You may remember a couple weeks back when I mentioned that I happened upon a nearly full box of billiards cue stick chalk cubes and that I was wanting to try hitting them with a couple of my rifles to see what they do.
Well folks, I can proudly say that they kick ass.
Here is why:
Once I got to the Church of the Holy High Speed Projectile the other day, I made my intentions known to the rangemaster and he thought it was a wonderful experiment. I brought the entire box of chalk cubes and a roll of clear packing tape and proceeded to tape three cubes to the target board. The looks I got from the other shooters ranged from mild curiosity to utter disbelief.
The curious folks would tilt their heads, pause for a moment and then ask me what the hell I was doing. I would explain my intentions and my expectations and then it’d click with them. They turned into spectators when I got behind the scope.
The disbelievers were mostly hunters there to sight their rifles in for the upcoming deer and elk seasons. Most of these weekend warrior wannabes are happy if they can put two shots within three inches of each other at 100 yards and then whine when they miss the trophy buck, so I didn’t care what they thought at that exact moment. I was hoping that I might be able to wager a few bucks out of them, but I had no such luck.
First up, I need to correct myself on the measurement on the cubes from the post linked to above; the cubes are 7/8 of an inch, not ¾. I was close but no cigar. Still, they’re small enough to be a challenge.
Anyway, I set up my target board at 100 yard line and got the Ruger 77 MKI in .22-250 ready to rumble and took out the three cubes with five shots.
And here’s the cool part!
When the 55gr Remington Corelokt bullet would hit the cubes, a four to five foot cloud of dust would puff out the back of the target and you knew you hit it. Even better, the folks back on the firing line knew you hit it. When I hit the first one I heard a couple of the guys let out audible ‘wows’. When I made the last two hits in a row, I could hear a couple folks chuckle.
Apparently, none of these guys have ever been to Boomershoot.
Which is exactly where I’m going with this.
While these cubes are no substitute, they are excellent practice for Boomershoot. Their less than 1 MOA size means that you’re getting the sizes approximated, their hit signature is relatively similar, without the ground shaking BOOM, of course, and just like the boomers, if you don’t hit them dead-on, you aren’t going to get your wanted reaction.
Not wanting to stop, I put five more cubes out at 100 yards and took them five for five with the Ruger to at least one set of hands clapping. I had planned to put them out at 200yds and give that a try, but they’re small size meant that I could barely see them at 100 yards with my Bushnell 3×9 cranked all the way up, even with the cubes turned around so that the black paper on their back side faced me on the tan background.
Note to self: When you get a new scope for the Ruger, get the finest set of crosshairs you can.
Next up, Barak the Boomershoot Rifle. Five cubes at 100 yards in five shots and I hadn’t even warmed up the barrel yet.
Then things took a turn for the stupid.
I rolled the Burris 8×32 up to 18x and dialed in my 200 yard zero and let the first shot fly.
Quarter inch high.
OK, that was just me, I thought. Try it again. Second shot; same spot.
Alright, I’m just nervous. I’ve got people watching me try to do this and I’ve psyched myself out. Clam down, try again. Third shot, same spot and the tape holding the cube on has just about had enough of me.
Silly me, as I back out of the scope to look out at the target again I look past my vertical turret and notice that I had missed my zero dial-in by a click too few. Cursing under my breath, I reach up, add the click, get back into the scope and let my fourth shot fly.
Puff!
Fire five, hit. Fire six, miss: quarter inch low, fire seven, eight and nine, all hits.
I kept this up until I could hit all five cubes in six shots. By then, I was happy.
I still had half the box left, so I took them on over to the 50 yard range and gave the 10/22 some trigger time. While the reaction is that same when you hit them with a 22LR round, they don’t disintegrate 100%, usually leaving at least half of the cube hanging there for you to fire a follow up shot and get a reaction.
So, now you know of a new type of target you can shoot at with entertaining results. I would especially recommend them for new shooters since they can see the dust cloud. Put some of these out at 25 yards and give them a 22 rifle and let them go at it.
And they’re pretty cheap in the ‘Bang for the Buck’ scale. A gross box with 144 cubes is $23 + shipping from these guys. That around $0.17 each. You might be able to find them locally to you at a pool hall or a place that sells billiards supplies.
One word of caution though if you are using the target boards supplied by your local range: Solids have even rougher hydraulics numbers than do liquids.
This is what my target board looked like with my first round of .22-250 shots.
The back of this board was shot out with only the many layers of paper holding my targets on. The rangemaster saw this and told me to go get a new backer.
This did not alleviate the problem. A regular shot from the .22-250 puts a .22 caliber hole in the backer. A hit on one of the cubes by a .22 caliber bullet apparently sucks the cube through and puts a .50 or .60 caliber hole in the backer.
I’m sure you can see what would happen after multiple shots. You may want to toss a few bucks their way beforehand or donate some replacement wood if you think the range guys will get fussy about their backers.