I don't know if it was the fact that I made sure to try to load the bipod and keep the rifle secure in my shoulder or the muzzle brake that Randall put on the rifle but today was a much more pleasant day of shooting. I still stink at shooting but I had a blast.

Thanks Henry for the pointer. I was all confused with the whole muscle relaxation thing but making sure there was no air between my shoulder and the stock was super helpful.

Thanks Joe for helping me get my scope zeroed today. That was a HUGE help! After you left, I had to zero the rifle again with the 175 gr rounds Chris made me and I was lost for a bit. Made me realize how helpful it was having your help.

Thanks Chris for the ammo. For some reason my rifle didn't like the 43.5 grain rounds you gave me as sighters. I was all over the place. At first, I freaked out a bit. But then I just started in with the 43.1 and moved up. As it turns out, my rifle shot the 43.1 and 43.3 better than the 43.5. So I was able to make adjustments after those groups to get the rifle zeroed. The groups started to tighten up at 43.7 and the tightest groups were with the 43.9 and 44.1 loads. I think the 43.9 load was the tightest though.

Thanks for encouraging me to shoot the match next Sunday John. If Chris can load me up with some ammo, I will sign up. I still haven't shot a single round off hand, but I figure I'll learn on the fly.

Last but not least, thanks Randall for setting me up with the brake and most importantly for this forum. I'm hooked and I'm in. My wife is going to hate you guys.

The hardest thing at this point is trying to divide the tiny space between the dots on my scope in 1/10's to figure out my come ups. Does the shopping list of toys ever come to an end?

Welcome to the obsession....

roypark wrote: Does the shopping list of toys ever come to an end?

Nope

What is the distance to the set of swingers on the 4th berm? I assumed it was 400, but my observations would fit better with JBM's calculations if it were more like 370-375.

roypark wrote:What is the distance to the set of swingers on the 4th berm? I assumed it was 400, but my observations would fit better with JBM's calculations if it were more like 370-375.

The swingers are at the "400yd" line but I've never precisely LRF them. The game is to call your shot on where your bullet is going to hit on the swingers.

As you noticed, the muzzlebrake mitigates much of the rifle jump but it's still important to develop and practice good technique. Good technique will serve you well, whatever you shoot. A light recoiling rifle is more tolerant of technique errors.

roypark wrote:What is the distance to the set of swingers on the 4th berm? I assumed it was 400, but my observations would fit better with JBM's calculations if it were more like 370-375.

I have lased them at 399yds before.
You may need to adjust your atmospherics, BC, velocity or scope height to get JBM to match your hard dope.
Gather hard dope, THEN play with JBM to get it to match.

AR15barrels wrote:
I have lased them at 399yds before.
You may need to adjust your atmospherics, BC, velocity or scope height to get JBM to match your hard dope.
Gather hard dope, THEN play with JBM to get it to match.

Yeah. I was just playing around with the program. Trying to get familiar. For now I'm just trying to keep track of my data.

buffybuster wrote:
The swingers are at the "400yd" line but I've never precisely LRF them. The game is to call your shot on where your bullet is going to hit on the swingers.

As you noticed, the muzzlebrake mitigates much of the rifle jump but it's still important to develop and practice good technique. Good technique will serve you well, whatever you shoot. A light recoiling rifle is more tolerant of technique errors.

That's a good point. I couldn't really tell where on the swinger I was hitting. Just that it swung.