, carbine sight radius, a gritty 8-10lb trigger, etc.
http://www.545ar.com/10shot.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/10shot2.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/9shot.jpg
http://www.545ar.com/10shot3.jpg
I did shoot the midlength with the Aimpoint (CompM2 4MOA), using 75gr Prvi Partisan ammunition, but holdover and windage was very difficult using the red dot. Once I had it figured out, I fired this shot. I gave up after that, though, and went back to the 5.45 with the A2 rear, which is much better suited for this distance.
http://www.545ar.com/10shot4.jpg
I was given the option to shoot one of Greg's rifles, an XP-100 in .204 Ruger, with which he had been shooting Xs and 10s all morning, but I figured that if I shot that rifle, I wouldn't have any excuses for poor shooting, so I stuck with the carbines.
I really enjoyed getting to the range this morning, and highly encourage those of you who are so inclined to give it a shot. I should be back at the range next month with a Trijicon TR24 1-4x24 with the German #4 reticle, we'll see how that works for 600 yard shooting.