quote:

Originally posted by Alpine:

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
Has anyone played with the Berger heavies in .223 ? I have been slinging the 77 grain OTM but may try and bump it up a little. I ordered some of the 80's to try out but Berger also lists a 80.5 and an 82. I have more mag length to use than the 77's take up at this time. I'd be curious what The OAL of the 77 vs. 80 vs. 80.5 and 82. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

A friend tried the 82's in his Rock River AR with Wylde chamber, and had to seat the bullets so far back (mag feed length) that it reduced case capacity, thus reducing velocity, and not gaining any advantage of the higher BC of the bullet.

Thanks as always ! I wouldn't suffer the same limitations as an AR. Not to say that mag length won't be an issue. The mags I have for this particular bolt rifle will accept a 2.55" OAL. Quite a bit longer but alas may still be not enough.

There was a guy at the Grind this past weekend that had to shoot two stages with his training rifle (Kelbly Atlas short action/.223) because he didn't have enough ammo for his match rifle.

He said he was using Berger 80's and still had a bit of room left in the mag.

No other info than that, sorry.

I'll try to get an AAR and some pics up from the Grind this evening.

Thanks guys, I ordered some of the 80's and 80.5's to test out against the 77's. Hope the temps stay up for a while to get it accomplished.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2015 GAP Grind AAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Got in LATE Thursday night/Friday AM. About 0015 or so. Set up quick, and went to bed.

"Woke last night to the sound of thunder, how far off, I sat and wondered...."

Oh, wait. That wasn't thunder. It was gunshots. And it was about 500 yards away, down on the sight-in range. What time is it? Day time (about 0700). Sight in wasn't supposed to start until 1000, but they were pretty lax about it.

Made a pot of coffee, borrowed some sugar from another camper, packed up, and headed down to sight in.

My zero was good. Trued up Applied Ballistics using observed hit data from 700, 900, and 1100 yards. Fired 43 rounds in total, mostly screwing around. Called it good.

Walked to the end of the practice line, saw a rifle with the longest can on it I'd ever seen. Wandered over to see what the deal was. It was one of George's rifles (of GAP fame), and it was chambered in 6 Creedmoor, and was being used for a contest.

Bushnell/Kestrel were demoing a new product. Bushnell Arc 1 mile monocoluar rangefinder, that was bluetooth paired to a Kestrel. All you had to do was lase the target, and the Kestrel would provide a shooting solution.

The shooting solution could even be provided in the rangefinder itself, thus allowing you to leave the Kestrel mounted on a vane and get wind data. Not a bad little setup, and expected to carry an $1150 MSRP. Look for it around the January timeframe. I certainly won't be replacing my Kestrel 4500/Leica HD-Rs/Applied Ballistics on my phone, but for those just starting out, or needing to upgrade their solution, it's a viable option.

In any event, the game was to lase an IPSC at either 700, 800, or 900, and then get a first round hit using the provided solution. 700 got you 1 ticket, 800 2 tickets, and 900, 3. I hit the 900 yard target. 7.5 mils elevation, negligible wind. Didn't win the product though.


Made lunch, hung around, met lots of cool people, BS'd, drank beer, and generally relaxed.

Saturday AM, got up at 0600, safety briefing at 0700. My pro showed up at 0705 (most everyone was there on Friday for sight-in - but not my pro! UGH!). Lucky for me, he was a pretty good shooter - finished 24th in the Bushnell Brawl. Young guy, 22 years old. Helped me with what I needed the most help with (And continue to need help with) - barricade shooting.

The format for the match was team scores on Saturday, and individual scores for Sunday.

We were in Squad 1 on Saturday, so we started at stage 1. Stage 1 was a tractor tire, partially buried in the dirt, so you were shooting off of it about chest high. The tire was buried the same way you were facing, as opposed to perpendicular to you, so you had quite a bit to work with to build position. The mirage was sort of weird that morning, and the range itself is cut so that there are swirling winds. Targets were five 12" circles at 600 yards on a plate rack. 2 minutes. I got 4/5 hits, having misjudged wind on the first one (played too much).

Stage 2 was "Shooters choice" - prone position, 700 yards, either a full size IPSC or a 2MOA square. IPSC = 1.5 points, 2MOA square = 3 points. 6 shots. 2 minutes. I got 6 hits on the 2 MOA square.

Stage 3 was "Blue Ambush" - you and your teammate shoot from inside a police car at targets 600 yards away, 8 shots. Targets were full size IPSC, 66% IPSC, and 45% IPSC. Point values were 1, 2, and 3, respectively. 2 minutes. I got 2 hits on the middle one, and 2 hits on the large one. Not my best showing. Also, I lost an AW mag on this stage, and of course no one owned up to picking it up - even though I noticed not 4 shooters later. Fucking thieves.

Stage 4 was the Shoot House. LARGE shoot house. Like 20 feet wide, with regular stairs at the end that went up to the deck that had a rooftop on it. 450 yards, 66% IPSC, 8 shots total. 6 shots from any of the locations on the bottom (except no prone!), and then run up the stairs, 2 shots from the roof. 2 minutes. You MUST alternate shots with your teammate. We got off all 6 shots on the bottom, then ran out of time. I connected on 4 out of 6.

Stage 5 was the "Pipe of Pain". It was a 48" (guessing?) diameter corrugated plastic drainage/sewer pipe that had 5 windows cut out of it. Three windows were cut so the bottom was quite low, and they were very tall, the 2 in between those (They were staggered - large, small, large, small, large) were cut so that they were roughly chin height, and there was barely enough room to get your stock and scope into the opening. As a team, crawl into the pipe, and each member must fire 3 rounds from 3 different positions at a 66% IPSC 400 yards out. 2 minutes. We scores 22 points as a team (I gave up keeping individual scores at this point because the ROs were only scoring as a team, and we had to shoot as a team at most of these now).

Stage 6 was a 300 yard mover. 10 shots prone, 10" circle. 2 minutes. As a team we connected 12/20 shots. Not our best, but many did worse.

Stage 7 was the "K&M Team Hustle Drill". 10 rounds each. You must shoot three static targets which are 45% IPSC at 324, 363, and 477 yards. Failure of either team member to engage ALL 3 targets results in a 10 point deduction. After those targets are hit, move on to a 12" circle mover. For whatever reason, we drilled all the static targets with ease, and neither of us connected on the mover. "time" for this stage was 5 passes of the mover. Score? 6 points. Ugh.


Stage 8 was "Field Fire". Up to 8 rounds, 5 targets, must connect to move on. Fired from an elevated (40'?) position, targets were: 310 yards, 7" round, 365 yards, 8" round, 515 yards, 9" round, 568 yards, 10" round, 715 yards, 11" round. I had first round impacts on the first three, but for the life of me could not connect on target 4. 2 minute clock on this one. My pro did better than I did, and we scored 22 of a possible 30 points on this stage.

Stage 9 was "Partner Assisted Positional". No bags, bipods, or other gear - use only your partner to build a position. We did poorly. 310 yards, 12" square. 2 minutes, scored 8/20 points as a team.

Stage 10 was a KYL. 310 yards, 10", 8", 6", and 4". Should have been easy, right? Meh. Wind was up just a little, and 8/9/10 were actually our final stages, so we were tired. Both went 1,2,3-out. Go big or go home, yes? We wanted the win!

Stage 11 (actually our 8th stage, see reference above) was "Team Hunting". 8 rounds each. There were 2 prairie dogs at 316, 2 prairie dogs at 362, a coyote at 562, and a coyote at 657. Shot as a team, alternate target engagements. Each team member MUST hit each target to move on. If one team member misses, he must keep shooting that target until he hits, or runs out of ammo. IF the other team member still has ammo, he may continue on, but must now shoot each target TWICE before moving on. My pro ran out of ammo on the 3rd prairie dog. I missed one shot. Ended up getting us to 2 hits on the near coyote before I ran out of ammo. At that point, we did the best on that stage. 2 minutes, we scored 25/36 points. (3 pts first round impact, 2 pts subsequent).

"Clear the City" was next. Roof top stage, but sideways, with rooftop on both sides. So one person could lay on the apex, and one person could be at an angle (60* maybe?). BOTH people had to be on the roof the entire time, and if any gear was dropped, it MUST be retrieved before continuing. You could NOT touch your scope for this stage, hold over/under only. Targets were head targets. 2 @ 201 inside windows, 4 @ 275 inside a school bus (yes, a real bus, in the windows), 2 inside windows @ 304, and 2 inside windows @ 362. 2 minutes. We climb up on the roof, jam in our mags, and I take off my sunglasses, throw them on the ground. RO says I have to go get them since they are shooting gear. Haven't even fired a single shot yet. I argue with him. Another RO Comes over, asks if I shoot with my sunglasses on, I say no, that's why I threw them on the ground. He says since they aren't shooting gear, I don't have to retrieve them. We are granted a reshoot since we hadn't fired a shot yet. Except, not my out of shape ass has to climb up on the roof TWICE before shooting. Not our best showing. As a team, we scored 22/40 points. My pro only got off 3 shots before time was called (one person shot all 10 shots, then the other one). I Was apologetic. He didn't care, since his score didn't go towards his PRS score. All good.

The final stage was "Team Tires". 363 yards, 12" square, 8 rounds each. 4 shooting positions. There were 4 tires laying on the ground. The first three had tires stood up inside those then, perpendicular to you (so you could shoot through the middle of them), the 4th one just had another tire stacked on top. BOTH team members must fire 2 shots, alternating, from each tire location, then move AS A TEAM to the next tire location, each fire 2 shots, repeat. Failure to move as a team resulted in a 5 point penalty. We ended up building was looked awkward but was a REALLY stable, repeatable position, and both got 7/8 hits there.



I lost a bunch of brass (haven't yet counted), and an AW mag at this point. Team scores came out, we finished 28th/74 teams. I was hoping for a top 25 finish, but overall I was pretty happy for my first attempt at a PRS match.



Day 2 AAR coming later, I have an appointment I have to get to at 1400.

Pics later, too.

Sounds like fun. Great report. 28th? That's great! Damn good shooting Thanks,

RMD

Gap Grind Pix for all of us wannabees!

https://www.facebook.com/KM-Pr...ing-365068423531481/

RMD

Friend and I shot the Team Steel Safari at the Blue Steel Ranch in Logan, NM this weekend. Had a blast, beautiful place to shoot.

Challenging format. Walk up to a holding area of a stage, can't see targets/shooting position. RO calls us over. We're carrying all our stuff. RO shows us the shooting position very quickly. Go, clock starts, 7 minutes to find, range, shoot 6 targets. AR shooter engages any three of the 6 targets first then clears his AR, gets out of the way, then me the bolt guy engages all 6 targets, one shot hit or miss. Some of the targets were very difficult to find, some we did not find. A few of the stages were on a cliff ledges, some targets could only be seen standing, next targets much further out...targets in the shade of bushes.. fun stuff! Once all or most of the targets were found/ranged, decide on how to shoot them, lots of sticks/tripod, some prone, combo of both. Most of the prone position were very awkward, shooting on rock outcroppings....often not using a bipod, set up on two bags. About half or so of the stages had three targets and two shooting positions. AR can only shoot from the first position.

We made some mistakes the first day (three day match). Mostly finding the first few targets then committing to a position based on those, what was in our way.....bushes, trees, rocks...... Where some of the time could have dropped to a prone'ish for the other targets. Gave away some easy points. 2nd day got better, 3rd day we had our act together. For the most part we communicated very well with each other, wind calls, directing to the next target (very easy to lose the next target).

Guessing we walked/hiked 3-6 miles each day.

I definitely plan on shooting the individual Steel Safari next year. Very much like the challenging format.

My buddy snapped these of me shooting at the last stage of the match. One of two easier prone stages. Perfectly centered hit on the last target at 670yds with just a couple seconds left. Fun way to end!

Beautiful country.

RMD

offgrid -- Sounds like the match was fun. It looks like you guys placed pretty well. Some of the stages sound similar to what Alpine and I saw in the Team Challenge match in August. Let's talk tactics.

How did you range the targets -- RF binos or Terrapin? Did both of you range at the same time, or did one range and the other record distances and relative target positions?

How did you record your distances? We used my dope board from 3 Gun Stuff. This worked well until the day I lost my black dry marker, had to use the backup green marker (not good - limited contrast against white), and I smudged distances with my thumb while passing the board to Alpine. Not my finest hour.

Did you locate all targets together, then have the AR guy start shooting at the full list of targets? Or did you call out targets and immediately have your AR guy start shooting while you were ranging/locating?

We had a really bad stage where we could locate and range targets from a kneeling position, but a bunch of #$%&@ branches were in the way for a prone shooter. And unless the shooter was in a high kneeling position (say, with tripod), every target required a shift in position. Not my finest hour, oh yeah, and with the green marker to boot.

I would have liked to shoot the Steel Safari, but I figured (correctly) that my work schedule wasn't good for it. Hopefully I can shoot more of the Competition Dynamics matches next year.

Guys, I don't want to inject myself into your conversation but Fritz touched on dope solutions. Its a subject near and dear to me as I've been looking for the best method. I tried a homemade rifle mounted solution but it was quickly damaged when it got snagged. I just picked up an arm board from Sunrise Tactical but hasn't hit the field yet. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

fritz, we both ranged with Lieca 8X bino RF'ers. First few stages, together we would find/range the first target. AR plop down shoot as I was finding/ranging others. That didn't work so well if the targets had a wide spread, spending lots of time directing him. Finding/ranging 3 targets together worked much better. I recorded distance on the white board/grease pencil. I barked out distance as he shot, he had a dope card tethered to his scope. That worked very well. For the most part I did not watch his impacts unless he asked. As he was shooting I was finding/ranging the other targets. He was barking out to me wind holds as he shot. If I had time while he was shooting, constantly scanning the targets in order 1-6... I dialed the first target before he got up, handed him the white board, he would bark out the drop and full value wind hold regardless of actual hold. We used the clock reference for guiding each other to a target and distance between, sometimes used a very defined target location to reference from, "creek bed target"... As we were waiting in the holding area we talked wind value, committing to his first hold value. We shot the South course last, you can see by our scores we were starting to get our system down. One of the last South stages, 2 position 3 targets, we had 3 minutes remaining after we cleaned it, that felt good.

We tanked one of the Assault stages, big fat zero. Night stage. RO guided us into a gravel pit. 4 IPSC paper targets were in front of us somewhere. I with my pistol, he with his AR. 30 seconds to get as many rounds on the targets. Had to have at least one hit on each target. Random drawing for shooting order. Nice bright moon casting shadows. Our turn, moon covered by clouds. I can only see what I though were 3 targets. I screamed out to my partner can you see the targets, he replied, I can't see any of them. RO actually grabbed my partners shoulders and pointed him about 30 degrees to the right. I thought that stage should have been tossed out, oh well. Don't no for sure, guessing most of the other zero's were with cloud cover?

My plan for the individual Safari will be different, find/range a target(s)shoot. Get off rifle, find/range/shoot...... I can see burning up that 5 minutes very quickly finding/ranging as well as not being able to find the targets again... I'm glad I will be going into the individual match having shot there, believe it's a HUGE advantage over someone who has not.

Will work on getting faster with my pistol for the assault stages, need to start shooting a few pistol comps this winter. Watched some blazing fast accurate pistol shooters, clearly they've shot pistol comps as well.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
Guys, I don't want to inject myself into your conversation but Fritz touched on dope solutions. Its a subject near and dear to me as I've been looking for the best method. I tried a homemade rifle mounted solution but it was quickly damaged when it got snagged. I just picked up an arm board from Sunrise Tactical but hasn't hit the field yet. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I bought and used one of these at the Grind.

http://www.armageddongear.com/...ta-Armband_p_64.html

It looks like dry erase, but it's not. You have to use the white pen to erase the black pen.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizer works quite well also.

I was very pleased with it. The adjustable velcro (as opposed to elastic) kept the board where I wanted it. I would write down distances, elevation, and 10MPH wind.

Have to have dope charts somewhere else, and then just write on this what you need per stage. Since I use Applied Ballistics on my phone, I have no problem with that.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
Guys, I don't want to inject myself into your conversation but Fritz touched on dope solutions. Its a subject near and dear to me as I've been looking for the best method. I tried a homemade rifle mounted solution but it was quickly damaged when it got snagged. I just picked up an arm board from Sunrise Tactical but hasn't hit the field yet. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I've tried several different dope options. These three options work for me.

White board. Shooting mostly prone.

Sidewinder card holder/printed out dope sheet. Mostly known distances, moving around from shot to shot. Very much like the dope is in my field of view.

3GunGear arm band/laminated card/velcro'd with ranges/tick mark with grease pencil. What I plan on using for the individual Steel Safari.

Lots of guys around me use the quarterback/wrist coach. Card with all ranges, tick marks..... I personally prefer a wrist band w/o a flap. That flap will get in the way. I believe fritz uses a simple $10 wrist coach.

Alpine picked up the 3GunGgar wrist band for me when he stopped in their shop this summer. They don't have the best rep for timely shipping/customer service.

jlemmy,

For the local T3 match I use a Nike wrist coach. Since our ranges are posted on the web in advance of the match, I develop range/dope cards in advance, then switch out cards for each station. Last year I was anal retentive and had dope cards for all stations with Density Altitudes in 1,000' increments from 4,000' to 8,000'. This year I just have one card for stations with targets up to 800 yards, at 7,000' DA. I still check DA for the long station (1100 to 1300 yards), but DA just doesn't matter all that much with our targets at short and intermediate ranges.

Like offgrid, I like the whiteboard for prone stations. The one he shows is 6" x 9", with a white base and clear cover that's held on by magnets. In the August match, Alpine and I used it blank, so we could draw target locations and distances. A few stations had 10 targets, so the whole use of the board helped.

I have dope hang tags for my rifles. A piece of small cord (half the diameter of 550) attaches the card to the center of the scope. I use 25 yard increments out to the effective distance of the gun, with windage for 5 and 10 mph. I use both sides of the card to reduce its length. The cards are laminated card stock (80-ish pound paper). I was initially concerned that the card might interfere with mag changes and cycling (bolt action and AR), but I haven't had issues. I hang them off the left side of the guns.

Alpine used a similar dope card to offgrid's in our team competition -- printed 8"x11" dope in a plastic sleeve. We used the whiteboard only for distances, as elevation and wind were "just a bit different" between his 260 and my AR-15.

In the short "assault" stages for AR/pistol during the team match, I just wrote distances on a piece of masking tape -- sometimes attached to my arm, sometimes to a wrist band. This was easy, as our targets were generally in the 300 to 500 yard range, and generally not as complex as those in the "field" stages (bolt gun & carbine).

In the recent T3 match, the 2nd place finisher used a Sunrise wristband like yours. He had his dope data pre-printed in the very bottom window. At each station he wrote the new target distances on the top flap in dry erase pen, with a white paper in the flap so he wouldn't get confused by his complete dope card in the bottom window. This worked well for him, and IMO the Sunrise is one of the better built flap-type wrist bands.

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
fritz, we both ranged with Lieca 8X bino RF'ers. First few stages, together we would find/range the first target. AR plop down shoot as I was finding/ranging others. That didn't work so well if the targets had a wide spread, spending lots of time directing him. Finding/ranging 3 targets together worked much better. I recorded distance on the white board/grease pencil. I barked out distance as he shot, he had a dope card tethered to his scope. That worked very well.

Interesting. Alpine and I found/ranged targets together, I wrote down location and distances on the white board, then I shot. Some field stations took a lot of effort to find the targets, and it was good to have both of us on glass. Some field stages were pretty easy to find targets -- in those stages we may have saved time by having me shoot carbine while he ranged/noted all the remaining targets.

I just don't know which works better. It's obvious time was a killer for us. Fortunately, Alpine is quite good at finding/ranging.

Last T3 match I spent a lot of time behind Geovid 10x glass. I do feel I can locate targets better with quality RF binos, compared to my one-eyed 6x Terrapin.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
fritz, we both ranged with Lieca 8X bino RF'ers. First few stages, together we would find/range the first target. AR plop down shoot as I was finding/ranging others. That didn't work so well if the targets had a wide spread, spending lots of time directing him. Finding/ranging 3 targets together worked much better. I recorded distance on the white board/grease pencil. I barked out distance as he shot, he had a dope card tethered to his scope. That worked very well.

Interesting. Alpine and I found/ranged targets together, I wrote down location and distances on the white board, then I shot. Some field stations took a lot of effort to find the targets, and it was good to have both of us on glass. Some field stages were pretty easy to find targets -- in those stages we may have saved time by having me shoot carbine while he ranged/noted all the remaining targets.

I just don't know which works better. It's obvious time was a killer for us. Fortunately, Alpine is quite good at finding/ranging.

Last T3 match I spent a lot of time behind Geovid 10x glass. I do feel I can locate targets better with quality RF binos, compared to my one-eyed 6x Terrapin.

I am incredibly pleased with the Leica HD-R 10x42 that I picked up some months back. Much easier to use than a monocular set, IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

Interesting. Alpine and I found/ranged targets together, I wrote down location and distances on the white board, then I shot. Some field stations took a lot of effort to find the targets, and it was good to have both of us on glass. Some field stages were pretty easy to find targets -- in those stages we may have saved time by having me shoot carbine while he ranged/noted all the remaining targets.

I just don't know which works better. It's obvious time was a killer for us. Fortunately, Alpine is quite good at finding/ranging.

Last T3 match I spent a lot of time behind Geovid 10x glass. I do feel I can locate targets better with quality RF binos, compared to my one-eyed 6x Terrapin.

A few stages I didn't find the 6th target before AR was done shooting, especially when he got first round hits on his three targets. He would get back on his bino's while I was shooting. We didn't feel the need to write down locations. Simply tried to have a reference we can see with the naked eye, clump of trees, large rock outcropping..... With all the distance known now, 100yds/10:00 from last target....was common bark guiding each other if needed. Saying stuff like, see "the" bush, rock...... that's not so good!

All, thanks for the thoughts on dope solutions. I'm going to give the Sunrise board a try for shooting courses. I've tried to do business with 3gun gear but it didn't pan out. I like the idea of the white board for prone as this would probably be the most used of all the solutions. I'm going to have to look at picking up or creating one.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
I like the idea of the white board for prone as this would probably be the most used of all the solutions. I'm going to have to look at picking up or creating one.

In my last T3 match, one of the guys on the squad used a $10-ish dry erase board from Office Max. It was roughly equivalent of letter-size paper. I suspect it could easily be cut down in size. Cheap solution, and it worked for him.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
All, thanks for the thoughts on dope solutions. I'm going to give the Sunrise board a try for shooting courses. I've tried to do business with 3gun gear but it didn't pan out. I like the idea of the white board for prone as this would probably be the most used of all the solutions. I'm going to have to look at picking up or creating one.

http://www.3gunstuff.com/?page_id=899

Owner of 3gunstuff is a local shooter. Good guy!