200 yards on Iron Animals

J

Joe Haller

Guest
Four years ago I was able to convince our club officers that we NEEDED a 200 yard range. It was finally finished last Fall after $40,000 in berm work.

My hidden agenda was to start some long range rimfire bechrest Metallic Silhouette matches.

We held our first match last Saturday here at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. We had 11 entries, which was more than we expected for our first match.

Three of us worked on the match plan, and we knew there would be sight-in problems at 200 yards. So: As NRA does not have a set of rules for this type of match (yet): We made up our own rules. We had one of our rifles sighted-in on the turkeys and another at the rams. Then let everyone who wanted to: Use those rifles at the longer distances.

Two of our members did not shoot the whole course, and three others lost hits because they "could not count". (Shot animals our of order). We have three more matches scheduled for this summer, and hope we can attract more entries.

We had some strong winds from 12 o'clock and some of the rams blew over on every relay. Anyone have a suggestion on how to fix this?

We may decide to change the distance for chickens and pigs, but not for this year.

The best shooting was done by Craig Nelson, who drove UP from Lower Michigan. He was using a CZ 452 America. All the rest of us were shooting Unlimited class bench guns with tuners, McMillan stocks and 2 oz. triggers. Craig shot all four animals with that one CZ rifle. I thought his score was pretty amazing.

I think we need continue with this rifle sharing idea, until we have a core group of shooters involved with some experience with the long range problems.

Comments on this long range match are welcome.

Joe Haller

MSscorebulletin-1.jpg
 
Size matters

Which size animals were you shooting at?

1/2 scale?
1/5 scale?

We tried the 1/2 scale at 200 meters and were not getting the results we wanted. The 1/5th scale were out of the question.

George
 
Joe,
I am going to shoot in a similar match this Saturday. The webpage is linked below. The difficult part is getting the scope clicks figured out on a 22lr. You really need a 20MOA base. I put .020" of shim under the back of a one piece Davidson base and used Devcon to fill in the rest of the wedge. Seems to be working perfectly so far. A Burris Signature Zee ring set up should work good also.

The local club allows 22mags and 17's to compete in a separate class as they outclass the 22lr I have been told. I am taking my 22mag and in practice it was much easier to get sighted in and to get hits on the practice silhouette Shoot-n-See targets I made.

I will report back this weekend after the match.

Ray

http://www.cherokeegunclub.org/HTML53.phtml
 
Travelor said:
Which size animals were you shooting at?

1/2 scale?
1/5 scale?

We tried the 1/2 scale at 200 meters and were not getting the results we wanted. The 1/5th scale were out of the question.

George
Click to expand...


George,
I assume :eek: that they are using standard rimfire silhouettes.
 
davejones said:
Any consensus as to the best ammo for this type of shooting?
Click to expand...

I have some Eley Silhouex that I tried and it seemed to do fine for the intermediate distances but left a bit to be desired at the 188m/205yd rams. I then discovered my crown was a bit whacked. I fixed that and at the same time got in several lots of Eley Blackbox. The gun really shot well with the black box but I didn't retest the Silhouex .

I also fired some Federal Gold Medal with poor results.
 
Joe and others,

Less wind deflection and its generally better accuracy almost mandates the use of subsonic match ammo.

Subsonic ammo will easily knock these targets over providing the feet are built to specs and it’s a “very” rare occurrence to leave one standing but it can happen if the wind is at 12:00 holding the target up and you have a hit very low in a leg.

When the wind is high enough to blow the targets over, we clamp them to the rail and count the hits. It’s usually only the turkeys or rams that blow over and even without a spotter you don’t have to repaint every relay to identify the hits. You can eliminate half the wind problems if you weld an extension to the feet for a 12:00 wind, but you can’t eliminate the problems associated with 6:00 winds unless you clamp them.

Smallbore Rifle Silhouette uses 1/5 scale and Smallbore Pistol Silhouette uses 1/5 and 3/8 scale targets. I’m assuming Joe’s match is with 1/5 scale and that means approximately 2.25 MOA at 200 yds with a rimfire for potential perfect scores. Those perfect scores will be very rare or non-existent if the wind comes into play.
 
One thing I am going to have to come to grips with is not having my own flags. They do have a few flags placed around the range.
 
Thinking about this . . .

Dave Jones:
We all used subsonic ammo. Most were using Eley Biathlon at 1072. One of our guys shot Eley Silhouex, their special silhouette ammo. He hit one ram. But: It was not the ammo. He did not have a good 200 yard zero.

George:
We were using the standard 1/5 size animals. Same ones used for the NRA Standing matches. We thought those little rams would be a real problem and that no one would hit them. Having everyone use a rifle with a true 200 yard zero made the difference. When the local shooters get more experience, this may not be needed, but for the rest of this year, we will be "loaning" rifles.

Ray:
We have Burris Signature rings on the rifles we used at 200 yards. Over on "Steel Chickens.com, they told me that the magnum rimfires will damage the 1/5th size animals.
Go here for that forum:
http://www.steelchickens.com/forums/

CRB:
I think NRA rules for Silhouette say the range puts out the wind flags. Probably needs controlled placement, so the flags don't get shot up?

Husker:
On the problem of a 12 o'clock wind: I was thinking of using a strip of snow fencing behind the rams to reduce the wind velocity.

We got our 1/5th scale animals from Ray Schafer
http://www.raystargets.netfirms.com/
 
I was also worried about my 22mag damaging the targets but they say it is not a problem. You would think the 17's would be even worse but it must not be an issue. It may be that the yardage is great enough that the velocity has dropped off enough to eliminate the damage.

Getting a good zero is important and it can be difficult. At my last range session I was practicing switching back and forth, 100 to 200 and back. Just a few clicks off and you can get lost. I also had an enlightening moment. I was missing the 200 yd rams. I would switch up to a clod on the berm and I was hitting all around it no problem. Back to the target frame, no bullet hole.

Hello dummy !!!! The berm is probably 10 to 15 yds behind the target frame !!! That makes a huge difference in POI on a 22lr.

I just ordered some Burris Rimfire Signature rings and the insert kit from Midway.
 
200 yard animals

Joe:

We have been shooting .22 silhouette matches down here in Central Illinois for a few years now. They are .22 LR only, in any gun you choose, but you cannot use a tuner, sling or rear rest. Standard chickens at 50 yards, pigs at 100 yards, turkeys at 150 and rams at 200. Chickens are off hand, pigs are seated or prone. Turkeys and rams are off the bench, with front rest only. Each shooter uses one gun for all the distances. We have folks that record turret settings and twist the knobs for the various distances, and some who hold over using mil-dots or some other range finding reticle. Our winning score each month is usually between 35 and 37. And of course the chickens off hand separate the men from the boys. We use teams of two shooters. One person spots and keeps score while the other shoots. We place a wide strip of whote butcher paper behind each row of targets to spot where the misses go.

Lately a couple of brave folks have started using handguns. An Anschutz Exemplar with a 6x scope. They have progressed up to a score of 26.

Loads of fun!

regards,
Dan
 
Joe,

Having a set of come-ups handy for those without 200 yard zeroes would be handy. Some ballistic programs have built-in ammo libraries, while others can generate the comeups, assuming you have a BC and a muzzle velocity.

Rimfire simplifies things somewhat, as BCs of most .22LR bullets are relatively similar (unless you're using Aguila's 60 grain SSS load, or one of the 36 grain truncated conical designs), and the real variable is MV.
 
A "Come Up Chart" . . .

Back in a previous century, when I was shooting High Power Metallic Silhouette, I set up drop charts for our club members. That was in the days of slide rules and using handloading manuals.

Glued the chart to the side of the stock. It worked well as long as you knew the velocity. You NEEDED a chronograph. Handload data in the manuals were not accurate enough.

As Asa said: "Rimfire simplifies things somewhat". I did some numbers with the JBM ballistic calculator on-line and did a chart, using a velocity of 1080, a BC of .136 and scope above bore at 1.9".

Here is the chart: Or as Asa sez: The "Come Ups".
DropChart-1.jpg


The Zero is for 25 yards on the USBR target, then a half MOA up for 50 yards. 2 MOA for the chickens, 8 for the pigs, etc.
The bottom row is drift from 3 or 9 o'clock at 10 MPH wind.
 
Unfortunately what you will find out is that the vertical component of the wind at 200 meters is significant, as much as +- a minute. Plus the the change from the temperature.

I have been shooting this sport for 5 years now on a mesa in Farmington NM. The wind there blows all the time but is relatively constant. I have shot practice sessions when a front was coming in and was holding 25 inches left of Center to make a hit at 200 meters. We generally have a 2-4 o'clock wind and hold offf can be anything from 1 inch to 9 inches right of center.

Our targets are larger than what you are using so our scores are generally higher. Shown here are the widths.
SilhouetteSizes.jpg


This game came to us from El Paso TX and we have been shooting it for 15 years. In that time, there have only been two perfect scores fired. In general, you need a 46-47 to win. To the best of my knowledge, El Paso has not had a perfect score yet. Winds there are worse than here.

Shown here are some of my practice targets with some of my best and worst targets. The rifle I use is an Anschutz 54 bedded in a Don Stith model 250 stock, two ounce trigger and a Weaver T-36. These targets were shot with Eley Match EPS that averages .262 at 50 yards. It has been my experience that groups will be about 15 times at 200 meters what they are at 50 Yards.

200Meters.jpg


In the 5 years I have been shooting this sport, I have seen the coyotes at 200 meters all knocked down 6 times. That about 15 shooters per match, six matches a year. The sweet spot on the coyote is about 4 1/2 inches in diameter.

The question was asked about knocking the silhouettes down at those ranges. Our targets are 1/4 plate steel (some of the coyotes are 3/8 inch) and as long as 1/2 the bullet hits them they will go down. The bullet takes almost a full second to reach 200 meters and at first you think you missed but they finally slowly fall over. We all use match ammo and most shim the rear rings although some do use the Burris rings with the different offsets. I don't know of anyone that uses a 20 MOA base.

I shot last year with a tuner as mentioned in another post. As pointed out,tuned at 50 yards is not tuned at 200 meters. I no longer use the tuner as I do shoot 25 and 50 yards as well as the silhouette ranges which for us are now 65, 75, 100, 150 and 200 meters.
 
Here are the clicks I came up with for the Silhouex ammo. I havent yet come up with the numbers for the Black Box but I expect [ hope ?? :eek:] it is basically the same. The 200 yd zero was the same for both.

Weaver T36:


With the rifle sighted in at 75 meters go up 48 clicks for the 112 meter targets. Also needed 10 left clicks. My scope is probably canted.

From the 112 zero go up 25 clicks for the 144 line.

From the 144 line go up 103 clicks for the 189 line.

The Federal GMM needed 30 less clicks to be spraying its impacts somewhere in the vicinity of the 188 meter targets.

My 22 mag needed 70 clicks to go from 100 yds to 200 yds plus 8 clicks to the right.
 
This just in

Mickey Coleman (colemanrifles.com) was just telling me about using a mount doodad that repeated nicely for known distances. He said that all you had to do was find out how much to turn it for your rifle/ammo and it would take you from 50 to 200 and back precisely. Don't know why you would need it with an adjustable scope but he knows that and still sang praises about it. I'll try to remember to call him and get more details.
 
Anybody shooting silhouette using a Shepherd scope? I have one on my squirrel rifles and it's a very bright scope. Never have checked it out for the ranging accuracy since I usually just shoot squirrels from 50 -60 yards. Been to lazy --err busy to even go squirrel hunting fo rthe past two years.
 
You may want to contact Dave Crossno at http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/crossnostocks/

he more or less invented long range .22 silhouette and has been running week-long matches at Raton for the last decade or so. He is, in fact, in Raton right now. I saw him there this morning.

The issue of targets blowing over is problem that can sometimes only be solved by using the swinger sighter target for score.

Most of us shoot these matches with iron sights. Lots of fun.

Brent
 
Wilbur ....

Is that the same one with a full page ad in the current PS?


"Mickey Coleman (colemanrifles.com) was just telling me about using a mount doodad that repeated nicely for known distances. He said that all you had to do was find out how much to turn it for your rifle/ammo and it would take you from 50 to 200 and back precisely. Don't know why you would need it with an adjustable scope but he knows that and still sang praises about it. I'll try to remember to call him and get more details. "
 
Well I am home from the match. Actually some guys are probably still shooting :D They have more energy than I do. I shot my 40x in Unlimited for the first match and was teamed up with a super nice guy shooting an Annie 17HMR. He liked my Farley Compact :cool: I liked his Nightforce Scope :D

I shot clean and the tie breaker is 5 of the smaller targets at 188 meters placed at the end of the rams. I shot 3 of these for a 40 + 3. I think my partner had the same score.

For the second match there was a bit of a mix up about my 22 Mag so I shot my 40x again in the Benchrest Scope class. My partner's wife arrived in time to shoot the second match so I did without a spotter. Shot clean again but only 2 of the tie breakers as the wind was starting to pick up a bit more.

I don't have the final results yet. I will post them when they are emailed to me.

I really had a good time and will go back next month. It's really a hoot waiting to see if , first you actually hit the ram, and second if it falls over. Also, with subsonic 22lr you don't get much of a spall on the turkeys and rams so it is a bit hard to spot your hits.
 
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