Hello LRH!
I am new to the world of long range, and really rifling in general. I've been around guns my whole life, and shot plenty of rifles, but until recently, I've only owned hand guns. At any rate, I have been lurking this forum since I first acquired my rifle a couple months back, and decided it was time to register, introduce myself, and start asking questions.
So on to the guns, and intent!
I had told some of the guys at work that I wanted to start hunting, and was looking for something in the .30 caliber flavor. One of our customers got wind and mentioned that he had a rifle for sale. It turned out to be a brand new Savage 111 Hunter XP, chambered in .300 win mag. That was a bit more than I was looking for, but the price was right, and my boss agreed to let my broker it through the shop, via my employee layaway. So for $300 (retail was $525) @ $40/month, I walked away with my first long arm, plus 40 rounds of ammo to sweeten the deal. Not bad!
My second rifle, came a couple weeks later, when one of the guys at work wanted to get in to archery. I told him I had a really nice old re-curve that I might consider letting go. Well, he like the bow, and we worked out a trade for an immaculate Browning SA-22, which turned out to be a real sweet heart.
I plan to use my .300 for hunting, long range target shooting, and after reading about it on this forum, maybe practicle rifle competitions (when my skills develop a little more). The .22 is for plinking and "training." I also taught my little girl (7) how to shoot for the first time with the .22!
So I have been shooting the .300 at our local city range, zeroing, changing, re-zeroing, changing some more, etc. Things are going pretty well so far, and I'm pretty happy with the rifle.
All the hardware is OEM, including the Bushnell 3-9 x 40. Replacing the glass will be my first big investment, but in the meantime, I have been working on fitment. I'm 6'2" and only 150lbs, so I have long arms and small bicepts. Naturally I needed to adjust the LOP. From the factory it was 13-3/4." Well I measured myself at about 15" on the dot, and added the appropriate 1-1/4." It felt great, but naturally my eye relief was well away from the 4" maximum of the Bushnell. When I tried shooting it, I took a nice shot from the ocular lense right to the forehead. Believe me, a hit like that from a 180g .300wm rattled my teeth pretty good! So the next step was getting the scope in line, and the stock one position weaver bases didn't give me the adjustment that I needed. I ordered up a nice full length picatinny base, and since I intend to shoot at longer ranges, I went with a 20moa model. This *almost* gave me the adjustment that I needed, until the objective lense butted up against the new base! The next step was to order some new rings with a bit more elevation. I did so, and was finally able to get my eye relief where it needed to be. In the midst of all the scope positioning I ordered a nice cheek piece to get my eye elevation in line with all the scope adjustments I had made, and now I can plant the butt in my shoulder pocket, roll the barrel up 90 degrees into a cheek weld with my eyes closed, open my eye, and it lands directly on the reticle with no shadowing at any power setting. So mission accomplished!
So far the rifle seems to be capable of 1.5 moa @ 100yd, with me behind it, and I'm not confident that my capabilities at this point have extracted the maximum accuracy from it. I am happy to say that I have been able to hit the biggest of the three gongs at the 550yd mark at the range, which I believe is 18" so I'm "okay." The other two gongs @ 550 are 6" and 3" I believe. Much more challenging.
In the near future I plan on filling the fore-end of the stock, and bedding the action. I also may had a mechanical recoil slug in the butt stock, and a better recoil pad, since all of the that is pretty inexpensive, and I'm confident in my ability to do it all at home. I'll also be saving up for a quality optic in the neighborhood of 4-16 x 50 with ranging capability. Last will be some re/hand loading equipment.
I guess that's all for now, if you took the time to slug it out and read this, you're a trooper, I know I tend to type a lot.
Happy shooting, and I look forward to posting more!
I am new to the world of long range, and really rifling in general. I've been around guns my whole life, and shot plenty of rifles, but until recently, I've only owned hand guns. At any rate, I have been lurking this forum since I first acquired my rifle a couple months back, and decided it was time to register, introduce myself, and start asking questions.
So on to the guns, and intent!
I had told some of the guys at work that I wanted to start hunting, and was looking for something in the .30 caliber flavor. One of our customers got wind and mentioned that he had a rifle for sale. It turned out to be a brand new Savage 111 Hunter XP, chambered in .300 win mag. That was a bit more than I was looking for, but the price was right, and my boss agreed to let my broker it through the shop, via my employee layaway. So for $300 (retail was $525) @ $40/month, I walked away with my first long arm, plus 40 rounds of ammo to sweeten the deal. Not bad!
My second rifle, came a couple weeks later, when one of the guys at work wanted to get in to archery. I told him I had a really nice old re-curve that I might consider letting go. Well, he like the bow, and we worked out a trade for an immaculate Browning SA-22, which turned out to be a real sweet heart.
I plan to use my .300 for hunting, long range target shooting, and after reading about it on this forum, maybe practicle rifle competitions (when my skills develop a little more). The .22 is for plinking and "training." I also taught my little girl (7) how to shoot for the first time with the .22!
So I have been shooting the .300 at our local city range, zeroing, changing, re-zeroing, changing some more, etc. Things are going pretty well so far, and I'm pretty happy with the rifle.
All the hardware is OEM, including the Bushnell 3-9 x 40. Replacing the glass will be my first big investment, but in the meantime, I have been working on fitment. I'm 6'2" and only 150lbs, so I have long arms and small bicepts. Naturally I needed to adjust the LOP. From the factory it was 13-3/4." Well I measured myself at about 15" on the dot, and added the appropriate 1-1/4." It felt great, but naturally my eye relief was well away from the 4" maximum of the Bushnell. When I tried shooting it, I took a nice shot from the ocular lense right to the forehead. Believe me, a hit like that from a 180g .300wm rattled my teeth pretty good! So the next step was getting the scope in line, and the stock one position weaver bases didn't give me the adjustment that I needed. I ordered up a nice full length picatinny base, and since I intend to shoot at longer ranges, I went with a 20moa model. This *almost* gave me the adjustment that I needed, until the objective lense butted up against the new base! The next step was to order some new rings with a bit more elevation. I did so, and was finally able to get my eye relief where it needed to be. In the midst of all the scope positioning I ordered a nice cheek piece to get my eye elevation in line with all the scope adjustments I had made, and now I can plant the butt in my shoulder pocket, roll the barrel up 90 degrees into a cheek weld with my eyes closed, open my eye, and it lands directly on the reticle with no shadowing at any power setting. So mission accomplished!
So far the rifle seems to be capable of 1.5 moa @ 100yd, with me behind it, and I'm not confident that my capabilities at this point have extracted the maximum accuracy from it. I am happy to say that I have been able to hit the biggest of the three gongs at the 550yd mark at the range, which I believe is 18" so I'm "okay." The other two gongs @ 550 are 6" and 3" I believe. Much more challenging.
In the near future I plan on filling the fore-end of the stock, and bedding the action. I also may had a mechanical recoil slug in the butt stock, and a better recoil pad, since all of the that is pretty inexpensive, and I'm confident in my ability to do it all at home. I'll also be saving up for a quality optic in the neighborhood of 4-16 x 50 with ranging capability. Last will be some re/hand loading equipment.
I guess that's all for now, if you took the time to slug it out and read this, you're a trooper, I know I tend to type a lot.
Happy shooting, and I look forward to posting more!
