Range Session 25NOV2008

I couldn't wait to get back out to the range after my session on 21NOV, so I made a quick trip out after work on 25NOV2008 and got some of it on video (see top video at side bar). It turned out to be a good day to go because at one point the wind dropped off to near zero, just when I was setting up for the 800 meter shots. I brought both the laminate stocked, SVT scoped 1944 Izhevsk M91/30 PU sniper rifle and the 1953 Hungarian FEG M52 PU sniper rifle with the Chinese code 833 scope. As I had both of them shooting and hitting on the previous outing, I decided to concentrate on one at a time this session for fine tuning to achieve maximum precision. I ended up shooting only the Russian this time out.

In my videos after the shots I look through the spotting scope to see my hits. Often this takes a bit of time because i'm trying to see and figure out where I hit. A lot of the time I cannot tell. I have a bit of a hard time seeing some of my hits, especially if they were in the white painted part of the metal plates. It seems I picked out some pretty good white spray paint as it does not chip away upon bullet strike. Rather the bullet makes a small silver mark where it hits and then there is a grayish splat pattern, especially at the 6-800 meter ranges. The little silver mark does not make much of contrast with the white. The orange paint seems to chip away better leaving a bit of dark or black looking strike mark where paint is removed around the strike. I will try something different next time. I know I am hitting because I can hear the metal strike sound but it is a bit frustrating not to know exactly where the shot hit. I can see my shots hit to a limited degree through my 3.5x scope because it does not move to far off target upon recoil. Mostly all this is good for is if I miss the target completly and can see a dirt or rock puff of dust on one side, infront of, or over the target. Keep in mind through that 3.5x scope an 8 inch square at 800 meters looks just like a 1 inch square at 100 meters. Often I cannot see exactly what was happening until I go home and view the video at high resolution. I may set something up where I can use the video camera as my spotter by bringing my laptop out with me to get high resolution playback right after I take the shot. I'll place the laptop and camera right next to me at my shooting position so I can stop and rewind the 50x video and see playback on the laptop screen.

More to come.

Safe Shooting, John