Is your rifle 400yd ready?

[ArchAngelCD]

I have good groups at 100yds, but using my bdc 3x, i wasnt even on paper at 400yds. The first bdc horizontal mark was supposed to be 365yds with Hornady 55gr vmax.

I'm not surprised. A 55gr bullet with a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps can move latterly as much as 3 feet with only a 10 MPH cross wind @400 yards. That is a hard job for someone who has not practiced it before. The bullet will only deliver under 200 ft/lbs of energy.

If you have a .243 , that is the gun I would use since it can use a heavier bullet that can buck the wind better.
A 100gr .243" bullet @ 2900 fps at the same distance and wind conditions will only move 12.5" right or left. That's a much easier job and the bullet will carry more energy with over 900 ft/lbs.

 

[PapaG]

Your choice, pond or river fish, right? Love the hotel. Stayed there several times.
Where are you, actually?

 

[Armored farmer]

A 55gr bullet with a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps can move latterly as much as 3 feet with only a 10 MPH cross wind @400 yards.

...and this is probably my biggest problem. It was calm when i started my 400 yd test, but by tbe time we had range, and set the tsrget, dragged out all the gear, secured the bench and the spotting scope, tbe wind had kicked up. I know i was left 2inches at 100yds. Son shot his ar also, and he was left with his handloads.
I adjusted my turret but maybe my target wasnt big enough . It was probably 2'x2'.

 

[Picher]

I've only grouped once at the maximum range I can shoot down behind the house, which is 440 yards. I decided to see how much drop from my hunting zero (2" high at 100, as I remember). Fired three shots and it printed 3 1/2", about 14" below aiming point. It was with my Sendero-stocked, bedded Rem 700 BDL SS, .270 Win, shooting Nosler Ballistic Tip handloads. Load was a max loading of RL-22, chronoed at 3,200 fps. from the 24" barrel.

 

[Bigmike79]

I have a Walmart special Remington 783 in 270 Win. It was a 3x9 scope and rifle combo that I paid $279 for. I can shoot paper plate size targets all day at 400 yards with cheap Walmart Winchester super X ammo.

 

[someguy2800]

My Tikka 25-06 is the one I would take for the job. I have a savage target rifle but it's silly heavy and impractical for anything. I'm also setting up a 20" AR to take over the preditor hunting duties. Most of my deer rifes are only sighted to 200

 

[Ks5shooter]

Have three that will do that yardage work

 

[Charliefrank]

I sold my long range coyote gun when I moved to Florida. Not enough long range opportunities to justify keeping it. Savage tactical rifle (bolt action) in .223. Heavy target barrel, recessed crown, 2 lb trigger. 4 x 16 ao Tasco. Harris bipod, the long legged version for sitting against trees on field edges. It routinely took coyotes out to 400 yards. Best shot was a crow at 600 yards. My coyote hunting now consists of 150 yards at the most with most under 80. I've purchased a Ruger 556 that I'm tuning in for this purpose.

 

[Garandimal]

The Answer: .270 WIN/Remington M700/Leupold VariX-II 3-9.

Now, what was your Question?




GR

 

[22250Rem]

This Ruger in 25-06 with a 6-18x Leupold target scope has taken critters out past 300 yds. but never as far as 400. I'd love to try it out to 400 but don't get much opportunity any more. My buddy and I might get to hunt woodchucks this coming summer on some real big open fields where 400 could be possible. I'm really looking forward to it as that rifle hasn't even been fired in a few years now. Just comes out of the safe every 6 months for a minor cleaning and wipe down. Now that I'm retired there's more time to play with it. Got a bunch of its favorite handload made up and now just patiently awaiting springtime.

 

[Chuck R.]

My 3 primary varmint rifles (Rem 700 .223, Home built AR15 and Ruger RPR in .243) can and do, but I do have a slight advantge as my home range goes out to 760y and I have swingers at 407 and 547 from my back porch.

Having said that, around here when calling a looong yote shot is probably just shy of 200. Most of the time we carry 16" barreled ARs or shotguns and an AR.

 

[Slamfire]

I am fortunate in that CMP Talladega is within reasonable driving distance and I have been sighting my hunting rifles out to 300 yards. Recently zero'd this rifle out to 300 yards:





The next target out from 300 yards is the 600 yard target and I decided not to bother with this Sako as it is not clustering as tightly as I want before trying 600 yards. I may try later, depends on my attitude. I had a 6.5 Swede that was doing quite nicely at 300 yards, but the scope did not have enough elevation to go12 MOA up from the 300 yard zero. Bummer! The difficulty of hitting something at distance increases, and it is not a linear function, might be an exponential function. I can say getting decent groups at 300 yards is not terribly difficult, but shoot enough, you can see just how little position or trigger pull errors will fling a shot into the eight ring or worse. You have got to experience it to believe it. If my stock weld changes, that is if my face slides up and down the stock,and it does not take much, I get big elevation changes. For any chance of staying in the ten ring you have to shoot the same ammunition, that is bullet, powder, primer, that was used to zero the rifle. I can take a different box, (factory ammunition for example) and it will print differently even though the bullet weights are the same.





Different brands of bullets print to a different point of impact even if the bullet weight is the same. You may not see this at 100 yards, but the further you go out, the more you will see it. I am shooting these things off a bench, but before I would take them out hunting I would shoot them in the position I would use in the field. I can say, with lots of experience shooting in slung positions over the decades, rifles shoot to a different point of impact depending on how you hold them. My 200 yard standing zero always had a different elevation and windage than my sitting rapid fire zero's.

Anyway, with more experience with my rifles, and that will take shooting them from field positions, I could gain confidence that I could reliably hit an animal at 300 yards, but still, I think that is a long way out.

 

[Fine Figure of a Man]

With the rifle I usually have at the ready, a .223 AR, I can now say yes.
Thank you Mr Farmer for asking the question, reminded me to test some new loads.
They shoot a bit flatter than I had predicted.

 

[mshootnit]

Question is... Is the shooter 400 yd ready?

 

[caribou]

My old 'favorite'' SAKO M-39 was an easy 400 yard shooter, and a double tap was easy too, at that range.

Then I had to give the wife that rifle, and in carwheeling her ride, impaled her gas tank with it.

Now Im working out with an M-39 made by Valmet ''VKT' with a Tikka barrle, and I can ring our 8 inch gong all day at 400 yards, no problem.
Same ammo as before ; Czeck 149 grn LPS laquerd steel FMJ's.

 

[hq]

Czeck 149 grn LPS laquerd steel FMJ's.

Tsk tsk tsk. Remember to feed her Lapua 7.62x53R Trainer, the current commercial equivalent of original issue ammo designed to use with that rifle. Those rifles are real tack-drivers, it was the first rifle my mother ever shot in her life in her late 30's and managed a first time score of 98/100pts. Kind of annoying, my personal best is still 97.

It's one of the very few military issue rifles I'd ever even attempt a shot at 400yd voluntarily.

 

[caribou]

Tsk tsk tsk. Remember to feed her Lapua 7.62x53R Trainer, the current commercial equivalent of original issue ammo designed to use with that rifle. Those rifles are real tack-drivers, it was the first rifle my mother ever shot in her life in her late 30's and managed a first time score of 98/100pts. Kind of annoying, my personal best is still 97.

It's one of the very few military issue rifles I'd ever even attempt a shot at 400yd voluntarily.

The Czeck is great stuff, far better than any other milsurp Ive tryed.... 2 inch groups at 150 yards all day long.
The commercial equivelent/output from the factorys are sold as 'Seilor & Bellot'.
Lapua loaded ammo is VERY expensive here in Arctic Alaska, so I bought a couple hundred Lapua 53r brass, used CCI magnum primer, 43 grns Vargett and Lapua's version of the ''D166'' bullet. I mesured down from 45 grn 1/2 a grain at a time untill it could get no better.
Living in a place where its snow and Ice 8 months of the year, hot brass litteraly melts from view, and the recovery rate on top dollar brass is about 1 in 4 on the tundra
The hand loads groups are just a slight tighter than the Czek LPS, but not enough to justify the cost.
While I litterally shoot ''for fun'' and burn through a few thousand rounds a year, so I 'know' the rifle and ammo so well, its instinctive.

 

[Dr.Rob]

I can ring steel at 400 with either my Colt 6920 or my Noveske/Model One AR but that's the outside edge of my range for accurate shots on game with my Savage 116 30-06.

 

[hq]

Lapua loaded ammo is VERY expensive here in Arctic Alaska

I know, it's expensive everywhere these days, surplus of the 50's and 60's is long gone and if some other round works well, Lapua will just put a dent in your wallet with no practical advantages. Your rifle just sounds way too nice for anyone not to suggest the very ammo that was originally and historically loaded for it.

 

[caribou]

I know, it's expensive everywhere these days, surplus of the 50's and 60's is long gone and if some other round works well, Lapua will just put a dent in your wallet with no practical advantages. Your rifle just sounds way too nice for anyone not to suggest the very ammo that was originally and historically loaded for it.

If the price gets any steeper for ammo, maybe I'd just take a trip to Finland The Finn's Ive met were very much like Alaskans, and they like guns, so why not?
Precision shooing requires precision ammo, and any distance is going to tell just what you have. Beyond 400 yards and I hunt a little closer.
Most of my long distance shooting is on open Tundra, at fleeing Fur or Caribou that have been shot at and the group will stop to take a last look (they always do) and a chest sized shot is very doable.
As well, beyond 400 yards I would need an optic on the rifle, as the M-39s front sight is too wide for further precision, for me.
The milsurp Ive been working out with isnt cheap anymore, either. I bought Czeck LPS in the 00's for 60-80$ a case of 800. The two I just got were 200$ each.....thats 25c a round here, and probly the last Czeck LPS Ill be seein'. Ive opend one and the other is for whatever the future holds, which is most likely more Varget (Is that Finish?), CCI's and whatever brass I can accumulate........got any source for D166, or even the lighter S284 projectiles? That heavy D is Sweet .

 

[I6turbo]

This is my most reliable rifle for 400 yards. .308 with a 6-24, or sometimes a fixed 36X. It's ready. Question comes down to whether the shooter is ready.

 

[P5 Guy]

M1 Garands are good for that.

 

[cougar1717]

A chronograph, a ballistic calculator, and manufacturer's bc data on the bullet (as long as they aren't bluffing too much) can reasonably give the hold over at 400 and beyond. Like others have said, that's not usually why people miss at distance. God gave us wind to keep us humble. The calculation / compensation for it has the ability to put a shot off target more than hold over and wind is a factor that varies almost instantaneously (we average!). Long, skinny bullets have given shooters something that drifts less, but they still drift.

 

[hq]

A chronograph, a ballistic calculator, and manufacturer's bc data on the bullet (as long as they aren't bluffing too much) can reasonably give the hold over at 400 and beyond.

I much rather put a couple of hundred bullets through the rifle in practise at various distances and interpolate median drop and trajectory at each. But, as you said, wind drift is a major factor and unless there's just paper on the receiving end, I'll refrain from shooting in heavy and gusting wind completely. In calm weather it's fairly straightforward to shoot accurately at these distances and once you've experimented and practised enough to gain confidence in your rifle and load in question.

 

[Varminterror]

I much rather put a couple of hundred bullets through the rifle in practise at various distances and interpolate median drop and trajectory at each.

The disadvantage in ONLY using DOPE is the limit of the environmental conditions when fired. A calculator can be trued and correlated to a known empirical trajectory in known actual environmentals, then used to project a corrected trajectory for conditions which have never been fired.

As an example of such: I shot a match this weekend with a rifle with “a few hundred bullets” on record, at 87degrees and 25 degrees. Luckily we were cold in the morning, but as the sun came up, we lifted to about 55degrees. As a progressive range match, the longest ranges fired were in my “no data” realm. No sweat. I corrected environmentals in the AB app, it raised me .3mil and life was grand. Shooting at ~1MOA targets, if I wouldn’t have corrected the environmentals, I would have been half again of the target above the target. Now I have 55deg data (and 45) so my DOPE is deeper, but that day with only a few hundred bullets on record, I didn’t have that data - and the calculator helped me make impacts.

Another example - I had a month a few years ago where I was able to call coyotes in Kansas at ~0F and 1200ft, then Eagle, CO at 6500ft and 0F, then Maricopa, AZ at 1200ft, but 65degrees all within a few weeks of work travel. I had more than 6” shift at 400yrds with my 223rem through that trip - not an acceptable miss margin for calling coyotes. I hadn’t fired that round at 6500ft ever. I confirmed 100 zero when I got off of the plane, and used the calculator to kill a few coyotes that week.

The calculator doesn’t replace a known trajectory, but it does help nudge a known trajectory into unknown conditions.