Doing a long range match with a BDC tomorrow.

[BallisticsGuy]

So I was supposed to shoot tomorrow's match with my .308 barrel screwed into my Savage 10 that's currently painted to look like a Dodger Dog. Well, that idea went straight to heck in a handbasket after I found the extractor broken and a replacement part several days away. An industry insider asked me to try one of the relatively recent 4-14x44 FFP ACSS HUD/DMR scopes with my .308 at a match. That seemed fun, one was coming up and I need to make a match for many reasons, least of all my sanity.

Thankfully one of my .223 loads perfectly matches their spec .308 ballistics out to 800 and then just needs .3mil extra up at 900yrds so it'll do just fine at the match as far as that goes. Of course that meant having to load 140 rounds of .223 (50 of each load for the match plus 20 of each for pre-match testing/verification/zeroing) suddenly. For me it's a pretty mellow load, 24gn of BL-C(2) under a 73gn ELD-M with a CCI 400 and PPU brass in 1-fire and virgin condition.

All of that, of course, meant I needed to pull the magnetospeed adapter and Vortex Razor 2 3-18x50 off my heavily customied .223 Mossberg MVP and fit it with a set of 30mm Burris Signature Series rings and Vortex bubble level. My gun looks so weird right now. (yes my bench is messy, it's been a busy couple months, I'll get it sorted)

And then there's the pile of previously-on-my-MVP scopes that seems to be growing in the corner.

I'd really rather be using my new .243AI. It's pulling 5fps SD's across 10 rounds right now and it groups just about anything I feed it into half an inch. Those are all 10 round groups, the wide one was my doing. Changed point of aim.

So I'll be shooting a match tomorrow in Avenal, CA (if you want to shoot it, head down, registration is at 7am, 50 shots, bring a lunch and water and good hiking shoes) using a BDC reticle. I'm not going to dial snot, just hold-over and hold-off using the reticle. A .223 is wildly difficult to do well with at Avenal, winds are impossible to read and change rapidly. My best score there with a .223 is 22 of 50. The course record is 37 of 50. If I can hit 15 of 50 with this system I'll be pretty happy. Keep in mind the targets I'll be shooting at are 2MOA-3.5MOA. Kinda small for a BDC reticle.

 

[Barrelnut]

Don't think your out of your mind, just having fun and doing the "insider" a favor.
I actually keep a few extra Savage extractors and a bunch of those little ball bearings in my spare parts kit. Seems they wear out after about 2k rounds.

 

[BallisticsGuy]

Did exceedingly well contrary to my initial expectations. Took me 2 stages to let go of ballistics data comparisons to the reticle and just trust the reticle. Took me another stage to get used to the wind hold offs being so good. Winds started mellow at 5-10 but before the first stage was done we were at 20mph+ shifting from in our faces to right to left at full value. Really challenging as those were the really long targets. I goose egged a couple stages when the winds got over 30mph but that was more due to being unable to see with all that dirt blowing directly in my eyes and having a time limit.

At the end of the day I ran 20 of 50 with hits out to 600 being pretty doable and getting ridiculously hard after that. That score landed me mid-pack among ~40 shooters and nobody ran the course clean. Best was a 48. I did get a hit at the 800yrds target so I'm pretty happy there. The 900 was my cold bore shot for the match and I missed wide on a bad wind estimation.

The BDC was on like Juan and misses were almost all wind. I had a few that went high/low due to either shooter error or just hellifiknow.

My best score ever with a .223 on that course is a 22 of 50. My best in that kind of wind was 15 of 50 (yeah, .223 no bwaynoh in duh wind). So scoring 5 hits over my prior high wind best is impressive. My time on target was way faster than dialing.

I was also using the BipodExt bipod extender from Accuracy Solutions and that really helped. I was rock stable even when I had to go from prone to sitting with no pillow to go from a 400yrd target that was relatively level with me to a 200yrd target that was a pretty steeply angled shot and then back down to prone to run the 500-600. Sitting is a position I usually get a lot of wiggle on with my bipod close to the mag well. With it 2 inches in front of my muzzle I might as well have been using a machine rest.

So, pretty happy. The glass quality in the PA 4-14x44 FFP is amazing for the cost. The illumination is so-so with a bit of bloom on the horseshoe and chevron and uneven illumination across the reticle and down. The turrets are rubbery and vague but they tracked well enough during zero'ing to make that a 3 shot proposition. You definitely want/need to have a bubble level on the PA BDC scopes if you're going long with them. Any cant will show up in serious misses. I had a vortex level on there which was super sensitive and helped a lot.

 

[HARPERC]

All you can do on race day is run, what you brung (have)!

 

[Litehiker]

Remember, all BDC reticles LIE, even when using the same cartridges they used for the reticle. Different altitude density, different wind, different rifle, likely a different barrel length and different temperature.

Eric B.