What have you bought in the last 48 hours gun related?

I should probably clarify...

She does have expectations about abilities.

I made a joke one day about her covering me with a sniper rifle. She asked, "Why not use the AR?" I told her that it's really only good to 300 / 400 Meters. Her reaction shocked me, "WHAT?!?! You can't shoot something further than 400 Meters?"

Then she MADE me get a long distance rifle and scope and bipod and case and ammo, etc.... MADE me go learn the art of long distance shooting. I'm fantastic to 500 Meters with it and need to go stretch the legs a bit.

I tell ya! This one's a keeper. And the rifle ain't half bad either. ;-)

So now I'm waiting for the "Wait we can't shoot intruders in the house with the AR because it will damage our hearing?!?! Well I'm not having that!"

 

Not in the last 24 hours, was busy and forgot to post. But, almost worth its weight in gold. And I mean literally, at this point, almost worth its weight in gold.

 

You must be confused with an AK...

6-800 yards is no sweat for an AR with heavier ammo. 1k yards no problem if your handloading, hell some of the factory 77gr loads may get you there today. Of course assuming 18"+ barrels.

 

Can be done and can be reliably done with a budget built AR running a red dot are two different things.
For starters I can't even see the target at 800 yards using a red dot and the 2 MOA dot is going to cover 16 inches at 800 yards.

The shooter (again the wife in this situation) can not be effective with an AR shooting the 700/800 Meter Range. She doesn't practice. She's recoil averse.
But I put her on the long distance rifle and she's hitting the 12" gong at 500 Meters on the first shot. Point and Click Easy.

The low end of quality long distance rifles is making shooting past 500 Meters ridiculously stupid easy. My build, all in for the rifle, scope, and accessories, including some ammo for sight in was right at $1,000. Ten years ago you would have had to spend $8k to play this game. The guy I shoot with has more tied up in one scope than I do in my whole kit. It makes sense to have a dedicated long range and intermediate range rifle rather than one rifle that straddles that role.

 

Thought I'd look at some ballistics and verify. Just in case I was off base.

The drop at 300 yards is 18" for 556. I would think that your average shooter could manage a "combat effective" hit at 300Y with a little Kentucky Windage to score a hit somewhere inside an IDPA Target - 18" by 30". Especially with an LVPO that has range markings on the reticle.

Irons and red dots at 400Y, ehhhh... That,s a 45 inch drop. Your hold over is basically 4 to 6 feet above the target. Doable with an LVPO but becoming challenging.

500Y that 556 is on a 45° trajectory with the ground and shooting that far is more akin to mortar fire. Dropping lead in from above. It can be done but between the abilities of an above average shooter and what cell phones have done to our eyes, this is getting tricky and it takes a marksman with a high quality rifle and scope.

The 6.5CM is at 500Y where the 556 was at 400Y - 45" drop. Doable but since most LR-Bolt Guns come with no sights, that shot on the 6.5 is going to be with a much beefier scope than you would want on an AR platform.

I had never compared the two before. That was a fun thought exercise. Thanks @Blue92 for allowing me to indulge that rabbit hole.

 

Not all iron sights are created equally. Every Marine has to shoot with some degree of accuracy with irons out to 500m using 5.56.

 

Nice. I'm the process of building an Aero 5.56 as well. It's taking them forever to get me my parts. I placed the order on November 28 and am still waiting on the enhanced buffer tube kit. The order contained 5 parts and they have shipped each one individually. I am considering canceling the last of the order and source the buffer tube elsewhere.

 

People have been using iron sights in NRA HP matches for years..... It aint the "sights" it's the shooter.

 

I've got some nice irons on an M4A1 carbine and I've got no issues taking it out to 300. Unfortunately I don't often get to shoot much further than that on a regular basis.

 

Thats the nice part of NRA HP. You don't need a 300, 600, etc range. Just use the different targets. SR21 simulates 300@100.

 

Ordered a Howa mini in 6ARC last night. Planning for a relatively cheap coyote truck gun. Will use it suppressed, so the 20 inch barrel may get cut back a couple inches if it's too long with suppressor attached.

 

Run the numbers for a 77gr bullets pushing 2750 fps. That's the standard MK262 load, and what you'll find the most (or a homemade clone of it) at a service rifle match. I zero at 200 yards, and come up roughly 15 mins at 600 depending on the temp. My dope is below.

And regarding irons, the M16A2 was the gold standard in service rifle matches until 4x scopes were allowed about 5-6 years ago. Those are 600 yard matches. A rack grade rifle (no match grade components) is good enough for you to be competitive, provided it's got at least a 1/8 twist barrel.

And Palma matches are irons only out to 1000. Granted aperture style irons and highly specialized rifles, but irons nonetheless.

 

Nice!
I want to go the same route. I am a lefthanded shooter, but for this one, don't think I want to go custom. I was going to order the 6ARC 1500 barreled action and put it in a KRG Xray or Bravo. Looks like I can pull it off for about $1k before scope and mount. I was also thinking the same thing, for a all around suppressed hunter, how would an 18" work if I were to have it cut down.
I have a buddy building similar and have time to save up, so we will see how it goes.

 

Agreed but I guess if I had to TLDR my point it would be this:
I can not put an AR platform rifle with a non magnified sighting system (Irons/ Red Dots) shooting any 5.56 round in the hand of a novice shooter and reasonably expect them to produce combat effective shots at greater than 300 to 400 yards (maybe even 100 to 200 yards for some people). I can, however give them a long distance rifle with a high power scope and a dope card and with in a warm up shot or two they will be better than combat effective out to 500 yards.

Remember - you are not the average shooter.
The two biggest obstacles that turn away new shooters are:
1. Novices that come in and think they are going to be shooting like seasoned pro.
2. Seasoned pro's that expect novices to come in and shoot like they do.

You have to meet them where they are at their skill level.

 

3. A lazy entitled society that doesn't want to put in the work to excell at anything.

 

500 yards with a ACOG RCO and M855 out of a 20" A4 barrel is do-able on a 1:1 human torso silhouette target. I wouldn't even consider an A4 with an ACOG a "high quality rifle and scope" like is usually referring to match bolt rifles.

The usual AR shooter with a $300 PSA 16" special AR firing Wolf with a off-hand "zero-ed" ChinaMart "red dot"...yea that isn't gonna work for them. lol

 

I even shoot my 5.56 AK-74 out to 300-400 using its super shitty irons on steel upper body silhouette targets.

A Colt/FN/H&R/RRA A2 or A4 is well with in its mechanical ability to handle those ranges.

 

Ya'll got to remember that the younger generation did not grow up with open sights. I started at who knows how early with a bb gun with open sights, moved to a 22lr with open sights, and then a 30-30 with open sights. The concepts of long range shooting were well ingrained by the limits of the guns used. By the time I joined the Army at 17yo I'd been shooting open sights for 12+ years. Shooting the brand new A2 at 300 yards was easy.

Today kids aren't even allowed to own a BB gun and when they do start shooting it's almost never with open sights. Scopes, reflex, etc. is all they know. It's not their fault they've been deprived the education many of us received.

 

Been awhile since I’ve stepped in here.

I like iron sights, but the eyes are going. I have nowhere to shoot any real distance, so the State WMA’s (Wildlife Management Area) sighting in range, it is. They are 100 yard ranges and rifle/muzzle loader only. Some have ranges for pattering shotgun.

That said, I have a stack of these to zero, and try to get down there every year to do so. Then plink around afterwards.

These are made by Rite in the rain.





Granted it’s not the same as shooting actual distance, but makes the time go by. Need to get more now that I think of it.

https://www.riteintherain.com/military-qual-target#9127X

 

These are my favorite scaled targets.