Extremely late range report.

When last we met our intrepid rifle n00b, he had received some advise for the wise old men at the range.

This time, he went to the range equipped with that new knowledge, and also toted his father-in-law along. His father in law, being from England, gets dragged along to the range with his every visit because, hey, where's he going to get an opportunity to do this where he lives?

Firearms:
M-14, 7.62x51 NATO, 6x-20x 56mm scope
AR-15 with .22LR dedicated upper, 1x 40mm reflex sight

Ranges:
50 yards, one target .22
100 yards, one target .22, one target 7.62
200 yards, one target 7.62

So, let's see how our intrepid n00b did:

50 yards, .22:



I fired this rifle first, and sighted it in. It (or I) was shooting left, so I eventually got it sighted in. The 6-MOA dot in the Trijicon amber-dot sight covered the entire central diamond of the target.

100 yards, .22:


Sighted in, the dot in the sight covered the whole target. I'm still shooting a bit left.

100 yards, 7.62mm:


Now, I am proud of this. Fairly tight group in the center, with some vertical stringing, then two shots at each corner target.

200 yards, 7.6smm:


Now, I am quite proud of this. Sure, I was aiming for the center target, but I ended up with a fairly tight grouping, predictably 2-MOA or 4" low, with a rifle sighted for 100 yards. This is vastly better than I did before.

What made the difference with the M-14? I was holding onto the Grip-Pod at the front. Previously, I had my left hand under the stock of the rifle in a fist, and by shaping my fist, I changed the point of aim in a fairly stable way. The fore end of the rifle was on the Grip-Pod. Well, when the rifle fired, there was a bit of jumping around going on before the bullet left the barrel. Thus, the impacts were a bit imprecise.

Following the advice of my elders, I held onto the Grip-Pod and pulled the rifle into my shoulder tightly. The problem of heartbeat remained, so I needed, as before, to fire after the heartbeat. I used my shoulder only to aim the rifle, and concentrated on having a smooth trigger pull on that sweet trigger. (I have learned the value of the M14/Garand type trigger after experiencing a stock AR-15 trigger and a PACT AR-15 Gold Trigger. Let me tell you: I'm buying more Gold Trigger units for my other AR-15s. Any comparison between the stock trigger and a Gold Trigger necessarily involves some profanity as modifiers to adulations and general heaven-ward eye gestures.) By providing extra stability to the fore-end while firing, my grouping became tighter.

I'm sure this is no surprise to any true rifleman, but remember where I am starting on this journey: no tradition, no education, and my military training was bloody useless in this regard. (Note to US Air Force: you can recover from some of the other services imprecation of "not really being a military service" if you start taking riflery, for both enlisted and officers, seriously. Who cares if it is not directly related to service goals? The common bond of being skilled riflemen will establish a respect common from fighter pilot to orderly.)