Long range rifles

Thank you sir.

 

Hey, don't leave us guessing. What are you shooting? Details man!

 

Well seeing this on the home page piqued my interest, I guess Calguns isn't the *only* site I should enjoy 2A conversations on. I'm just getting into long range. Have had a Savage .17HMR for a few years that I love, only gone to about 250 yds on targets & that was so easy it was boring, need to get out of state for some prairie dawwwwgs! Wouldn't ever call the 17 a distance gun though. I did recently finish an 80% lower & went with 6.5 Grendel on a 24" barrel. Last weekend I finally got it sighted in on paper at about 200-250 yds. Don't have a range finder & the terrain was rough so pacing was useless. I thought my Vortex 4-16x50 FFP was overkill until I got out there, now I realize 5-800 yards may be a challenge (that's good). Anywho this became a novel but I look forward to learning tons here. Oh, and here's the evil black gun porn. Wait, it's flat dark earth, so society can't hate it!

 

Sorry. My main competition rifle is an AI AXMC short action. With a vortex razor gen 2. I have a few different barrel/calibers for it. But mainly shoot .260 Remington. 140g Berger hybrids at 2850fps.

My new comp rifle for next season will be a factory tikka.223 varmint in an MPA competition chassis w/kahles 6-24 scope.

And a safe full of other rifles.

 

Nice. What's the OAL of the magazine? I've looked at a few chassis rifles lately but they all had magazines under 2.9 inches which wouldn't work for the bullets I would be shooting.

 

Iirc AX/AW mags are about 2.9"
AICS mags are shorter, for sure.

 

I've run the PST 4-16 out to a grand, it'll work fine.

 

I concur. I've shot small targets to 1k with 10x and 3-15 scopes.

More magnification is nice tho.

 

Yeah, the 17 isn't generally looked upon as a long distance round, but it is a "BAD BITCH"
ain't it. A rangefinder should probably be your next purchase. Because if you're going to start doping your shots,(MOA/mead), you are definitely going to have to put your scope dial exactly on a set distance. And as you already have experience for yourself, yeah, 16 power is definitely a struggle at 800 yards. But that's the fun of it all that brings us back over and over.

 

All depends on what you are doing, but I tend to go with less magnification than more. For hunting I rarely use scopes greater than 8 power and have never felt handicapped to 500yds. I have a few fixed 4 power that go to 300 yds with no problem. To an extent, I'd rather have resolution than magnification(can rarely afford both). I do have higher powers on dedicated LR rifles, but for the most part I'm shooting for hits, not group size.

 

That's what I'm saying, for 800+, 16 can definitely be a struggle but for the average shooting, yeah Lower powers are normally not an issue. I have an AR with only a 3x power scope that I shoot 200 yards with regularly. But then, my 17 HMR has a 16 power scope on it, and it's awesome for finding chipmunks @ 200 yards, wear a three power scope would definitely fall short

 

Everybody's sight is different when trying to see detail out at long distances. For me! trying to see detail out to 1000 with 16x is out of the question.

 

Higher magnification is not a substitute for basic marksmanship.
(yep I said it, if that hurts feelings, well sometimes the truth stings)

The max usable magnification for long range shooting is in the 20-30x range.
One of our shooting instructors runs a NF NSX 5.5-22x, typical you will use the 22x for target ID and range estimation, he shoots at 11x.
The scope on my bolt rifle is a 3.5-17x, I typically leave it set to 17x however depending on the situation (lowlight, multiple targets) I will dial back to 8x.
The lower mag is going to give you a wider field of view it will also help in high mirage situations.
Even when using the spotting scope to call corrections I run a lower magnification 15 -20x.
The type of shooting @Mac1owry and myself do running lower mag helps with quicker target acquisition when on the clock, especially when targets are located at multiple distances and spread across a wide range.

One of the things I hear mentioned quite often is "I can see my heartbeat in the scope reticle" to that I would answer, "turn the mag down!"

Are you are having trouble seeing the reticle?
Have you focused the reticle at the ocular of the scope?
Does the scope your using allow you to focus the reticle?
Don't use the parallax adjustment to do this.
The parallax is only there to fine tune the focus of the reticle at multiple distances typically out to 600-700yd then it goes to infinity.

Small groups can be shot with low or no magnification, high power shooters shoot 1.5-2.0 minute of angle at 1000yd with iron sights.
Granted the target they are referencing on is large but it all comes down to basic marksmanship.

 

Just picked one up last night, now scope shopping. I'm looking at the Vortex Viper HS LR, what do you have mounted on top? This is my first precision rifle and only want to buy once on the scope.

 

I'd pass on that particular vortex model. I'd save up a lil more and look into the newer Burris XTRII's. A lot of features for the price. And comparable to scopes twice it's price.

I have 2 Burris xtrii's, - kahles 6-24 and a vortex rzr gen 2. And a few other scopes.

I also had a few viper pst's before, which is similar to the HS LR.

That would be my advice especially if you just want to buy once...

 

That's awesome, welcome to the RPR family. The scope that's mounted in the photo at that time was just one that I had sitting in the safe, now after a ton of homework, a ton of checking them out in person and listening to Feedback I ended up going with a Burris XTR ii 5-25x50 in an scr mil radical. I myself was also heavily favoring a vortex PST scope but after much homework, I was seeing for myself the optics are much clearer. I'm not saying anything negative about vortex scopes, just in the comparison between the PST and the EXTR specifically. The only thing that I would say overall is better in the Burris line then in the Virtex line are there radicals , but that's purely personal preference.

 

I also ended up using badger ordinance rings at 1.125 high, but vortex Percision fit 1.100 will also work. I opted for using a sock instead of the dust covers because I was so close. Remember, there is a 20 MOA cant built into the rail already. I will post pictures in a few days when I have the scope fully mounted, I just got the set up myself.(scope $1000 OTD & rings were $171)

 

what caliber did you get it in?