Long range sight settings

[flatsguide]

I posted this question on one other site too.
Hi Folks,
I’ll be shooting my first long range match at the end of the month, the Creedmoor match put on by Rick Weber in Oak Ridge TN. I’ll be shooting at 800 and 1000 yards and would like to get some sight setting of actual instead of ballistic program numbers to get onto the paper or close to. Here are the particulars.
Browning/Miroku 1885 BPCR .45-70, RH twist
Scope, DZ Arms 8x, scope base separation 7.2” front base height .180” rear base height.375”.
Bullet, paper patch slick elliptical, 16:1 530gns, at 1275 FPS MV.
Thanks so much this will be a great help as I have no way to get the actual elevation and drift numbers before the match.

Thanks again,
Richard

[Don McDowell]

No way to give you exact numbers as conditions will dictate elevation and windage.
If you have a 200 yard setting, probably need to come up 100 pts to make 800 and another 40 from that to get to 1000.
Be mindful of you sighter shots.
Good luck.

[slim1836]

I could only wish to have the knowledge and weapon to shoot this far.

Slim

[John Boy]

There are plenty of trajectory calculators on the Internet
You have the bullet, look up its specifics, you have the load velocity, put them in the software and it will do the calculations

This will but you on the target and you can fine tune your sighters

[GregLaROCHE]

There are plenty of trajectory calculators on the Internet
You have the bullet, look up its specifics, you have the load velocity, put them in the software and it will do the calculations

This will but you on the target and you can fine tune your sighters

Are there any charts for BP loads? 45/70 trapdoor especially.

[Castaway]

GregLaroche, it doesn’t matter if the bullet was launched with black powder, smokeless or a rifled slingshot. Primarily, it’s the weight, velocity and ballistic coefficient of the bullet that determine down range external ballistics. Throw in humidity, temperature, and elevation to tweek some more. Shoot far enough and there are a couple more variables. Calculators give enough info to adjust towards reality

[flatsguide]

Thanks guys!
Cheers

[JKR]

Don McDowell gave you good advice. As long as you have a known sight setting at some distance, you will be able to come pretty close at long range.
At long range matches I’ve shot in, you get unlimited sighters. The spotter and target puller work with you to get you on paper.
You can be assured, if your first shot isn’t on paper, you won’t be the only one!
JKR

[starnbar]

If you have a well trained spotter he can give you the dope on your rounds going downrange listen to what he is telling you and you will be spot on a lot quicker.

[Don McDowell]

Richard the course of fire for that match is 300 and 1000 yards supported on Friday, and 600 and 1000 unsupported on Saturday. You may want to put a lower block on the rear , and take the front sight off the rifle so it doesn't fuzz up the sight picture at 1000.

[flatsguide]

Don, thank you. I’m going to order the .325scope block today from DZ Arms. Yesterday I used a dial indicator with .0001” divisions and found that each division on the DZ scope mount was .001” and there was no measurable hysteresis so if you turned the knob on the mount one way, say five divisions and then the other way one division you did in fact get four divisions of movement. In other words there was no slop in the system. One thousandths, .001” of an inch is .5 MOA when the spacing of the scope block are 7.2” some say it should be 3/16 or .1875”. I did drift out the front sight.
I’m looking forward to this shoot. Starnbar, my wife who has zero experience spotting will be my spotter. So it’s the blind leading the blind and if I don’t place or win I have an excuse...blame it on the spotter lol.
Thanks guys,
Richard

[Don McDowell]

Richard if you can get a 200 yard zero before you get to the match
My experience with the dz mounts on 7.2 space is usually about 1 full turn per 100 yards
As I recall from pictures of that range it’s pretty well grassed over so your wife will have to watch close to see low bullet strikes and high will be pretty tough as there’s trees behind the targets
She’ll need to watch the entire area with here eye and not concentrate on the target alone
Good luck and have fun


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Don McDowell]

Richard, did you make it to the Creedmoor 150?

[flatsguide]

Thanks for asking Don, yes I did. I enjoyed it immensely. My first long range shoot. Unfortunately, I was only able to make the first day as I had family commitments for the last day. I was squaded with Joe Hill, I believe he was president of the NMLRA, he was a great help along with Art Fleener. I shot on Friday at 300 and a 1000 yards. The targets were like the old Creedmoor targets I believe, there was a white center square with a value of 4 that also contained the X ring that was 1MOA square. Then a black rectangle surrounding the white center for a value of 3 then two cardboard tan squares on either side of the black for a value of 2. The course of fire was ten shots for a possible 40. Unlimited sighters. The 1000 yard target was the same configuration only larger but looked darn small at 1000.
The blow by blow when like this. 300 yards, Joe Hill elected to shoot first, that way he was able to help me for a longer period of time...I spotted. Then I settled in ready to shoot my Browning BPCR in .45-70 my own design DDPP bullet, 16:1 alloy and 83 gns of Swiss 1 1/2. Got on the target with only a few rounds then my first shot for score was a 4 followed by a 3, I made a windage correction and the next 3 shots scored a 4 each, next shot was in the x ring and the next 3 shots went into the spotter covering the X ring. The spotter was 1MOA in size.measured 1 MOA. At this time my 83 yo neck was getting tired and I took a break. Upon shouldering the rifle I squeezed off a perfect shot for another X, trouble was it was in another target, I failed to heed Joe’s earlier admonishment about making sure I identified my target before shooting. My last shot was another 4 for a total of 35-4X. We then went to the butts to pull targets for the last relay. The last time I was in the butts pulling and spotting targets was in the ‘50s in Camp Pendleton when I was in boot camp. The only difference here was there was no “crack” of the bullet going by overhead. It took quite some time and ammo getting on the paper at a 1000. I shot and shot but nothing I was getting worried my bullet and load was not up to the task especially about bullets becoming unstable after 8 or 900 yards . I used about twenty rounds getting on the target and Joe walked me “up” from shooting short. What happened was i I dialed in 120 divisions on the scope mount instead of 120MOA in actuality I had only cranked in 60 MOA putting me way short. I was surprised as I got quite a few center hits but no X’s for a score of 34.
It was a great “bucket list” deal for me and I can’t wait till the next one in the spring. Rick Weber puts on the events and it ran like clockwork. He took good care of me and the other rookies by squading us with experienced shooters...they took us literally by the hand. I was sorry I could not shoot the next day.
I want to thank Rick Weber, Joe Hill, Art Fleener and all the others that made this shoot a memorable event for me. To anyone reading this put this Creedmoor shoot on your list of things to do next spring.
Cheers Richard
PS After shooting so many rounds to get on paper my eyes were getting bad while shooting for score as the target was shifting and blurring very bad and I’m sure that cost me a few points. Mentioning this later at dinner I was told that the blurring could very well be A sign of dehydration

[Don McDowell]

Well good deal , and congratulations.
Hopefully you'll be attending many more matches.

[martinibelgian]

Yup, dehydration will do that to you - just keep drinking. And I don't mean beer!

[Don McDowell]

Doc Lay told us a long time ago if you're not having to take a leak every half hour or 45 minutes, then you're probably getting dehydrated.

[Randy Bohannon]

And if your urine isn’t clear, drink more water.

[flatsguide]

Normally the first thing I do when waking up is have a glass of orange juice and two glasses of water. Besides hydrating the next time I shoot I’ll use eye drops that are developed for lubricating the eye. I have an eye doctors appointment soon and I’ll discuss the issue with him. One of my friends used to do eye exercises, focusing close then far numerous times to keep from having eye fatigue during road racing motorcycles. While typing this I just remembered my pistol coach who was an Olympic pistol shooter saying among other things, that once you got your stance on your target don’t look down range any more because moving focus back and forth causes eye fatigue. Plus always take a leak just before you shoot so you can totally relax the lower part of your body.
Cheers Richard

[Abert Rim]

I've been reading about the recent Oak Ridge match on Rick Weber's Creedmoor Facebook page. What a beautiful range -- and some fine scores fired. I was sorry to hear that Art's shoulder kept him from participating. Thanks for sharing your experience, Richard. I've never shot a long-range match.

[flatsguide]

Avert, It was a great experience and wish there were more long range matches close by. If I were a young man of around 65 to 75 I’d be traveling and shooting a bunch of these LR shoots.
If you get the chance attend or shoot in one.
Cheers Richard

[Abert Rim]

Richard, well I am 68 so I had better get on the stick, eh?
Bill Powell

[flatsguide]

Ah! Just a young fella in the full bloom of youth...lol. Get crackin’ Bill
Cheers Richard

[flatsguide]

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to my eye doctor complaining about the dry eyes and vision problem. After a thorough eye exam it was found that the oil gland in my eye were pretty much blocked. This is how he explained it. The tear ducts deposits water that eventually covers the eyeball, this water will rapidly dry out, the hotter and dryer the air the faster that water fill will dry out, if it was not for the oil gland in both the upper and lower eyelids that deposit this oil every time you blink. This oil floats on the water film preventing the the water from evaporating. This was the cause of the problem. The cure, hot pack on my eyes once or twice a day an massaging the eye lids, this allowed the lid to secrete the oil. Now when I wake up in the morning my vision is not fuzzy.
Cheers Richard

[Don McDowell]

Glad the eye doc found part of the problem, but staying hydrated during a match is still very important.