I just might give that a try. The northeastern 80 acres of our ranch (where I've set targets) has more terrain variations than the other pastures. Grampa never really plowed or planted here and the yucca are....healthy. It won't help that this spring the yucca bloomed like we haven't seen in years. I suspect there are a gazillion seeds out there just waiting to mess with me.

Frickin' yucca. As if we didn't already have issues with controlling thistle, mullein, lupin, and death camus. Oh yeah, and pine beetle in the forested areas.

Wow, fritz. You really make Colorado sound like an attractive place to live. Lol

The only way we've been able to afford to keep the land in the family all these decades is by keeping an agriculture tax rating, done by leasing the land for cattle grazing. Weed control of the open prairie and keeping the forested areas clear of deadfall means more cattle per acre.

But in all honesty, sometimes maintaining the land is a pain in the backside. And cow poop in the tire treads of my 4Runner -- I get tired of that.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
I just might give that a try. The northeastern 80 acres of our ranch (where I've set targets) has more terrain variations than the other pastures. Grampa never really plowed or planted here and the yucca are....healthy. It won't help that this spring the yucca bloomed like we haven't seen in years. I suspect there are a gazillion seeds out there just waiting to mess with me.

Frickin' yucca. As if we didn't already have issues with controlling thistle, mullein, lupin, and death camus. Oh yeah, and pine beetle in the forested areas.

You will be surprised how well REMEDY works. I did mine in late may and then left for 10 days on a trip...came back and Man but were they ever DEAD.

One needs to use oil, diesel or similar though, which can really add to the total cost. the herbicide is already expensive. I have a friend who owns a few Taco fast food joints. He saved me his waste oil from doing french fries. I strained it and it worked fine for me.

My back forty DID smell like a mc donalds or Buger King though for a few days and I had several more coyotes hanging around than normal.

Try it...you will be surprised.

FN in MT

If any of you have a solution for braken ferns...let me know. "Yooper Yucca"

I just looked up bracken fern. My first thought was "Hey, it's just a frickin' little fern. A cute novelty of a plant. You can cuddle up to a fern, compared to being stucka by a yucca." Then I read about its poisonous properties.

Doesn't sound like it's a fun weed in pastures. I don't believe I've ever seen it in my neck of the woods -- maybe too dry here. We have yucca and small prickly pear cactus on the land. Trees are ponderosa pine. Fir, spruce, and deciduous trees probably can't tolerate the heat and lack of water.

The owner of the cattle normally doesn't put the herd on our land until late June or early July. By then, the grass is normally really growing. This year we had so much grass that the cattle didn't come close to chomping the supply. All I know is this year the calves got quite big and they didn't have to wander much for food.

Also by late June the death camas no longer has its toxic flowers in bloom, so the cows are safe. Thistle and mullein are just nuisance weeds -- cattle avoid them. But some ranchers feel if mother cows eat lupin (something they wouldn't do unless virtually no edible grass is available), toxins could build up, possibly leading to birth defects with their next calf.

FN - if you need help ridding your property of yotes, let me know next time you're going to apply your burger King special weed killer.

A little OT, but what the heck...

Yea the stuff is like kudzu. It just takes over. Come about late June, I cant even see the plates out back and the dog gets lost. Its got progressively worse since we built the house up there. It just keeps creeping closer every year. Im planning on getting up there this spring and going medieval on it.

Its almost as depressing as the Budworm thats killing off the Spruce and Hemlock. We had a pretty good number of Hemlock that stood well above 80'. One by one, theyre getting taken. Not a damn thing we can do. Pisses me off....

Tried out a new range today and took the 6.5 SAUM along to make up a drop chart and test this barrel out. They had targets setup at 200,400,600,630,800, and 1000. MV tracked at 3120 with the 140 hybrids with 1500 DA. Walked out the targets. If I had started at 800 or 1000 would have easily missed the magnitude of wind. Once I got the drop chart made I did some shooting alternating right and left hand at different targets. Could only shoot prone there so couldn't practice many odd positions. Looking at building a barricade that can be transported. Any ideas or pictures would be welcome.

fritz,

good shooting with you again yesterday, fun day. Started out chilly turned into a nice day for December. That chilly start showed me I need to increase the weight on the 2nd stage of my trigger, cold/numb finger plowed right through the 2nd stage on that mover stage when we re-set, oh well, I'll take 8/10 with my choke! Still can't believe we were holding center plate on stage 2 & 3. Even though the winds were light yesterday for the rest of the stages, shows us those light switchy winds will give us fits.

Nice job on the mover!

We had a shoot off for 2nd place after you left, three of us tied. 910yds, all hit, 1110yds Alpine and I hit, 700yds 6" plate both hit, same plate no rear bag, both miss. Alpine out of ammo, someone offered up their supressed DTA 6.5 Creedmoor. We both dry-fired it a few times. 700yd plate again, I hit, Alpine missed. Good stuff. Paul is going to have a dueling tree at the next match for shoot offs.

jelrod,

fast/easy barricade. Step ladder supported/strapped to two T-posts.

Looks like a great place to shoot.

http://www.dailymotion.com/vid...-video_sport?start=4

offgrid -- We definitely beat the bad weather by one day. It was a good day for a match. You guys rocked -- nice job on a very interesting shoot off. Actually it was pretty amazing that three of us on the squad all hit 8/10 on the mover. I wonder if anybody has ever done 9 or 10 in a match?

I totally let the breezes hose me. On stage #1, the only target I hit was 1st round on 1,207 yards when I aimed dead center of plate. For me the 1100-yarders had L-to-R wind, 1247 and 1353 had R-to-L or calm. Same thing on stages #5 (hostage) and #8 (moving to the culvert) -- Mongo not adapt to fishtailing wind.

Your "premature" taste of victory on the mover stage (9/10) made me rethink putting a two-stage trigger on my "will I ever finish it" AR-10 build. I'm so used to a one-stage trigger in my various firearms platforms that I just decided a one-stage trigger is the ticket. I figure if you can have an issue once in a blue moon, I'm likely to repeatedly mess up staging the trigger.

quote:

Originally posted by jelrod1:
Looking at building a barricade that can be transported. Any ideas or pictures would be welcome.

I am maybe half way through building a barricade. It's not quite ready for pictures, but is loosely based on the barricades used at Rifles Only courses.

Construction is 3/8" plywood sandwiched over a core of 2x2 and 2x4 lumber. I have a stair step pattern on the top edge -- 18", 28", 38", and 48". Wood legs will extend down from the plywood by 4 inches, thus making top of barricade shooting heights of 22", 32", 42", and 52". I have cut three 7" by 10" windows in the plywood, thus adding shooting heights of 12", 17", and 27" via windows. Support "legs" will be of triangles cut from 2' by 4' plywood that is 3/4" thick, attached to the barricade face by removable bolts in L-brackets. I will be able to move the disassembled 3 pieces by myself, and they will fit in the back of my 4Runner.

Total dollar cost won't be that much, because I had lumber scraps at home. But labor invested will be another issue....

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

I am maybe half way through building a barricade. It's not quite ready for pictures, but is loosely based on the barricades used at Rifles Only courses.

Construction is 3/8" plywood sandwiched over a core of 2x2 and 2x4 lumber. I have a stair step pattern on the top edge -- 18", 28", 38", and 48". Wood legs will extend down from the plywood by 4 inches, thus making top of barricade shooting heights of 22", 32", 42", and 52". I have cut three 7" by 10" windows in the plywood, thus adding shooting heights of 12", 17", and 27" via windows. Support "legs" will be of triangles cut from 2' by 4' plywood that is 3/4" thick, attached to the barricade face by removable bolts in L-brackets. I will be able to move the disassembled 3 pieces by myself, and they will fit in the back of my 4Runner.

Total dollar cost won't be that much, because I had lumber scraps at home. But labor invested will be another issue....

Thanks. I've seen those on the Rifles Only video and is what I had in mind. Seems hard to get the "feet/legs" stable and not in the way without mounting it permanently and was my concern. Look forward to seeing pictures of yours come together.

quote:

Originally posted by jelrod1:
I've seen those on the Rifles Only video and is what I had in mind. Seems hard to get the "feet/legs" stable and not in the way without mounting it permanently and was my concern.

The legs are definitely the issue. The "portable" barricades that RO does for the classes in northeastern Colorado weigh a ton, with the triangular leg supports being made of 2x4 and 2x6 lumber, which is attached to the barricade with long screws. They're stable as all get out, but it takes two people to move them, and they probably shouldn't be taken apart regularly.

We'll see in my design adequately meets both stability and portability needs.

Evidently I must wait until spring to apply Remedy herbicide on yucca, so today I dug/cursed/chopped out a few yucca in order to see the steel target I set at 200 yards from one of my favorite prone locations. Frickin' yucca -- the pasture's mature ones are large, woody, have multiple arms, and are tough bastards. But dagnabbit, the prairie grass still obscures much of the target. With some weed whacking at the end of the day I can just barely see the steel. More weed whacking in the cards for next time.

So visible targets from prone at this position are at distances of 300, 315, 375, and 580 yards. I set a preliminary T-post at 475-ish yards (and yes it is visible), which will hold a 12" square that I have on order. Next time I will confirm distances from my other prone location -- I think distances to the same targets will be 370, 400, 460, 560-ish, and 680 yards.

On another front, I chrono'd American Eagle AE223 vs. XM193 in my 16" 1/9 twist AR. My Magnetospeed V3 didn't play nice with accuracy and POI on the mid-weight fluted barrel, so after getting MV readings I dumped the chrono. AE223 produced 2,831 aver fps with SD of 24.9. XM193 produced 3,116 fps with SD of 46.9. At 100 yards, the XM193's POI was some 3/4" higher than the AE223. Not so good for XM. XM193's best groups were in the 1.5" range, AE223's best were just over 1". Also not so good for XM.

Bottom line -- I won't be buying any more XM193. This carbine shoots AE223 well (especially for cheap-ish FMJ), so AE223, Horandy VMax 55, and FGMM 69 are what it gets going forward.

I chrono'd some xm193 out of my DMR just for grins. I got an average of 3250 iirc. I still have the data in my CED. It was silly fast. I only feed it 69gr smk handloads now though. Those chrono at a pedestrian 2700.

fritz,

set up a couple mild steel targets for your 22LR. Barricade/positional stuff is all about getting into a solid position fast, 22's are great/cheap practice for that!

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
set up a couple mild steel targets for your 22LR. Barricade/positional stuff is all about getting into a solid position fast, 22's are great/cheap practice for that!

I have considered mild steel for 22lr, but didn't want to keep targets segregated. All my steel is currently 3/8" AR500.

My barricade is getting closer to completion. I need to consider how to best use my 22 rifle to practice with it. Call me a wuss, but my outside of my O/U competition shotguns, my 22 rifle sports the fanciest wood stock I own. Maybe I'll just place an old blankie on the barrier so I don't scratch the rifle's wood.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
set up a couple mild steel targets for your 22LR. Barricade/positional stuff is all about getting into a solid position fast, 22's are great/cheap practice for that!

I have considered mild steel for 22lr, but didn't want to keep targets segregated. All my steel is currently 3/8" AR500.

My barricade is getting closer to completion. I need to consider how to best use my 22 rifle to practice with it. Call me a wuss, but my outside of my O/U competition shotguns, my 22 rifle sports the fanciest wood stock I own. Maybe I'll just place an old blankie on the barrier so I don't scratch the rifle's wood.

Hmmm, sounds like it's time for a 22LR trainer!

Love my 40X, other than it's a single shot.

A fellow Colorado match shooter bought a 22LR from this guy, Anshutz/Manners stock. Chesebro often has used Anshutz single shot actions that he'll do a mag mod to feed from CZ? mags. Send him a "flat top" un-inletted McMillan A5, he'll CNC it out to fit the action/barrel perfect. Have him chamber a Benchmark barrel on it... If I were to do a 22LR over again this is the route I would go, no doubt it would be silly accurate and a repeater.

http://chesebrorifles.com/main.sc