Precision Long Range Shooting

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 12/28/2018 | L Vickers

[w1n1]

Larry Vicker and Walt Wilkinson of Gunsite were pushing the range limits on the Lapua 338.
Larry was using a 338 Lapua/250 grain bullet with Schmidt&Bender scope, Atlas bipod and with a Armament suppressor.
A fact that most long range shooter understands when shooting out to beyond 1000 yards the bullet starts to drop like a rainbow. Thats due to (getting a little technical here) the environmental factors of temperature and barometric pressure. So to overcome this is to run the math in a ballistic app.
That's the reason why they say a grouping at 1500 yards should be at fifteen inches group, where at closer range your groupings could be at 5 inches.

The un-suppressed rifle starts out at 300 yards for zeroing and pushes out to 2500 and outer space to see where the rounds go. For the 338 Lapua with the 20 inch barrel the drop off point was at 1470 yard. The bullet is tumbling, yawing, spinning out of control and would land in a group size of a Volkswagen.

From here its back to the 1313 yards where the gun was in the zone with a suppressor attached. Suppressed Lapua had no problem hitting steel targets at 1313 and 1470 yards, but lost it at 1583 yards. Read and see more of precision shooting.

[semaj]

Thanks for the heads-up.

[yarddog]

My first really accurate pistol was a Colt Woodsman. I traded in an H&R 49er at Jimmy’s Pawn in Ft. Walton Bch. The owner who everyone called “Jick” was easy to deal with.

I would line up empty 12 gauge shotgun shells at maybe 70 yards. Using my car for a rest, I could hit them about as often as not. I could not do better with a rifle.

I made the mistake of challenging Daddy to a shootout, me with the Colt and him with his Marlin model 99. I was always the best shot in my group of friends but Daddy was something else.

He always embarrassed me. Now that I think about it, he was maybe the best off hand shot I ever knew. He was a combat veteran of WWII and of course had the “expert” with a rifle medal. I bet he could have scored “super expert” if there was such a thing.

[Manly Warrior]

Agreed that you loose too much velocity from a short barrel, but a 2) inch 338 indeed stabilizes a 250 or even a 300 grain VLD. Stability is a function of the bullets length, the twist rate and muzzle velocity.

[Paal Gulli]

"...Bullets “drop like a rainbow” do to lost velocity, which the above factors have minuscule affect on....

Bullets drop like a rainbow because of time of flight. Provided they fly far enough, all bullets eventually drop like a rainbow REGARDLESS OF VELOCITY because acceleration due to gravity increases with the square of the time of flight.

g = G*M/R^2

[Paal Gulli]

...A 338 250 grain bullet is rather light for the task they were performing, kind of like using a 168 BTHP in a 308 and trying to get past 1000 yds...."

The standard twist for the AI 338 won't support anything much longer than a 250-gr Lapua Scenar bullet. And the 250-gr Scenar is preferable to the 300-gr Lockbase anyway because it shows better stability in the transonic transition than the Lockbase.

Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison was shooting an AI 338 and the 250-gr Lapua Scenar in 2009 in Afghanistan when he killed a Taliban from 2707 yards (laser ranged).

And the 168-gr SMK is known to have a design flaw that makes its stability questionable beyond 600-800 yards.

[Mariner]

Correct.

And if you dead-drop a bullet from precisely 6ft, it will hit the ground at the same time as a bullet shot at 3,000fps perfectly parallel to flat ground.

So velocity determines HOW FAR the bullet traveled before it dropped that 6ft.

The Ballistic Coefficient of the bullet determines how fast it loses velocity.

The “drop speed” cannot continuously accelerate as there is a finite speed for falling objects. Somebody dropped something off Pisa to prove that.

Unless you want to compute curvature and rotation of the earth for that extra millimeter over 10,000 meters.

Or so.

[going hot]

The wife places rounds in the x and ten rings with iron sights at 600 yards, with M1A. Me, I need my shooting glasses to get the front sight in focus.

Glass greatly increases the range, but need to always calculate the range.

Xmas present is (going to be) laser range finder.

[Hot Tabasco]

Being able to dominate out to 400 might come in handy in any future civil festivities.

And how many recreational shooters do you think have that ability? My guess is that they's be outnumbered.........

[going hot]

I believe anyone that can focus the front sight and hold steady while squeezing only when on target can hit 400 yards easy with projectiles leaving the muzzle > 2600fps.

Doping the wind and shooting between heartbeats becomes more useful after that, and also larger calibers for the less shift due to said wind.

[Hot Tabasco]

Doping the wind and shooting between heartbeats becomes more useful after that, and also larger calibers for the less shift due to said wind.

That does not describe the recreational shooter I mentioned does it?

[going hot]

Depends on your definition of recreational shooter.

I am friends with a boatload of recreational shooters, and each one, to a man and woman, can hit the paper plate taped to the backboard, at 400 yards, iron sights.

Many of them quite tight.

Hell, glass is plainly cheating!

I would not bet on the misses missing much.

Perhaps you refer to spray and prayers? close eyes and trigger squeezers?

.LOL.

reality...with the price of cartridges, both store bought or self reload, taking one's time to send one makes sense, and is practiced much more often than banging away at a target 50 yards away.

I do not know anyone in my web that pulls the trigger without careful thought as to where they would like the bullethole to be placed.