I re-read my AAR from yesterday and realized that I didn’t even mention a word about the projectile throwers I took or how well they worked.
Starting with the Remington 700; it did very well. After getting my zeros down, it would put the bullet wherever I pointed it with repeatability. I was whacking Boomers and steel left and right.
The ammo I took is another story. As you may recall, I was shooting 168gr Sierra HPBT loaded by PMC. The accuracy of the ammo was excellent, again putting the thing wherever I pointed the gun. Their speed however, was not very good.
Lets just say that PMC loaded them very conservatively and when they would reach the boomers, they did not carry enough oomph along for the ride to set the boomers off. If I use this bullet weight in the future, I will have to load them a decent amount hotter.
Kim du Toit was kind enough to give me a box of Winchester silver box SPBT deer killing ammo in 150gr. Not the most accurate stuff but once I got my zero set for the different bullet weight I smoked a good one downrange and got my first boomer.
I had also taken some of the Aussie 144gr ball ammo with me and while I’m sure it was cruising at the appropriate speed, the non-expanding nature of the bullet was not akin to setting off boomers. After hitting one and not setting it off I decided that I shouldn’t ruin any more boomers for the other participants and set about ringing the steel Ivan target at 600yds with the stuff.
The other rifle I took as a back-up in case of a malfunction/breakage of the 700 was my Bushmaster XM-15. Shortly before the Boomershoot I had installed a cheapie 6X mildot scope I had picked up for $40 and zeroed it at 100yds. With some minor adjustments I soon had it zeroed in at the 380yd target line and was hitting boomers with that as well.
Again though, my ammo was sub-standard. The only expanding ammo at the local shooter shop was Black Hills 52gr BTHP and those were not only overly effected by the slightest amount of wind but also did not arrive with enough authority on target to set them off.
Now some of y’all might be thinking bad things about boomers not going off when hit by medium weight rifle cartridges, but you shouldn’t. While the main focus of most shooters going to Boomershoot is to see stuff explode when you hit it, that was only second in my mind.
I was nearly to the point of obsession with just hitting the things to prove that I could do it repeatedly. Imagine taking a 30 caliber projectile and trying to repeatedly hit a ¾ MOA target at 600yds with a full value crosswind.
My rifle and I can do it.
Next year I’ll worry about bringing better ammo to set those boomers off. This year was a confidence builder. I am of full trust in Joe that he has the situation under control and will come up with something even more whupass for 2006.
I only hope that I can do the same and bring my best game.
I’m not inside Joe Huffman’s mind, but perhaps he is trying to teach a subtle lesson here: Accuracy is most important, but the ability to destroy the target is equally important.
Haven’t our troops recently come to that conclusion in Iraq and ordered M-14s out of storage to be re-activated for their long-range punch?
You have a proven rifle, but a marginal caliber for what you want to do with the piece. I would consider either a re-do of the weapon to .300 Win Magnum (or H&H or some other .30 belted magnum) if the action is long enough to handle it, or bump up to a weapon in one of the .338 calibers.
As long as you keep the sectional density of the available loadings in mind, a .338 should be of sufficient improvement to NEVER let you down at the boomer end.
I believe Joe will make this a mute issue in 2006. We actually didn’t have any targets on Sunday that were as reactive as he had wanted to make. All the targets were mixed with the not-so-reactive batch that was mixed on Friday. They should be reacting much better at the farther distances come 2006.
Was really glad the ones at 375 yards were reacting so well. There was one reaction on the farther hill, around 575 yard, but I have no idea what type of ammo was able to set it off.
Well, I’ve got a 700 in .308 as well, so we’ll have to find a hotter round than what you brought this time. By then hopefully my rifle (and I) should be all ready to go.
I wonder, if I get the sighting issues with my Enfield worked out, how well the .303Brit rounds would do.