I agree wholeheartedly that the step from 500 to 600 is where you start separating the wheat from the chaff.
Strangely enough, 400 and 500 is where I struggle the most. Probably due to the fact that I shot 600 a lot at the club where I was formerly a member. 6,7, and 800i do okay. 900-950 is sketchy, and I'm back on at a thousand. I've been practicing 1000 more lately. If I hadn't put too much faith in my kestrel (still learning that as well) I'd have likely cold bored a 12x20 target at 1000.
Kestrel said 2.43moa for wind and I felt like that was a little much. I was right.
I too have watched a guy at the range with a brand new Christian Arms rifle right out of the box. He started shooting at a 10" gong at 340 meters. His buddy was spotting for him. after missing with a complete box of ammo, he was getting hot under the collar. I made it worse when I pulled out a Contender with a 10" barrel and hit the target. His buddy told him someone just hit the gong and he wanted to know who. I shot again and hit. He slammed his rifle back in the box and left. To be fair I shoot at this range almost every weekend from Fall until Spring and know the holdover for that gong with that pistol. Trigger time, trigger time and trigger time.
At the range where I was formerly a member, I kind of did the same thing to a guy shooting a 6.5creed.
Homie had been down the line wearing the 100 yard target out and I was setting up on the 350 yard gong with my 22. It's a vudoo so it looks like a full size rifle. Homie on the 100 yard line is watching intently.
I break the first shot, spot the hit on the freshly painted target, and homie can't take it anymore. Here he comes. Sets up right next to me and starts banging away. 10 shots later he busts out the phone and gets into his 4dof app. Still can't hit nothing.
I started talking to him and come to find out, he's using velocity off the box. I offered the use of my chronograph and after getting a good read on velocity he got it lined out. He then inqures about my rifle and how quiet it was. It wasn't even suppressed. He almost seemed offended when I told him it was a 22.
Has anyone had someone ask you to sight in their rifle for him?Had a guy I worked with ask that.
When you try to help them understand why THEY needed to sight their own rifle in and the final question is,"Will this Saturday be ok"?
Didn't hear a word!
A good friend of mine I hunt and shoot with on a regular basis always wants me to shoot his rifles. Seems like he's always battling poi shifts and he always asks me to shoot them to verify their still on. I keep telling him he needs to shoot them, not me, so he can become more familiar with his rifles and what makes them work for him. You just gotta shoot.
Just read this entire thread! I must agree, some of the things I've seen truly amaze me. I have a part time gig gunsmithing at a little shop. We do mostly repair work, occasionally we get a customer that really has no business with a firearm of any kind. We had a fellow come in a while back (probably 40 years old) with a brand new Savage his mother bought him at a nearby big box store. His complaint was the gun wouldn't fire and he couldn't return it. My first question, what cartridge? His reply six five, me, six five what, him, dumb look (?) I then explained that there were many 6.5 caliber cartridges, his was of course the 6.5 Creedmoor. He had gone to the range with his buddy and not being able to find any ammo he was just using his friends ammo. The shop owner took the rifle back to the test chamber, boom, I looked at the guy and said "it's fixed, that will be 50 bucks" . As it turned out his buddy was shooting an AR chambered in 6.5 Grendel. I suspect the rifle ended up stuck in the back of a closet or sold for a song.
This seems to be the mentality of most "six five" guys I run into. For this reason alone I avoid the "six five" like the plague. Don't want to find myself lumped into that crowd.
