Brent,
We shot steel Fri and Sat and learned a few neat things. We had some odd-ball pieces of 1/2" mild steel cut in 6"x6" squares with 1 1/2" stubs welded on them, sort of looked like a T. There was a 1/2" hole drilled through each stub which was good for hanging the little plates.
Shot one at 700 and only took the paint off.
Next day we shot them at 300, hanging them from an old swing-set from pieces of chain. 168 Sierra's and Nosler J-4's penetrated about 1/2 way through the plate, slight bulge on back but one weld failed and the other welds holding the stubs started to crack. Very visible fan of bullet debris hit straight under the plate each shot (lots of dust), no richochets, seems all bullet material bounces downward. Had about a 20' embankment directly behind the steel so no worry about stopping bullets.
Moved in to 200 yards, broke off two more stubs and had noticeably bigger and deeper craters. Moved in to 100 yards and craters were about 3/4 way through the plate, big bulge and the plates started to bow, not flat anymore. All of this was hitting them when they were hanging. Pretty well buggered the plates we had out but my buddy has 20 more.
Bottom line - 6" hanging plates at 300 are very good close-range practice, particularly if you shoot from various hunting positions. Welding was not a good idea, next plates will be one piece and simply have a hole drilled in each corner. We had them on two feet of chain, made for some good practice hitting them as they swung after a previous hit.
Also shot 2'x4' 1/4" plate at 700 yards, .308 makes a pretty good dent. .300 Win went through with 190 M'Kings. Expect that the .308 will make it through when an impact location is hit twice. What the hell, it is only 1/4" steel, easy and cheap to replace so we will just shoot them up. Is still a great way to get your LR zeros as we just repaint and the fresh hits show up well.
Shot a heavier 30"x30" piece of .375 plate and it took the hits no sweat at 700, makes a much nicer gonging sound too. Had it sloped forward one day and the bullet damage was nil - deflected all the debris into the dirt.
Also shot rocks, they are almost as good if you spraypaint them white - you can see your bullet splats really well. We have a big valley mapped now, distances and come-ups to several good rocks plotted (it helps to be crazy...). 168's were carrying up flatter than 175's yesterday at the extreme distances.
Longest shot on a rock yesterday was 75 minutes of elevation plus held the post about 12-13 mils over, using a tree up on the horizon of a huge valley, had on 20 minutes of right wind also. Rock was in the bottom of the valley at far side and the 168 J4 hit it, nice puff of dust. It was not in the field of view of the 16 power Nikon tactical at the shot. I was spotting and watched it hit, about two sec. of flight time. Total fluke but fun. Must be sort of similar to what the extreme range hunters do on a regular basis, only we had to hold-over since we ran out of UP.
Not as much fun as Dave's dep deer but still good trigger pulling.
