100 Yards in the wind with .30 FX Wildcat Mk2
I thought that my Challenge shooters would be interested in what its like to shoot at 100 yards - without a rifle range. I know that not all you guys have the opportunity to shoot at longer distances.
This .30 Wildcat shoots sub 1/2" groups at 40 yards. I've shared with Tommy. But you don't have a .30 caliber to shoot at 40 yards. Pellets do really well out to about 75-80 yards. Beyond 80 yards it gets really tough for pellets - you have to have a really good 100-yard tune on the rifle and you have to be really good at reading (guessing) the wind - as the wind direction and speed can vary a huge amount over 100 yards. This is especially true if you are shooting from an open area into a wooded area - as I am doing.
Here I do something that nobody else will do on AGN... I'm showing you EVERY SHOT I took at 100 yards on Friday !!
I believe that I can get this Wildcat shooting great at 100 yards. I'm still getting used to it - the trigger is actually breaking pretty nicely for an FX. All shots are via the 7-shot magazines - which is unusual for me as I always single shot load - but the MK2 Wildcat does not lend itself to single shot loading.
I got to my brother's too late in the morning - about 10:40. Wind conditions were pretty good for the 1st targets (black 3" splatters) and gradually picked up. The 2nd set of targets were the rotating 4 white dots. My intent was to shoot them one shot per target (like in competition) and adjust hold to try to hit the white dots. Unfortunately, I had to hold on the white dots for all 20 shots - because I could not see my holes in the cardboard well enough. This was with an awesome Sightron 45X scope - but the woods were keeping the target cardboard too dark to see well. I tried setting up a flashlight on the target and it helped a bit.
After the rotating targets, I shot the Paper Plate #1. I took 2 sighters and then went for the 2" blue splatter target - hit it 9 out of 10 times - I was happy with that!
In the time it took to walk out the 100 yards to change to Paper Plate #2, the wind got ugly - gusting to I guess 20mph. You can see I set up a little sighter dot down low on PP #2 - my first sighter almost missed the plate! The wind was also pushing my shots down. I'm proud of the results on PP #2 - the wind was significantly tougher than any I've seen at the 100 yard competitions that I've shot in.
Finally - for you guys to really see what you are dealing with when you shoot pellets long distances - I pulled out the .22 FX PowerPup shooting JTS 22.07g at 910fps. You have seen that this rifle/pellet combo has been shooting 195+ 40-Masters cards lately. It shoots 1/4" groups at 40 yards. I left the scope adjusted for 40 and shot 5-shot groups at 50, 60 and 75 yards. This was ugly wind. I tried to wait out for lulls, but I was painstaking - the 5 shots at 75 took 12-15 minutes. At that point I was toast and packed up.
Take a look at the 50, 60 and 75 yard groups - they show the drop that a 910-914fps pellet experiences over those distance changes. You can imagine at 100 yards. Basically, I think of 100 yard pellet shooting as similar to launching mini-mortars at your target - the pellets are traveling quite an arc. I'll try the PowerPup at 100 with the .22 JTS 22.07g soon - 75 looks good in the wind, but its past 80 yards that things fall apart for smaller pellets - heck, even for .30 caliber.
If anyone has questions on shooting at 100, just shoot me a PM.
-Ed
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