# General > General Guns & Ammo >  Long Range Shooter

## crashdive123

I've always had an interest in long range shooting.  I decided to give it a go.  The rifle is a Ruger Precision Rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor.  The Scope is a Vortex Viper PST Gen II 6-25X50.  The journey begins.

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## Phaedrus

Very cool!  I've been mulling over picking up the same rifle but with a different scope.

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## madmax

Dang!  Me want.

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## Rick

Nothing like gun porn in the morning. Very nice.

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## kyratshooter

Subjective term "long range".  It used to mean over 200M, now I don't know what it is.

I am about the same state for "accuracy".  It once was one thing and now is another!

The long shot at the local club is 350M.  I generally know what my stuff will do out to that point because that is what I have access to.  Most of my "long range" shooting is reduced size targets to simulate "long range" so the drop tables do not really come into use like they do at actual ranges where the drop is measured in double digit feet.  

Other "long range" shots in my area would require me to cross 9 peoples property to check the target.

Unless I am shooting down the median on I-75 I will never get a "long range" shot with anything.  Florida and out west are different and I often wish I had access to the western desert or the flat wasteland of Florida.

The closest "long range" facility is a good 4 hour drive from me and costs a fortune to use.

Besides, out past 500M would add a whole new dimension to the memorization of drop tables and Counting all those "clicks" would put a lot of stress on the fading memory.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

Looks like you jumped in with both feet.  It's a lot of fun unless the wind is blowing, then it's more fun.

Alan

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## Rick

Yeah. I looked and looked around here and 100 yards is the longest any range offers. Like Kyrat, if you want to shoot 350m around here folks have to open doors and run the pets out of their houses so nothing gets hit when the rounds fly through their living room.

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## kyratshooter

I do find these "platforms" rather charming, like a VW Thing from the 1970s. 

Industrial art in a way.

You know that underneath they are a base level rifle with $1000 in add-ons, but the outside is so steampunk you just don't care.

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## jim Glass

I fired one of those last summer that a friend had.  It was supper accurate.   I put 5 rounds inside a 1/2" square at 100 yards.  Got me interested in precision shooting.    I found a Ruger Precision rifle in 22LR at a gun shop.   I think it was only $450 but the 22LR won't shoot like the 6.5.

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## YellowYak

Congratulations Dave, that is a fine looking rifle. I know of a 500 yard range that would be fun to shoot that rifle.

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## crashdive123

> Congratulations Dave, that is a fine looking rifle. I know of a 500 yard range that would be fun to shoot that rifle.


I will definitely bring it to our next trip to Jay's place.

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## crashdive123

For quite some time, I've had the desire to learn the skill.  The longest rifle range at the range where I am a member is 200 yards, but they are building a new range not too far from here that will run out to 1000 yards.  Really looking forward to that.

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## kyratshooter

> I fired one of those last summer that a friend had.  It was supper accurate.   I put 5 rounds inside a 1/2" square at 100 yards.  Got me interested in precision shooting.    I found a Ruger Precision rifle in 22LR at a gun shop.   I think it was only $450 but the 22LR won't shoot like the 6.5.


This is where that thing about "long range" being a subjective term enters the discussion.

A precision made rifle shooting high quality ammo in .22lr can be just as accurate as a 6.5, out to 100 yards.

We have guys at my club that shoot ping-pong balls at 200 yards with .22lr.  

There is also the occasional rifle that comes out of the box shooting little bitty groups, even using factory ammo.

And one thing is certain, it will be the quality, selection building and tuning of the ammo that determines just how well someone shoots one of the big bore long range rifles.

I have one rifle that will not shoot better than 4"@100 with Federal 150grain .308.  With the proper handloads it will shoot into 3/8"@100.

The real problem with extreme long range work is that matching all the components to the climate, rifle and range becomes a mathematical equation in itself.  You can work up a load that shoots great at 100 yards, then find that out past 800 yards it goes squirrely.

The 6.5 has gained such a following due to its design keeping the speed of a heavy weight bullet above the speed of sound all the way to 1000 yards, avoiding the turbulence of the speed of sound deceleration.  A .308 bullet with the same ballistic coefficient is too heavy to match those speeds.  You have to jump up to .300win-mag/.338lup to achieve that performance consistently again. 

It might sound strange but when shooting an air gun you must take the same problem into consideration, only at 25 yards!

Same for the .22lr!  That is why .22 "target ammo" starts out at 1000fps.  It avoids the transition speed problem entirely.  That is one reason many find the CCI standard velocity ammo very accurate in about anything they own.

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## jim Glass

> This is where that thing about "long range" being a subjective term enters the discussion.
> 
> A precision made rifle shooting high quality ammo in .22lr can be just as accurate as a 6.5, out to 100 yards.
> 
> We have guys at my club that shoot ping-pong balls at 200 yards with .22lr.


Maybe there is hope for tight wads like me.

Great post Ratshooter.    By the way I killed my first possum last night with my pellet rifle.

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## Desert Rat!

Very cool Crash. :m107:

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## crashdive123

Spent the day at the range.  Tried quite a few different ammunition types/manufacturers.  Found a few that I/the rifle liked.  Next is to have a friend take me to school on reloading.  this was six rounds at 200 yards (max range where I shoot).  Looking forward to longer ranges when I can.

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## kyratshooter

Do you have reloading gear Crash?

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## crashdive123

I do not.  It has been on my list of things to learn for quite some time.  Since this was rather fun to shoot, I think it is time to dip my toe into the reloading waters.

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## madmax

hmmm.  Long distance shooting... I can't see well enough to clip my toenails.

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## kyratshooter

> I do not.  It has been on my list of things to learn for quite some time.  Since this was rather fun to shoot, I think it is time to dip my toe into the reloading waters.


Reloading general shooting fodder and reloading long range stuff is two different endeavors.  

Out to 800 yards its all about the same.  Clean your cases, deprime, reprime, weigh every charge to precisely the same, find a bullet that your rifle likes, find the powder your rifle likes.  Easy enough to stay inside MOA.

Past 800 yards you get into the "precision reloading" game with all of its expenses.  Sonic cleaning, inside neck reaming, trimming cases every shot, sizing only the first few hundredths inch of the case mouth, precision seating dies and bullets that are made by elves, spin balanced like a race car tires, and cost $3 each.

Then you take all weekend to load up a batch, get to the range and find out Winchester black box does just as good!

Or even worse, some guy out shoots you and tells you he is shooting pulled military hard ball and reloading it with a Dillon automatic hooked to a lawn mower engine!

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## crashdive123

Something to look forward to.

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## crashdive123

> hmmm.  Long distance shooting... I can't see well enough to clip my toenails.


Neither can I.  Good glass helps a lot.

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## kyratshooter

Yes, I never cared for scopes on my rifles until I hit middle age and suddenly everything got small and very fuzzy!

Would you believe that "middle age" was now a lifetime ago?

As time goes on the magnifications get higher and higher too!  Even my spotting scope for 200-300 yard work is now a 400x beast!  I can get by with the 100x setting for 100 yard work.

I always get a kick out of still young"bare gun shooters" who don't trust those new-fangled pieces of two hundred year old technology.

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## 2dumb2kwit

It's all fun and games, until you realize that a 5 mph cross breeze will move your point of impact almost 4 feet over, at 1,000 yds. LOL

 Oh.....and it was kind of a shock, to realize that you have to wait for the bullet to get to the target, 1,000 yards down range.  (With what I was shooting, it was right at 2 seconds, which is longer than you think.)  LOL

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## Rick

Is 2 seconds longer in North Caroline than it is in the Midwest? I've heard of New York seconds being quicker but never heard of Carolina seconds being longer. Learn something every day.

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## 2dumb2kwit

> Is 2 seconds longer in North Caroline than it is in the Midwest? I've heard of New York seconds being quicker but never heard of Carolina seconds being longer. Learn something every day.


 When I say 2 seconds, I'm judging by counting 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi. Have you ever heard us southerners talk?

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## madmax

snort... that was purty good.

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## kyratshooter

Yea, we don't rush anything in the south, even a two second count!

Does one have enough time after the trigger pull to eat a samich before the bullet hits at 1000 yards?

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## 2dumb2kwit

> Yea, we don't rush anything in the south, even a two second count!
> 
> Does one have enough time after the trigger pull to eat a samich before the bullet hits at 1000 yards?


 Sounds tricky, but there  are some big ol' boys 'round here that might just be able to do it. LOL

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## highlo

I've always wondered how you expect to get animals or people to hold STILL while you do all the necessary calculations? Cause if they are moving, nobody can reliably  hit them, at anything like  800 yds. They just know that they lose nothing by trying. If I had a gun to their heads and they knew that I was  going to brain them if they missed, nobody'd shoot at a live, man sized target, who can MOVE,  beyond 400m, even without any wind or mirage. Dangerous men know better than to be holding still, in the open, in daylight, during hostilities. The above is why they try to snipe men who are relieving themselves, especially number 2, cause they know you'll be holding STILL for a while!  Murphy says that when you actually HAVE to hit a man or animal, not only will it be moving, it will be windy, raining, cold and DARK. Which means 200m as the outside range.

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## fkoso

Very cool! I've been mulling over picking up the same rifle but with a different scope.

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## Hummer70

Medium range is considered 600 yards by NRA Highpower Competition Div and long range is 800, 900 and 1000 yards.  Its lots of fun to learn what the wind and mirage will do to you.

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## Rick

I've seen mirages before but it was usually after drinking apple pie.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

> Very cool!  I've been mulling over picking up the same rifle but with a different scope.


And then......

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

> Very cool! I've been mulling over picking up the same rifle but with a different scope.


Veeeeelly Intelesting...





Alan

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## crashdive123

Yeah it was.  It was a Ukainian...probably looking for Hunter.

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## Hummer70

In NRA competition mid range is considered 600 yards and long range 800, 900 and 1000 yards.  It is hard to find the longer ranges for competition.  You don't need a magnum as the medium capacity cases  such as 308, 30.06, 6.5X06, will do the job.  In the Palma Trophy match you are restricted to 308 Win only.

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## VnVet

> This is where that thing about "long range" being a subjective term enters the discussion.
> 
> A precision made rifle shooting high quality ammo in .22lr can be just as accurate as a 6.5, out to 100 yards.
> 
> We have guys at my club that shoot ping-pong balls at 200 yards with .22lr.  
> 
> There is also the occasional rifle that comes out of the box shooting little bitty groups, even using factory ammo.
> 
> And one thing is certain, it will be the quality, selection building and tuning of the ammo that determines just how well someone shoots one of the big bore long range rifles.
> ...




As usual, well said!!

When any projectile or aircraft goes from supersonic to subsonic; there is a vibration that induces a wobble. 

For those who are interested:
https://www.accurateshooter.com/ball...-stability-bc/




> When a bullet slows to transonic speed, it is approaching the sound barrier. This has a destabilizing effect on spin-stabilized projectiles, which is not good.


https://panthaera.wixsite.com/tacdiv...llet-Stability

Whenever any object goes from supersonic to subsonic there is a destabilizing vibration or oscillation and it's just that simple.

https://bulletin.accurateshooter.com...y-and-accuracy

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## crashdive123

Kind of lke me running as I slow down. :Innocent:  :Wheelchair:

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

I thought about running the other day...  Got pretty tired...

Alan

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## kyratshooter

I hit that trans-sonic wall just thinking about hauling all that gear from the vehicle to the shooting bench these days. 

I dragged out an old black powder rifle to play with a couple of days ago and can not develop the momentum to find all the BP gear it takes to make one go boom!

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## crashdive123

See!!!!!!!  That's what I'm talking about.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

My biggest issue with the BP stuff is after I run about 10 shots and have had enough, then spend an hour doing clean up.  

I've got an old Trade Gun that probably got fired 130 years ago or more (probably more) and then propped in the corner.  It's going to take some soaking in ATF for about  a year before I can get the breech plug what's left of the nipple out.  I haven't started on it yet.... someday....

Alan

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## VnVet

My last job before I retired was forced induction. One of the aerodynamic engineers explained the trans-sonic wall to me. He even used CFD software to demonstrate it to me. However, he didn't add to what I already knew that is if the projectile stayed super sonic all the way to the target; it was unimportant. As Forest Gump said "One less thing."

I have 45-70  trapdoor Springfield rifles and I reload them using smokeless powder. No thanks to the long clean up times.

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## Deimos

I clean my guns at least once per week, but I don't have many guns.
Rigth now I have a 9mm pistol (for everyday carry), a .22LR a .22 PCP, a .22 springer and a crossbow.
Different tools for different jobs.

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## kyratshooter

I am not one that worries excessively about "cleaning" as long as there is no quicksand down the bore or weed seeds mixed with 10w40 inside the receiver of my shotgun.  Cleaning a gun and really cleaning a gun are two separate operations and neither are needed as much as people attest.

Back a few decades ago most of the world had sanctions placed on South Africa.  There was no firearms importation allowed, even sporting rifles/handguns.

The actual result of that was that SA developed a pretty innovative small arms industry due to having to fight a terrorist war on three fronts at the time.

At any rate there were some shooting clubs that had club owned guns that were used as "loaners" for target use on the range.  When you checked one out you bought your ammo from the range and they kept track of the rounds put through the guns.

One of the clubs had two Ruger Standard Simi-auto .22lr pistols with a recorded 1,000,000+ rounds put through each of them over the course of several decades of sanctions.  No parts breakage, and one instructor claimed that neither of them had ever been cleaned.

Back in 1959 a Remington rep named Tom Frye used 4 Remington Nylon 66 rifles and Remington "Golden Bullet" .22 ammo, to break 100,004 wooden blocks (he shot at 100,010), thrown into the air, in a two week endurance test.  None of the rifles were cleaned during the test.  He only missed 4 blocks.  People were worried that a "plastic rifle" would not hold up back in '59.  He had to use 4 rifles because they kept burning his hands and he had to let them cool off!

I am not a .22lr lover but I do have a dedicated .22 "survival rifle". Guess what it is?

I know several long range, and short range, target shooters that would have heart failure if you threatened to clean their rifles!  They know it is going to take 20-100 rounds to get the bore back into pristine shooting condition. 

Many shooting matches also allow a "fouling shot" to dirty up the bore a bit and check zero.  There are also some Simi-auto rifles that do not shoot a bullet chambered by hand to the same point that they send a bullet chambered by the operating cycle.

Now Black powder is a different matter, but not as finicky as some believe.  Of course I am speaking from the perspective of a person owning lots of PB Blaster and several bottles of carb and brake cleaner!  I sometimes use carb cleaner to break up fouling so I can keep pushing loads down the bore, or keep the cylinder turning on my BP revolvers.

In some climates BP will rust on the way home, but I usually spray down my BP guns with WD40 just to prevent such things.  They get the hot water treatment eventually, or they get run through the dishwasher if they will fit.

At any rate, I am not a phobic gun cleaner.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

The dishwasher. Hmmmmmm?  I wonder if I could get away with that?

Alan

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## VnVet

Whatever works for anyone is best for them.

I used to compete here: http://www.pa1000yard.com. This was way back when life was a lot less expensive. There are 7000 grains in a pound; my BR rifle used 86.5 a shot or 81 shots per pound. At today's prices; no thanks. 

Most competitive rifle shooters are anal about cleanliness. However, they also will shoot a few fouling shots to return the rifle to its peak accuracy before competing My BR rifle with as close to possible clean barrel shoots high. 
Others swear their rifle shoots the same no matter how dirty its bore is; however, mine don't and as mentioned it is about what works for me. 

The Ruger 10/22 is fantastic; however, who has heard of the Remington Nylon 66?
https://www.shootingtimes.com/editor...nylon-66/99187

Because it was cheap blasting ammo; I used to shoot a lot of Russian ammo that is corrosive and I still have spam cans of it. 

Here's an interesting article about .22 RF ammo:
https://www.americanrifleman.org/con...ut-22-rimfire/

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## VnVet

The best weapon cleaning areas I ever seen where in Vietnam. Each infantry company had a weapons cleaning area was equipped with tanks of solvent, cleaning rods, brushes and chamber brushes attached to a rod with a handle to scrub the chamber.. There was angled boards with a fine sandpaper to scrub the outer diameter of the M60's gas piston and a cutting tool that cleaned the carbon from its ports. Special bore brushes for the 40 mm grenade launchers. 
Each company had a 2nd echelon armorer who replaced any worn parts or addressed any issues, period. 
When the war fighters where in base camp? Although, there certainly wasn't any white glove inspections. Their weapons were the first thing they cleaned before getting drunk, hitting the PX (today's base exchange) or chasing the bar girls.

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## Alan R McDaniel Jr

For many yearsI have used a method that works very well for me.  I don't clean the bores or guts of 22 rifles.  I keep my hunting rifles clear of grit or powder residue (but not squeaky clean).  I will wipe the metal down with oil and the stock appropriate to its material.  I clean the bores with Hoppes #9 and Mobile 1.  Finally, I run an oil soaked (not dripping) through the bore and put it away.  On the morning of the hunt I fun a dry rag through the bore and go hunting.  The first shot is really all I'm worried about and my rifles are sighted for that shot from a cold, clean dry bore.  In most cases the second shot, if there is one, is on target as well.  

Guns that are not used regularly were cleaned long ago and require only a wipe down and a slightly oiled rag through the bore.  

Shotguns are the same.  

Contrary to common practices my EDC guns are kept in a functionally clean state.  I hardly ever disassemble a firearm completely (or even partially) unless there is something wrong with it.

Alan

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## VnVet

Infantry units in combat weapons see the extremes very few civilian firearms will ever see. Simply because there isn't a need. Very few of us including me will run magazine after magazine through a FA. I've seen a M60's "flash suppressor" warped from firing many rounds.

When I put a firearm into the safe; I use CLP or a similar product to protect the bare steel. Before I shoot it, I run a clean patch or two through the bore. As it isn't a competitive match shooting, no fouling shot or shots are required. 

I'm well past anal when it comes to firearm's cleanliness because it is my choice. Again, whatever works for anyone works for them.

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