February 2016 Cheyenne Mountain Precision Rifle Match Video
So in my last post I described the first Cheyenne Mountain Precision Rifle Match that I attended in January of 2016. These local Colorado Springs matches offer the shooter the opportunity to test their precision rifle skills at targets ranging from 200 yards to as far as 800 yards. They also provide a great opportunity to meet and talk to other shooters in the area with varying levels of experience. There is almost always somebody that you will meet that can teach you more about shooting and next to him will be a less experience shooter that you can provide some tips to yourself.
I'm not going to go into quite as much detail as I did last time, after all the general format was the same. You can click on the picture to the right to view the previous article. I would like to talk about some of the changes made this month and, of course, highlight some video down below from the match.
In January of 2016 we had a beautiful day and about 25 shooters showed up. The match has been steadily growing and it was becoming apparent that there would need to be some changes made to keep things running smoothly. The guys running the matches stepped up to the challenges and made some improvements to the match format. Instead of running one set of 4-5 shooters through a set of five targets at 300 yards and then the 200-800 yard targets back to back, the groups were separated.
All of the shooters were split in half and one started with the 300 yard targets, rotating through all four positions on those five targets. The groups then switched and those that started on the 300 yard targets moved to the longer range targets and shot all four positions again at the long distance targets. Take a look at the video below to see the match in action:
The February match brought beautiful weather again, which not only resulted in me getting a little sunburned, but some nasty mirage and swirling winds. Unfortunately I didn't shoot quite as well as the previous month. I had switched from a 178 A-Max load to a 155 grain Nosler Custom Competition bullet. This was the first opportunity to true the DOPE, so a couple of my long range corrections were a little off.
I also realized the importance of double checking all of your information. Instead of relying on my phone, I decided to print out a density altitude drop chart based on the velocity information I got working up loads. The morning of the match I asked some of the other shooters for density altitude readings and then calculated my drops from the chart. Even though I hadn't actually trued the drop info, the chart proved to be very close.
Where I ultimately ran into an issue was with the 500 yard target. The first two positions, prone and from a pack, both felt very stable. Both of those shots ended up going high, just over the target however. Since I felt pretty good about the shots, I decided to go back and check the chart. Sure enough, the correction I wrote down was wrong. I had actually written down the dope for a 525 yard shot. It caused me to be off just enough to miss over the target. While I didn't hit all my targets after that, I was at least able to connect with that 500 yard target with the corrected numbers.
That just points out the ole' IT saying of "garbage in, garbage out." The modern ballistic solvers such as Applied Ballistics, JBM Ballistics, etc, are great resources for the long range shooter. But, in order to get decent information, you have to make sure that you are entering the correct information to begin with, then using the data that you get correctly.
At the end of the match we had some time to shoot on our own at the targets. I was able to take some shots at the longer targets, to include the 800 yard bonus target and confirm the drops that I had generated. Based on the density altitude later in the day, the 800 yard drop was a little off, but I got the corrected numbers and can spend some time "truing" the drops before the next competition.
Coming up soon I will be talking a little about the OCW load development process I used with the Nosler Custom Competition bullets.
308 OCW Load Workup
308 OCW Overal Length Variations
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| January match report. |
In January of 2016 we had a beautiful day and about 25 shooters showed up. The match has been steadily growing and it was becoming apparent that there would need to be some changes made to keep things running smoothly. The guys running the matches stepped up to the challenges and made some improvements to the match format. Instead of running one set of 4-5 shooters through a set of five targets at 300 yards and then the 200-800 yard targets back to back, the groups were separated.
All of the shooters were split in half and one started with the 300 yard targets, rotating through all four positions on those five targets. The groups then switched and those that started on the 300 yard targets moved to the longer range targets and shot all four positions again at the long distance targets. Take a look at the video below to see the match in action:
The February match brought beautiful weather again, which not only resulted in me getting a little sunburned, but some nasty mirage and swirling winds. Unfortunately I didn't shoot quite as well as the previous month. I had switched from a 178 A-Max load to a 155 grain Nosler Custom Competition bullet. This was the first opportunity to true the DOPE, so a couple of my long range corrections were a little off.
I also realized the importance of double checking all of your information. Instead of relying on my phone, I decided to print out a density altitude drop chart based on the velocity information I got working up loads. The morning of the match I asked some of the other shooters for density altitude readings and then calculated my drops from the chart. Even though I hadn't actually trued the drop info, the chart proved to be very close.
Where I ultimately ran into an issue was with the 500 yard target. The first two positions, prone and from a pack, both felt very stable. Both of those shots ended up going high, just over the target however. Since I felt pretty good about the shots, I decided to go back and check the chart. Sure enough, the correction I wrote down was wrong. I had actually written down the dope for a 525 yard shot. It caused me to be off just enough to miss over the target. While I didn't hit all my targets after that, I was at least able to connect with that 500 yard target with the corrected numbers.
That just points out the ole' IT saying of "garbage in, garbage out." The modern ballistic solvers such as Applied Ballistics, JBM Ballistics, etc, are great resources for the long range shooter. But, in order to get decent information, you have to make sure that you are entering the correct information to begin with, then using the data that you get correctly.
At the end of the match we had some time to shoot on our own at the targets. I was able to take some shots at the longer targets, to include the 800 yard bonus target and confirm the drops that I had generated. Based on the density altitude later in the day, the 800 yard drop was a little off, but I got the corrected numbers and can spend some time "truing" the drops before the next competition.
Coming up soon I will be talking a little about the OCW load development process I used with the Nosler Custom Competition bullets.
308 OCW Load Workup
308 OCW Overal Length Variations
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