Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Final artillery check

When dawn breaks after a quiet, frosty night, and there is no wind to speak of, you have to grab the opportunity, and check the rifles' trajectory one final time. So this morning I loaded up my sheep/deer/goat-and-pretty-much-everything-else unless-it-gets-really-big-or-nasty rifle, and its back-up, and headed West to crown land.















My go-to rifle is my Sako A7, in 270 Winchester, topped with a Leupold VX-3 2.5-8x36 scope. This a lightweight package that I just love to carry everywhere, even when lightweight isn't really important. I worked up a load of 130 grs Barnes TTSX bullets over 56 grs of IMR 4350 that is as accurate as I can shoot.

The back-up gun is my old Tikka M65 in 300 Winchester Magnum, with a Schmidt and Bender 6x42 scope. This rifle has killed a few deer, a ram, a wolf, and wears the battle scars from the first years of hunting the mountains in Alberta. It is terribly heavy, and I don't mind leaving it at home in favour of the Sako; but in a pinch it'll do. I'm shooting factory loaded 180 grs Trophy Bonded Bear Claw bullets out of this one.

It was still foggy as I hiked across the cut block to set up the targets, so foggy in fact that the rangefinder didn't work. So I ended up with the far target at 375 yards instead of the intended 400. I shot the Sako at 375, 300, 200 and 100 yards to confirm the trajectory. These are the results, give or take an inch at the longer distances to allow for shooter jitters.

100 yds : + 3 1/4 inch
200 yds : + 3 inch
300 yds : - 1 inch
375 yds : - 3 3/4 inch

Not counting a weird flyer, the group at 375 measured about 3 1/4 inch, well under one MOA, which made me a very happy shooter!

Let the games begin! 

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