[Jeff Higgins]

Just back from a week in Eastern Washington, near the small "town" of Ruff (like Alois...) where my old hunting partner just bought some property. We are building our own shooting range. The furthest target, as it now stands, is a 10" dia AR500 steel gong placed at 800 yards. This has proven to be an interesting challenge.

My long range riflery experience centers upon the old Creedmoor match rifles and "buffalo" rifles of the 1870's. While these rifles are amazingly accurate at those ranges, their sighting systems are wholly dependent upon having targets that are visible through peep sights, obviously with no magnification. The "long range" NRA target, for example, has a six foot diameter black, which includes the "six" ring. The "ten" ring is 20" dia, and the "X" ring is 10" dia. So, essentially, we were looking at a gong the size of the "X" ring. Impossible to even see through peeps at that range.

So, out came his Howa "chassis" rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor with its Leupold Mark V scope. This thing has a first plane reticle with MOA graduations on the lower and horizontal crosshairs. Zeroing at 200 yards with a 140 grain Nosler match bullet featuring a very high BC, we found that with 18 minutes of holdover, we could ring that 10" gong fairly consistently.

This is a new game for me to be playing. Moderate velocity, very high BC bullets, and using a range finder along with ballistics charts to calculate elevation corrections for truly long range hits. To me, modern centerfire "long" range has always been something like the .220 Swift, wherein we strive for maximum velocity in an effort to "flatten" trajectories. Well, this only really works at limited range. In the Swift's case, maybe 400 yards (with a 300 yard zero) on larger "varmints" like coyotes. The idea is to hold dead-on, with no elevation compensation, for as long of a range as possible.

Modern optics and range finders have completely changed the nature of this game. Now that we can easily "range" any given target, and adjust the scope accordingly, trajectory is meaningless. Interesting, to me anyway, is the notion that we have gone full circle. Back in the heyday of my beloved long range black powder cartridge rifles, we were forced to adjust sights for long range, for the specific range at which we were shooting. Not too hard when we are shooting very visible targets at known ranges, but kind of impractical in the field. Now, thanks to the wonders of modern technology, we can apply this in the field in a very satisfying way. I've been holding out, but now I'm thinking I may actually "need" a rig like this...