...and only somewhat reliably. I post this in hopes that someone out there will tell me what I'm doing wrong.
Let us begin on a pleasant Father's Day afternoon at the range. Pleasant, in that as I arrive, winds are southerly at about 15 knots and a shower is pushing through. As my keen weather sense told me, however, my timing is perfect, as it takes time to unpack the rifle, mount the optics, assemble the target stands, and shoot the breeze with another club member. Just as my targets were ready to be taken down-range, the squall line passed, the sun came out and the wind calmed.
Basic lay-out at this point:
At 100 yards, four (4) sight-in targets mounted with blaze orange duct-tape to the target stand.
At 200 Yards, slightly to the right and above the 100 yard target, two (2) sight-in targets.
I am shooting Lithuanian mil-surp 7.62 NATO ammunition. We know that this ammo is a good match for the M-14 because the Honorable William Jefferson Clinton, President of the United States of America (1992-1998), rather than let surplus M-14s be de-milled to be semi-auto only (a simple, irreversible and cheap procedure) and sold through the CMP, instead gave a lot of them away to foreign nations and had much of the rest of the surplus stock destroyed. Lithuania was a beneficiary of American generosity, and thus they had to procure well matched ammunition for their new precision rifles.
So, first target goal: verify zero of the re-mounted optics. All-in all, not bad. I had a couple fliers, and I could tell that I had done so right after the shot went off.
I'm shooting from the bench with the Grip-pod collapsed down, the rifle is resting on the "toes" of the bipod feet. I can adjust aim from the positioning of my shoulder and my left hand tucked under the butt of the stock to provide some fine control. I'm sure this is considered disastrous technique, but it seems as stable as if I has locked the rifle in a pintle mount.
Mostly, I though the grouping was to the right a bit, so I adjusted the scope right 5 clicks, with 1 click = 1/10 MOA.
Second target, I don't think I did any better.
Third target, I think I brought it more to the center, but I'm still veering right and ranging pretty widely vertically.
Now, I know this looks worse that the previous three, but this one was an experiment: I was testing out my new glasses prescription and using just the iron sights. The front blade obscured the entire center square of the target. I'm shooting right and low, and my grouping is rather wide, but I'm feeling rather good that the grouping is only twice the size of my 20x scope-magnified groupings.
The less I say about by 200 yard targets (this being the second target), the better. Suffice to say that my shooting low and right is amplified due to the increase range and another 1" of bullet drop. Any left handed desperadoes out there better watch out: I'm going to seriously graze your shootin' arm and love handles.
I can't blame my inaccuracies on anything but my skill. I had excellent sight picture through the scope. The picture is good enough that when I held my half-breath for the shot, I could see my heartbeat moving the scope reticule. I tried to keep my squeeze on the trigger just tight enough that I could fire right after my heart beat.
In this image, you can just barely see the iron sight picture. It's much too bright for my iPhone to take a good image of the target, but you can see the front post and the blade to either side, though the rear aperture and under the scope, through the gaps in the A.R.M.S #22 scope rings. It I didn't have the rubber MAPGUL ladder-type rail protectors on the upper rail, there would be a little more of the lower arc of the sight picture.
So, the question now is what do I need to do to correct my technique. These results are OK to land a round on a human-sized target at about 200 yards, but the M-14 is spec'ed to be good out to 500 yards in the hands of an infantryman. My range can do 500 yards, but I'm sure I'd be harassing the moles rather than landing hits.
No comments:
Post a Comment