There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there on the internet. I've read many different threads on several forums about what this cartridge or that cartridge will or won't do. My experiences have gone against these "absolutes" on several occasions and this past weekend was yet another example.
I went down to Tennessee to do some long range shooting Sat & Sun. I took several rifles with me but was primarily wanting to give my IRA-10D/DPMS a good workout. I made a new cheek rest for it last week and wanted to see how it was going to help with proper eye relief and overall comfort of the rifle.
Got it out Saturday morning and went to work getting my dope for 400-1000 yards. Once I had that confirmed my shooting partner gave me an estimate for the required elevation to get out to 1200 yards. There was a round 12" steel plate hanging out there and I want to see if I could lob a few into it. I figured they would be tumbling when (if) they hit and wouldn't be consistent. After a few shots to figure out the wind I hit the steel four times in a row, something which isn't supposed to be possible (according to the internet) and something I honestly didn't expect to see.
One of the other shooters took a pic of the target for me later that day and I was even more surprised to see that the impacts were nice and round indicating that the bullets were still carrying decent velocity when they got there.
The target:
The rifle (before I made the new cheek rest):
For anyone interested my loads are a 175 SMK over 43.3gr RE15, Fed 210M and LC LR brass. This load shoots around 2725 fps through my 22" bolt gun at 80*F. The barrel on my gas gun is a 10 twist 24" DPMS (Wilson). It took 52 minutes of elevation to hit the target.
There are no absolutes, every rifle is different. If you really want to know what your equipment is capable of push it to it's limits and see for yourself. FWIW I went back out Sunday and hit the same steel 5/5 times.
I went down to Tennessee to do some long range shooting Sat & Sun. I took several rifles with me but was primarily wanting to give my IRA-10D/DPMS a good workout. I made a new cheek rest for it last week and wanted to see how it was going to help with proper eye relief and overall comfort of the rifle.
Got it out Saturday morning and went to work getting my dope for 400-1000 yards. Once I had that confirmed my shooting partner gave me an estimate for the required elevation to get out to 1200 yards. There was a round 12" steel plate hanging out there and I want to see if I could lob a few into it. I figured they would be tumbling when (if) they hit and wouldn't be consistent. After a few shots to figure out the wind I hit the steel four times in a row, something which isn't supposed to be possible (according to the internet) and something I honestly didn't expect to see.
One of the other shooters took a pic of the target for me later that day and I was even more surprised to see that the impacts were nice and round indicating that the bullets were still carrying decent velocity when they got there.
The target:
The rifle (before I made the new cheek rest):
For anyone interested my loads are a 175 SMK over 43.3gr RE15, Fed 210M and LC LR brass. This load shoots around 2725 fps through my 22" bolt gun at 80*F. The barrel on my gas gun is a 10 twist 24" DPMS (Wilson). It took 52 minutes of elevation to hit the target.
There are no absolutes, every rifle is different. If you really want to know what your equipment is capable of push it to it's limits and see for yourself. FWIW I went back out Sunday and hit the same steel 5/5 times.
