The boolit has to hit the ground somewhere

[chickenstripe]

I went to the range last week. I had about 60 or so 30-30 rounds I wanted to"use-up", and about 40 rounds of 350mag. (Marlin 336, Remington 673 respectively)

All cast loads moving at about 1700 +/- fps.

I wnt to a range that I belong to that has steel plates at 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400 & 500yds.

My intention was plinking. I took only ammo and two rifles. I went in the late morning to avoid crowds.

When I go there someone was entering the gate in fromt of me. No problem, I can deal with someone else at the range, just thought I'd be the only one. He was shooting a SOCOM II with a high power scope on it. He was shooting 168gr match loads, at 100yds.

I was shooting my reloads, with my cast boolits starting at 150yds. By the time I was finished I had successfully determined the elevation required to hit each of the steel plates, at each distance, with each rifle. Using both open sights, and the scopes (unadjusted from their 100yd zero).

He couldn't believe that the rifles I had could shoot that far.

I told him that the boolit has to hit the ground somewhere..... I just figured out where that was. :mrgreen:

It actually took me some time to convince him to shoot at the steel plates at 200yds.........

When I got the 45ACP out and started hitting the 150yd plate, or at least coming real close, he broke down and tried.

[Big Boomer]

Chickenstripe:

Back in the 1970s an old college bud and I made our first foray into the world of Magnums with a couple of S&W M66s (6" bbl.). We were casting our own bullets (Lyman 358156 gc) and got to where we were doing everything from fastdraw shooting (not as good as with a single action) at close range to shooting at long range from a rest and everything in between. We learned a lot about casting, shooting, holding your sight picture and gradual trigger squeeze in those days. There were in southern Ohio, at that time, a lot of unreclaimed strip mine land that was not posted that provided us all kinds of opportunities for shooting. With binoculars to pick out hard to find targets and careful shooting, we really got good at it. To my knowledge, all that land has now been reclaimed. Wish I had all the lead we let fly over all those acres of land. We got to where we were so accustomed to our revolvers and loads that we could guesstimate the amount of front sight that had to be raised above the top line of the rear sight in order to hit an object out there at 300 to 400 yds. With large amounts of vertical sandstone showing, it was easy to pick little spots at which to shoot. We were both in our early 30s, worked out regularly at the YMCA, and were willing to try most anything. We began deer and varmint hunting with hanguns when such was ridiculed by most sportsmen as showing off. Some didn't believe what we were doing could be done, but a simple demonstration made believers out of all that cared to go with us for a shooting session. We even had some Ohio State Troopers question what my old bud told them in casual conversation. We made believers out of them, too. They didn't believe anything could be hit consistently the size of a man's head at 100 yds. or beyond with a handgun. Your experience touched a nerve out of the past for me. 'Tuck

[44man]

That must be the best way I ever heard it said, "the boolit has to hit the ground somewhere" is right on. Way more fun then 7 yards! :drinks:

[Jim]

C/S,
That's great! I have guys asking "How in the...." when they see me hitting a 3 lb. coffee can with a .45 Vaquero @ 100 yds. Mind you, I don't hit it evey time but, as you said, it's just a matter of figuring out a little "Kentucky sighting".
Thanks for the smile!:-D

[archmaker]

I once showed up for our local bowling pin match with a silver hornpipe, just for fun. I had fun, but did not do all that well (go figure :) ).

Anyway after a match someone stated I did not shoot to well, poking fun at me and a few of the other guys grinned. They were friends and just giving me a bad time, but I challenged them to another type of bowling pin match.

Head to head, loser had to go and setup the pin, spotters to be the judge. They agreed so I took the bowling pin and walked down range, found a nice high spot at 175yds.

I never had to setup the pin. :-D

Of course I was competing in IHMSA pretty heavily at the time and was preparing for the region IV championship.

I heard of story of a guy competing with a pistol on the rifle silohette, he scored a 27 or there-a-bout out at 40. The targets start at 200m and go to 500m. With Iron sights.

Guns will shoot a lot better than most of us can hold.

[Old Ironsights]

I went to a shoot once where I put a .45ACP cylinder into my 7" FA .454 and was hitting the gong the farmer had set at 185yds 3 out of 5 offhand.

Pop............................................... ...........................
.................................................. ..............................Ping!

[TAWILDCATT]

I did some siloutte? shooting yrs ago.had 1911 WW2 pistol with hardball.shot good at 50 yds fair at 100, 150 was bad and 200 I got the ram at 7th shot.I was proud.fixed sights.Ed McGivern shot at 600 yds.so pistols will shoot much farther than most think.good for you:coffee:[smilie=1: