After pretty much getting rained out back in September, I went back to Wyoming this week with the .284 Shehane for another attempt at the 1 mile prairie dog kill. The weather was beautiful Sunday afternoon with hardly a breeze stirring and I couldn't wait for my VHA spotter (Brian Kelly from California) to get there, so I set up at what I thought was a mile and the gun was singing. I made several shots in a row on an active mound (at what my GPS said was a mile) that all looked like hits, but none left a dead dog lying on the mound. I went out to check for blood and found that I had indeed made a hit (see photo). My spotter Brian got there five minutes later and I took him out and showed him. We lasered the distance at 1644 yards the next morning (Monday).
I made several very, very close shots Monday morning before the mirage got too bad and then I spent the rest of the day helping my spotter learn to shoot long distance. (He had been amazed by my 1296 yard shot a year and a half ago and wanted to see how that could be done, so we have been planning to meet in Wyoming for a shoot ever since.) He killed several dogs out to 380 yards that day. He said they were the first living things he had ever shot with a gun.
The next morning (Tuesday) we set up for the mile shot early and I shot 48 rounds all together. Both of us saw the dog in the second photo vanish without the usual flash as they jump down the hole. Brian said, "It looked like you hit that one. Do you want to go and check for blood?" I said no, I'm going to shoot at the ones on the next mound over while they are still there. We both forgot about going out to check on this one after a half hour of concentrating on other shots. The cows knocked down my 1 mile marker flag (maybe it was the red driveway reflector on it) so we went out to fix it and found out that I DID kill that dog! The shot had knocked it just over the mound far enough that we couldn't see it from the bench. It lasered out to 1820 yards, or 1 mile and 60 yards.
I spent the rest of the day spotting for Brian again and he finally nailed one at 593 yards, which will get him into the 500 yard club. He kept complaining about how little they looked in the scope at 15x, so I cranked him up to 25x (which changed the holdover) and that helped him a lot. He couldn't see his own hits anyway like I had been doing at a mile. Wednesday morning I fired about 20 rounds at 2000 yards and I let him see what they looked like at that distance at 12x, which was where I was shooting. He couldn't believe I could even shoot at them that way. To be honest, I often had to crank the magnification up to 25x to see where they were and then back down to 12x for the shot. The Schmidt and Bender FFP 50x PMII was great with the 20 MOA rail. I was able to get out to 2000 yards with it with no problem, but because of recoil and trying to see my own hits to confirm that we saw the same thing, I was shooting at 12x. That makes the field of view wide enough that you can get the gun back in place enough to see the hit in the five seconds it takes the bullet to get there.
I made several very, very close shots Monday morning before the mirage got too bad and then I spent the rest of the day helping my spotter learn to shoot long distance. (He had been amazed by my 1296 yard shot a year and a half ago and wanted to see how that could be done, so we have been planning to meet in Wyoming for a shoot ever since.) He killed several dogs out to 380 yards that day. He said they were the first living things he had ever shot with a gun.
The next morning (Tuesday) we set up for the mile shot early and I shot 48 rounds all together. Both of us saw the dog in the second photo vanish without the usual flash as they jump down the hole. Brian said, "It looked like you hit that one. Do you want to go and check for blood?" I said no, I'm going to shoot at the ones on the next mound over while they are still there. We both forgot about going out to check on this one after a half hour of concentrating on other shots. The cows knocked down my 1 mile marker flag (maybe it was the red driveway reflector on it) so we went out to fix it and found out that I DID kill that dog! The shot had knocked it just over the mound far enough that we couldn't see it from the bench. It lasered out to 1820 yards, or 1 mile and 60 yards.
I spent the rest of the day spotting for Brian again and he finally nailed one at 593 yards, which will get him into the 500 yard club. He kept complaining about how little they looked in the scope at 15x, so I cranked him up to 25x (which changed the holdover) and that helped him a lot. He couldn't see his own hits anyway like I had been doing at a mile. Wednesday morning I fired about 20 rounds at 2000 yards and I let him see what they looked like at that distance at 12x, which was where I was shooting. He couldn't believe I could even shoot at them that way. To be honest, I often had to crank the magnification up to 25x to see where they were and then back down to 12x for the shot. The Schmidt and Bender FFP 50x PMII was great with the 20 MOA rail. I was able to get out to 2000 yards with it with no problem, but because of recoil and trying to see my own hits to confirm that we saw the same thing, I was shooting at 12x. That makes the field of view wide enough that you can get the gun back in place enough to see the hit in the five seconds it takes the bullet to get there.
;D
