MT4XFore
Well-Known Member
Last week I hounded Kirby about going out this past weekend and "makin' some noise". Well, he kindly condescended to take me out on Saturday to shoot a couple of his rifles. I was as excited to go shooting with him as I am on the opening day of general season here in Montana. Saturday dawned cool and windy, but he already had all the paraphenalia loaded up in his truck, so off we went, in spite of the wind. The high prairie was beautiful in a late winter sorta way and the scenery made it awful hard to concentrate on hitting his new gongs.
After setting the gongs out we drove to a point where we could see them and ranged the suckers. I'll tell you now, I thought I knew what long range was, I was WRONG. The little gong 12" diameter was at 1320 yds and the big gong, 18"X 29", was at 1620 yads. Wow, that is a long way to think about trying to hit something. Kirby took all the appropriate data down and entered it into his PDA. I was anxious to watch this operation, it certainly allowed me to better understand what you all are doing now. The wind was around 20 mph and variable in direction, mostly in our face and from the left slightly. It wasn't cold, but the wind did make it a bit uncomfortable. After setting the bench up and getting the PDA all loaded up, Kirby had me shoot his 30 Allen Xpress at the "short" target. He was shooting 200 grain Accubonds and I forget the velocity, but I did manage to luck one into it out of about five. Then I got to shoot the big 510 Allen Mag at the short one. I didn't hit it once, but Fiftydriver got on the big girl and proceeded to hit the gong and tear it off of one of his chains holding it. Dang showoff! Here I am behind the big girl!
Then I settled in behind his beautiful .375 Allen Mag.
I was to shoot at the long gong this time. Kirby wanted to see how this girl acted at distance and in the wind. Well he told me the values to crank into the Nightforce and I let one go. The dirt exploded low and right off the gong. He gave me another correction to make and I let another one go. This time the dirt exploded centered, behind the gong and between the edge of the gong and the legs holding it up. Kirby gave me another windage correction and wonder of wonders a black spot appeared just left and slightly above center of the gong. Wow, I hit that thing at almost a mile away. I was on cloud nine, he said shoot again. Who was I not to listen to him so I let the 375 speak again. This time Kirby said I just barely missed over the top edge in line with the first shot. Danged wind, whoever said it is your friend is full of it! He said give it another, so I did, and would you believe it, not only did I hit it again, but that shot was within less than 4 inches of the first one on the gong. Kirby said that was picture worthy,
so here it is:
Now Kirby was mentioning some kind of silly Group MOA numbers for that range but my math was not working well at this point. He did say that my last 3 shot were well within 3/4moa at that range I feel confident that they would have slayed a deer.
Now, I'm not telling you all this to brag , I am telling you this to illustrate what a genius of a gunsmith Kirby is and what a wonderful and patient teacher he is too. And a kind and generous person as well, And the moral of this story, you really can teach and old fart, I mean dog, new tricks.
After setting the gongs out we drove to a point where we could see them and ranged the suckers. I'll tell you now, I thought I knew what long range was, I was WRONG. The little gong 12" diameter was at 1320 yds and the big gong, 18"X 29", was at 1620 yads. Wow, that is a long way to think about trying to hit something. Kirby took all the appropriate data down and entered it into his PDA. I was anxious to watch this operation, it certainly allowed me to better understand what you all are doing now. The wind was around 20 mph and variable in direction, mostly in our face and from the left slightly. It wasn't cold, but the wind did make it a bit uncomfortable. After setting the bench up and getting the PDA all loaded up, Kirby had me shoot his 30 Allen Xpress at the "short" target. He was shooting 200 grain Accubonds and I forget the velocity, but I did manage to luck one into it out of about five. Then I got to shoot the big 510 Allen Mag at the short one. I didn't hit it once, but Fiftydriver got on the big girl and proceeded to hit the gong and tear it off of one of his chains holding it. Dang showoff! Here I am behind the big girl!
I was to shoot at the long gong this time. Kirby wanted to see how this girl acted at distance and in the wind. Well he told me the values to crank into the Nightforce and I let one go. The dirt exploded low and right off the gong. He gave me another correction to make and I let another one go. This time the dirt exploded centered, behind the gong and between the edge of the gong and the legs holding it up. Kirby gave me another windage correction and wonder of wonders a black spot appeared just left and slightly above center of the gong. Wow, I hit that thing at almost a mile away. I was on cloud nine, he said shoot again. Who was I not to listen to him so I let the 375 speak again. This time Kirby said I just barely missed over the top edge in line with the first shot. Danged wind, whoever said it is your friend is full of it! He said give it another, so I did, and would you believe it, not only did I hit it again, but that shot was within less than 4 inches of the first one on the gong. Kirby said that was picture worthy,
so here it is:
Now Kirby was mentioning some kind of silly Group MOA numbers for that range but my math was not working well at this point. He did say that my last 3 shot were well within 3/4moa at that range I feel confident that they would have slayed a deer.
Now, I'm not telling you all this to brag , I am telling you this to illustrate what a genius of a gunsmith Kirby is and what a wonderful and patient teacher he is too. And a kind and generous person as well, And the moral of this story, you really can teach and old fart, I mean dog, new tricks.
