Real Snipers Use Card Tables

I’m still excited about the results I got with the .17 HMR rifle the other day. I am now shooting 1 MOA or maybe 1.05 MOA, but anyway, close to 1 MOA. This is something I didn’t expect to happen so easily. Now that I know I am capable of shooting rifles pretty well, it’s time to think about plans for longer ranges and bigger calibers.

First thing…I believe I need to measure off 150 and 200 yards for the .17 HMR, and I need to get out my larger targets. The rifle I’m using is capable of shooting well at those ranges, provide I only shoot on calm days. I need to make the most of it. If what people are telling me is right, I should be able to go considerably farther. This gun shoots very cheap ammo, and it’s easy on the shoulder, so I need to get as much mileage as I can from it.

After that, I need to think about different calibers. I also need to learn about compensating for wind.

I have a .308, which I originally bought with the intention of turning it into a .260 Remington. In order to do that, I need a .260 barrel. DPMS, the lazy company that made the gun, quit making .260 barrels. That means spending more on a an aftermarket barrel. I never got around to buying one.

I still have a huge amount of cheap .308 ammo. I feel like I should try to shoot some of it before giving up on .308. Or maybe I shouldn’t. I should be able to sell it.

People say my ammunition (Radway Green) is not that accurate. It’s hard to get the truth on the Internet, because a guy who gets lucky and puts 2 shots through 1 hole will say it shoots 0 MOA, and then idiots will believe it and drive themselves crazy trying to equal his performance. Other guys will shoot 3 MOA and say that’s all the ammunition will do, but it will be because they don’t want to admit they can’t shoot. So you have to do the shooting for yourself in order to learn anything.

I have improved my technique, and I have learned about the evil effects of wind, so I should be able to evaluate the ammo for myself. I have to get that done.

Someone recommended shooting .223. He said it was cheaper than new .17, and it would be very accurate. I don’t have a .223 rifle or reloading dies, though. I don’t want an AR15. I don’t like them for self-defense, and they’re not as good as bolt guns for distance. That means I would need a .223 bolt gun and a scope. That would cost $600. The ammunition would run nearly 30 cents per round, if my math is right. That’s 1.5 times as expensive as .17 HMR, so I think the person who said .223 is cheap was wrong.

Anyway, it’s a low-recoil round which shoots well and is useful for killing fairly large things.

Another possibility: give up on .260 (which Remington has abandoned) and go for nearly identical 6.5mm Creedmoor. This might be the best move. It’s super-accurate, and you can hunt with it. Not just pigs and coyotes, but deer. I can’t recall why I wanted .260 instead of Creedmoor, but my understanding is that Creedmoor (someone will complain that I don’t always type 6.5mm) is very popular, and that means I will be able to find brass, dies, whatever, very easily.

I suppose I should be able to go up to 400 yards on this property without endangering anyone, if I do it right.

Right now, I shoot in the general direction of a road. Should I worry? Not unless I should also worry when I drive a 3-ton vehicle on that road, with nothing but lane stripes between me and cars full of innocent kids. It’s better to be hit by a rifle round than crushed by a pickup truck traveling at a relative speed of 130 mph. That’s how I see it, anyway. There is no way to be completely safe. There are people in every direction, just as there are people all around when you hunt on public land. The key is not to be a moron. I think I can manage that.

It’s legal, so nobody can do anything to prevent me from shooting.

I read an interesting article about modern rifles. Some guys took several random rifles right out of the box and started shooting, and every rifle shot under 1 MOA. The conclusion? Modern rifles are pretty good. You don’t have to spend your life savings to get accuracy. They all shot under 1 MOA for 5 initial shots, and they were all close to 1 MOA after 10 shots with no rest. Hot barrels. Cheap ammo. Makes you think twice about buying a great old gun built back in the good old days. New is better.

The sad thing about modern firearm accuracy is that it makes these rifles really good at killing…excuses. If the ammo isn’t total garbage, and the gun is new…it’s you, baby. Own it.

They fired from a sled, which is a vise that holds guns. A sled allows virtually no error, apart from the error of the gun and ammunition. I’ve seen people use these at the range. I don’t like them. I see how a sled would be useful for zeroing a gun before shooting it for yourself, but I have a feeling a lot of the guys I saw were sled addicts. I don’t think they shot on their own.

I was shooting near Miami, surrounded by people who were generally Cuban, and Latin men tend to be insecure about anything related to masculinity. Miami is a town where there are a lot of guys who drive blacked-out cars and trucks. There are a lot of guys (especially cops) on steroids. Lots of chest-puffing. Lots of domestic violence. You know what I mean. It would not surprise me to see shooters there rely on sleds all the time.

My own experience proves that a relatively unskilled shooter resting his gun on a folding table from Lowe’s can zero a gun pretty darned well. I can get down close to the gun’s limit of accuracy, at least at 100 yards. I don’t know if a sled would be worth the aggravation for me, barring an unexpected invitation to compete in the Olympics.

I feel like I should shoot the .308 a little, see what happens, and then look into 6.5mm Creedmoor. I have prayed about the decisions, and this seems right.

Over the next year, I should be able to develop the skill to shoot well at 400 yards, and that should be enough to make me happy. I have no use for this skill, but I want it anyway.

The Second Amendment is really something. When I Google for gun info, I get astounding information. There are zillions of guys out there, doing great things with guns. It’s not like living in England, where you only get to see rifles at the movies. Here in the US, you don’t have to be a cop or a soldier to be extremely, extremely dangerous. When things really get bad here, the devil’s people are going to have their work cut out for them. There are states where every county is full of folks who will be able to hide behind trees and drop the Beast’s jackbooted thugs like prairie dogs. They won’t be able to subdue us by going door to door with Glocks. They’ll need gunships, infrared cameras, and daisy cutters. And a lot of the people who know how to use those things will defect to our side, because snowflakes generally avoid military and police service.

God bless America. Out of all the world’s countries, this is the one where the thought of fighting guerrillas should make you wet your jammies the most. Getting your way in the end will be so painful, you will wish you had stayed home and surrendered.

If it weren’t for highly skilled private individuals, the cops and the military would have firearms technology and training straight out of 1920 (or maybe 1520). Liberals want private citizens to be separated from weapons technology, but we’re the people who create it and understand it best. Even the hydrogen bomb was created by civilians. A good sophist would say weapons don’t cause many problems until the cops and the military get ahold of them. The damage the rest of us do is very minor, in comparison.

I don’t see myself every getting involved in fighting the Beast’s minions. I think armed insurrection is carnal, and I am not brave, at least when it comes to having parts blown off or roasted. I think I would rather let them kill me so I could be free of this earth. But I can’t speak for the 20 or 30 million other guys out there who disagree with me.

Related: here is a link to an article challenging people who claim to shoot sub-MOA. The author says you need to produce 25 consecutive shots to qualify, which is more or less consistent with what I’ve been saying, although more rigorous.

I felt good about 5 adjoining shots (which were clearly not flukes), but I think you really need a 25-shot 1-MOA hole, perhaps with a few flyers, to prove you shoot sub-MOA. I wouldn’t expect anyone to stay inside a 1-inch circle 100% of the time, because things happen, but if you’re a sub-MOA guy, 90% is not too much to ask.