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Hi All,
Just thought I'd let you know how the Grendel performed at 600 and 1,000 yards the other day.
The North State Shooting Club in Butner, NC (http://www.northstateshootingclub.com/newindex.htm) had a warmup match Friday 6/15/12 for the NRA Long Range Regional, and matches Saturday and Sunday.
The NSSC has a great bunch of people and their practices and matches are open to anyone. There are some very friendly, top notch shooters there, and you can learn a lot.
If you are in the VA, NC, SC area, check them out. Their schedule for the year is here: http://www.northstateshootingclub.co...ch_Program.pdf
They shoot on a 1,000 yard known distance (KD) range at Camp Butner, a National Guard training facility in Butner, NC.
Some of the guys told me they normally have more events but they haven't been able to schedule as many this year because the Guard is prepping units for deployment.
I've never really been a competition shooter, so I just wanted to get some long range shooting in with the Grendel and this is one of the few facilities where you can do that in Eastern NC.
I ended up learning a lot about doping the wind, neck tensioning, etc. from some of the guys there, so it was well worth it just for that.
Anyway, on Friday the warm up consisted of two 600 yard matches with 2 sighter shots and 20 for record shots in a 20 minute period.
That was followed by a 1,000 yard match with unlimited sighters and 20 for record shots in 30 minutes.
I had shot there at 600 before and had good results (for me anyway) at 600. My scope got screwed up and I didn't get good data at 1,000. So I was looking forward to trying 1,000 yards again.
I was shooting a Grendel with a 20 inch Satern barrel, 1:8.5 twist. They don't allow any muzzle devices on the line there, so I had nothing on the end but a thread protector. The rifle has a PRS stock, plain vanilla Harris bipod, Geissle trigger, and a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 with Mil reticle on a LaRue LT-158 mount with 10 MOA of down angle.
With that setup I shot as an F-Class shooter, prone, using the bipod and a sand bag under the butt.
There was no way I was going to be competitive with guys shooting purpose built F-Class rifles, but I was there to have fun and the guys there helped me get the most out of my gear.
I was shooting Hornady 123 AMax bullets hand loaded with 30.5 grains of AA2520 powder. C.O.L of 2.26
The conditions were nice, Sunny, 81 degrees, but the wind was a little dicey swinging at random from 10 to 2 o'clock all day, and gusting from 5 to 12 mph.
I had no trouble, as before, at 600 yards. My rifle is zeroed at 300 yards and I had to come up 3.4 mils to get on target at 600 yards.
I only have one arm so prone shooting is a little bit of a challenge for me. I shoot off of a table at my home club. So I spent a lot of the day trying to get a good body position so I didn't feel like I was doing one armed push ups.
Putting a sandbag under my empty shoulder helped, but I still ended up getting a lot of trembling after laying there for 10 or 15 minutes. By the end of the day I had figured out a few good techniques that I need to practice at home for the next time.
So, you guys can probably do much better than I did with similar gear.
By the second 600 yard match, I was in the bull once and 10 ring a few times but yanked a few shots and only got a 160 out of 200. But I was just glad to be shooting in the black.
The guy scoring for me was wondering if the Grendel would even make it to 1,000 yards with a 20 inch barrel without tumbling. He asked some of the other experienced shooters and they were pretty sure it would. I've seen videos from several guys on this forum shooting at 1,000 yards, so I though I had a good chance.
After the problems I had the last time I tried 1,000, though, I was not 100% sure the bullets weren't tumbling.
When my time came to shoot I cranked in another 7.0 mils on the scope from the 600 yard setting. The tables I had said 6.0 mils would do it, but they had been optimistic before.
It took me 7 shots to get in the black, and I ended up putting 8.0 mils on the scope to get it dead on target from the 600 yard setting.
Since it was a warmup match the guy keeping score for me was allowed to coach me and after he figured out that he had to look a lot higher to see the vapor trails than with the 308's and 7mm F-class guns, he waked me right onto the target.
With the wind out there, the light, relatively slow 6.5mm bullet, looked like a curve ball being thrown.
Anyway, after I got sighted in with the first 10 shots, I shot 92 out of a 100 on the last 10 shots, with several X's and 10 ring shots. The 10 ring on the F-Class 1,000 yard target is 10 inches in diameter.
I was helped a lot on the last 10 shots since the wind stayed relatively constant. I had also worked out a body position that reduced the fatigue and trembling.
The guy coaching and scoring for me was having more fun than I was. He couldn't believe that a Grendel on an AR-15 frame with a 20 inch barrel could shoot like that.
Like I say, I'm not going to be a competitive F-Class shooter with a 20 inch Grendel, but it was fun!
With this setup, load, and bullet, I have to come up 0.5 mil to go from 100 to 200 yards. Come up for 300 yards is 1.0 mil from the 200 yard setting.
To go from 300 to 600 yards I have to add 3.4 mils to the scope. To go to 1,000 yards I have to add 8.0 mils to the 600 yard setting.
That's a total of 12.9 mils from 100 to 1,000 yards. That's a drop of 464 inches, or about 38 feet.
With my scope and a 10 MOA mount, that gets me to within 4 clicks of the very top of the scope adjustment (1/10th mil clicks).
So you may want to get a 20 MOA mount if you want to shoot to 1,000 yards or beyond, or if you want to shoot heavier bullets to those ranges.
The ballistic tables I used with Hornady's published .510 BC for the 123 AMax weren't very accurate.
The best I could come up with using Ammo Guide's calculator was using a G1 BC of .420 and a muzzle velocity of 2500 fps. That matches the drops I observed. With Hornady's ballistic calculator (http://www.hornady.com/ballistics-re...ics-calculator), using a BC of .450 and a muzzle velocity of 2500 fps gives about the same results.
These were shot at a temp of 81F, altitude 800 feet.
That predicts the bullet will be going about 1,116 feet per second at 1,000 yards.
I ended up using 1.2 mils of windage adjustment for an estimated 7 mph wind at half value (10 o'clock) which was about 43 inches at 1,000 yards. That tracked pretty close to the table's windage estimation (41 inches) using 2500 fps and a BC of .420.
RR
Just thought I'd let you know how the Grendel performed at 600 and 1,000 yards the other day.
The North State Shooting Club in Butner, NC (http://www.northstateshootingclub.com/newindex.htm) had a warmup match Friday 6/15/12 for the NRA Long Range Regional, and matches Saturday and Sunday.
The NSSC has a great bunch of people and their practices and matches are open to anyone. There are some very friendly, top notch shooters there, and you can learn a lot.
If you are in the VA, NC, SC area, check them out. Their schedule for the year is here: http://www.northstateshootingclub.co...ch_Program.pdf
They shoot on a 1,000 yard known distance (KD) range at Camp Butner, a National Guard training facility in Butner, NC.
Some of the guys told me they normally have more events but they haven't been able to schedule as many this year because the Guard is prepping units for deployment.
I've never really been a competition shooter, so I just wanted to get some long range shooting in with the Grendel and this is one of the few facilities where you can do that in Eastern NC.
I ended up learning a lot about doping the wind, neck tensioning, etc. from some of the guys there, so it was well worth it just for that.
Anyway, on Friday the warm up consisted of two 600 yard matches with 2 sighter shots and 20 for record shots in a 20 minute period.
That was followed by a 1,000 yard match with unlimited sighters and 20 for record shots in 30 minutes.
I had shot there at 600 before and had good results (for me anyway) at 600. My scope got screwed up and I didn't get good data at 1,000. So I was looking forward to trying 1,000 yards again.
I was shooting a Grendel with a 20 inch Satern barrel, 1:8.5 twist. They don't allow any muzzle devices on the line there, so I had nothing on the end but a thread protector. The rifle has a PRS stock, plain vanilla Harris bipod, Geissle trigger, and a Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 with Mil reticle on a LaRue LT-158 mount with 10 MOA of down angle.
With that setup I shot as an F-Class shooter, prone, using the bipod and a sand bag under the butt.
There was no way I was going to be competitive with guys shooting purpose built F-Class rifles, but I was there to have fun and the guys there helped me get the most out of my gear.
I was shooting Hornady 123 AMax bullets hand loaded with 30.5 grains of AA2520 powder. C.O.L of 2.26
The conditions were nice, Sunny, 81 degrees, but the wind was a little dicey swinging at random from 10 to 2 o'clock all day, and gusting from 5 to 12 mph.
I had no trouble, as before, at 600 yards. My rifle is zeroed at 300 yards and I had to come up 3.4 mils to get on target at 600 yards.
I only have one arm so prone shooting is a little bit of a challenge for me. I shoot off of a table at my home club. So I spent a lot of the day trying to get a good body position so I didn't feel like I was doing one armed push ups.
Putting a sandbag under my empty shoulder helped, but I still ended up getting a lot of trembling after laying there for 10 or 15 minutes. By the end of the day I had figured out a few good techniques that I need to practice at home for the next time.
So, you guys can probably do much better than I did with similar gear.
By the second 600 yard match, I was in the bull once and 10 ring a few times but yanked a few shots and only got a 160 out of 200. But I was just glad to be shooting in the black.
The guy scoring for me was wondering if the Grendel would even make it to 1,000 yards with a 20 inch barrel without tumbling. He asked some of the other experienced shooters and they were pretty sure it would. I've seen videos from several guys on this forum shooting at 1,000 yards, so I though I had a good chance.
After the problems I had the last time I tried 1,000, though, I was not 100% sure the bullets weren't tumbling.
When my time came to shoot I cranked in another 7.0 mils on the scope from the 600 yard setting. The tables I had said 6.0 mils would do it, but they had been optimistic before.
It took me 7 shots to get in the black, and I ended up putting 8.0 mils on the scope to get it dead on target from the 600 yard setting.
Since it was a warmup match the guy keeping score for me was allowed to coach me and after he figured out that he had to look a lot higher to see the vapor trails than with the 308's and 7mm F-class guns, he waked me right onto the target.
With the wind out there, the light, relatively slow 6.5mm bullet, looked like a curve ball being thrown.
Anyway, after I got sighted in with the first 10 shots, I shot 92 out of a 100 on the last 10 shots, with several X's and 10 ring shots. The 10 ring on the F-Class 1,000 yard target is 10 inches in diameter.
I was helped a lot on the last 10 shots since the wind stayed relatively constant. I had also worked out a body position that reduced the fatigue and trembling.
The guy coaching and scoring for me was having more fun than I was. He couldn't believe that a Grendel on an AR-15 frame with a 20 inch barrel could shoot like that.
Like I say, I'm not going to be a competitive F-Class shooter with a 20 inch Grendel, but it was fun!
With this setup, load, and bullet, I have to come up 0.5 mil to go from 100 to 200 yards. Come up for 300 yards is 1.0 mil from the 200 yard setting.
To go from 300 to 600 yards I have to add 3.4 mils to the scope. To go to 1,000 yards I have to add 8.0 mils to the 600 yard setting.
That's a total of 12.9 mils from 100 to 1,000 yards. That's a drop of 464 inches, or about 38 feet.
With my scope and a 10 MOA mount, that gets me to within 4 clicks of the very top of the scope adjustment (1/10th mil clicks).
So you may want to get a 20 MOA mount if you want to shoot to 1,000 yards or beyond, or if you want to shoot heavier bullets to those ranges.
The ballistic tables I used with Hornady's published .510 BC for the 123 AMax weren't very accurate.
The best I could come up with using Ammo Guide's calculator was using a G1 BC of .420 and a muzzle velocity of 2500 fps. That matches the drops I observed. With Hornady's ballistic calculator (http://www.hornady.com/ballistics-re...ics-calculator), using a BC of .450 and a muzzle velocity of 2500 fps gives about the same results.
These were shot at a temp of 81F, altitude 800 feet.
That predicts the bullet will be going about 1,116 feet per second at 1,000 yards.
I ended up using 1.2 mils of windage adjustment for an estimated 7 mph wind at half value (10 o'clock) which was about 43 inches at 1,000 yards. That tracked pretty close to the table's windage estimation (41 inches) using 2500 fps and a BC of .420.
RR
...Thank's again....Rick
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