Another Trip to the Range

Another Trip to the Range

No new loads for the Encore yet, but I wanted to shoot the Remington 700 some more. When I went to the Gunblogger Rendezvous last October, David of Random Nuclear Strikes gave me some of his Black Hills 175 grain .308 Sierra MatchKing commercial ammo, and I wanted to test it out as a baseline against my handloads. It was another trip to the Casa Grande range to make use of their 300 yard facility. Here's an average group using the Black Hills stuff:


By my calibrated eyeball, Mk. I, that's about 4" CTC.

Here's my 175 grain SMK handload:


The bottom most hole is two holes touching. I'd put that group at a hair under 2".

Here's my 155 grain Lapua Scenar load (typical) with me throwing a flyer (also typical):


What you can't see there is that this group is about 5" higher than the point of aim, which means it's hauling ass compared to the 175 grain SMK load. Now, if I could just stop throwing flyers . . .

I think I need some more of those bullets.

(Sorry about the crappy quality. These were taken with my cellphone camera.)