Executive summary: I love this place!
Until yesterday, my shooting experience was limited to 200 yards. Mifflin goes all the way to 1000. Though the only precision rifle I have is a Savage 10FP .223, I thought I'd give it a try. A fellow Taiwanese gun nut also wants to put his newly acquired 700 SS 5R to a good test. So, we headed out Sunday despite the weather and took the 3 hour drive to Mifflin.
The facility is pretty well-kept, given its non-commercial nature. Annual membership is downright inexpensive at $45. Even if I only get to go twice or three times a year, it's worth it.
Initially, we posted targets at 200 and 500 yards to get on paper progressively before going further. I had no problem at 200 yards with my 10FP, but at 500 I was only sure that my bullets landed within PA. I couldn't get any shot on the shoot-n-see targets. The large color papers I posted to help with zeroing don't show bullet holes on the 50x riflescope we used for spotting.
After a long trial and error process, we found out that my elevation adjustment was 1.75 MOA too high. That was calculated by the iPhone Ballistic program using default conditions. I think the location, target elevation, and ambient conditions must have all contributed to the error.
After getting the elevation right, I still had serious windage issues. The problem being that I can't read wind worth a darn. My Sierra 69gr SMK can drift as much as 15 inches with a gentle 5 mph wind, so it's critical to compensate correctly. Sadly, this is something I have yet to master, and I only managed a couple of 0.3 MOA groups when there was no wind. The rest were all over the place.
With my pathetic performance, I gave up on trying 1000 yards. My buddy, however, did pretty well both at 500 and 1000. Like me, he had trouble getting on paper at first. His ballistic table was calculated at 2,600 fps. We set up the chrony and found out that his hand loads were actually around 2,700 fps. I generated a new set of values using my iPhone for him, and that helped.
After that, it was smooth sailing for my friend. His smallest group size at 500 was around 0.5 MOA, but he was able to score hits with a lot more consistency. He also managed to hit a gong (perhaps 1' diameter?) and other metallic targets at 1000 yards. It was a new experience seeing bullet paths and target reaction a couple of seconds after the bang.
The folks there are very friendly and helpful. One gentleman briefed us on the target placement and exact range without having to ask. They also waited patiently when we drove up 3 times to change targets. I'd love to make this my home range if only I live closer.
I did some recalculations based on those conditions above, and got a new windage correction of 10.46 MOA. That was just 0.5 MOA more than the actual setting. Lesson of the day: we engineers like to assume it's close enough, but sometimes it just ain't.
Until yesterday, my shooting experience was limited to 200 yards. Mifflin goes all the way to 1000. Though the only precision rifle I have is a Savage 10FP .223, I thought I'd give it a try. A fellow Taiwanese gun nut also wants to put his newly acquired 700 SS 5R to a good test. So, we headed out Sunday despite the weather and took the 3 hour drive to Mifflin.
The facility is pretty well-kept, given its non-commercial nature. Annual membership is downright inexpensive at $45. Even if I only get to go twice or three times a year, it's worth it.
Initially, we posted targets at 200 and 500 yards to get on paper progressively before going further. I had no problem at 200 yards with my 10FP, but at 500 I was only sure that my bullets landed within PA. I couldn't get any shot on the shoot-n-see targets. The large color papers I posted to help with zeroing don't show bullet holes on the 50x riflescope we used for spotting.
After a long trial and error process, we found out that my elevation adjustment was 1.75 MOA too high. That was calculated by the iPhone Ballistic program using default conditions. I think the location, target elevation, and ambient conditions must have all contributed to the error.
After getting the elevation right, I still had serious windage issues. The problem being that I can't read wind worth a darn. My Sierra 69gr SMK can drift as much as 15 inches with a gentle 5 mph wind, so it's critical to compensate correctly. Sadly, this is something I have yet to master, and I only managed a couple of 0.3 MOA groups when there was no wind. The rest were all over the place.
With my pathetic performance, I gave up on trying 1000 yards. My buddy, however, did pretty well both at 500 and 1000. Like me, he had trouble getting on paper at first. His ballistic table was calculated at 2,600 fps. We set up the chrony and found out that his hand loads were actually around 2,700 fps. I generated a new set of values using my iPhone for him, and that helped.
After that, it was smooth sailing for my friend. His smallest group size at 500 was around 0.5 MOA, but he was able to score hits with a lot more consistency. He also managed to hit a gong (perhaps 1' diameter?) and other metallic targets at 1000 yards. It was a new experience seeing bullet paths and target reaction a couple of seconds after the bang.
The folks there are very friendly and helpful. One gentleman briefed us on the target placement and exact range without having to ask. They also waited patiently when we drove up 3 times to change targets. I'd love to make this my home range if only I live closer.
I did some recalculations based on those conditions above, and got a new windage correction of 10.46 MOA. That was just 0.5 MOA more than the actual setting. Lesson of the day: we engineers like to assume it's close enough, but sometimes it just ain't.
