Alternate Title – “Oh look, some actual gun content!”

After dinner tonight, Girlie Bear and I headed off to my indoor range to check zero on my hunting rifles and to put a few holes in some paper.  It’s awful nice to have access to an indoor range with a 100 yard rifle area so close to home.

First, I checked my black powder rifle.  I use a Thompson Center Omega, with a Redhead 3-9 shotgun scope on it, loaded with a 295 grain Powerbelt Aerotip over two 50 grain pellets of 777 powder.  I zero for 25 yards, and hold over for longer shots.  Remember, I’m hunting in north-central Kentucky, not North Dakota.  A 50 yard shot is rare in the woods around here.  After my first shot at 25 yards was on target, I decided to play a bit and see how much bullet drop I got at 75 and 100 yards.

Both shots were aimed at center mass.  As you can see, with that zero and that load, 75 yards is pretty much the most I can shoot without holding over and still be in the vitals zone of a deer.  At 75 yards, I got 3 to 4 inches of drop.  I also took a 100 yard shot, but that one fell completely below the target, so it dropped at least an additional 6 inches.  If I held over to the very top of the target, I would get it into the vitals zone at 100 yards. In other words, for up to 25 yards, I will aim for the bottom of the deer.  At 25 to 75 yards, I will aim center mass.  For further than 75 yards, I will aim at the top of the shoulder blades in order to get a hit in the vitals.  With that load in that gun, I won’t take a shot more than 100 yards out.  I’m pretty sure that if I practiced enough, I could make the shot, but right now I don’t think I could make an ethical shot on a deer at more than 100 yards.

Girlie Bear then took out the 10/22 and wore out my target.

We had to adjust her front sight a bit to bring her shot group down, but once she was on, she was on.  She then got off the bench and practiced shooting standing up because that’s what she believes is her weakest area.  She has really improved in her fundamentals since she started on the rifle team at her school.

I then chased a zero on my bolt-action deer rifle, a Savage Model 110 in .270.  I’m glad I checked my zero on this one.  Unlike the muzzleloader, this one wasn’t even close.  After my first three shots resulted in an untouched target, I broke out the boresighter to see where my point of aim compared to my point of impact.

I wasn’t even close.  I had to lift the crosshairs a good foot over the target at 100 yards to get the dot from the boresighter onto the bullseye.  My scope must have gotten knocked around in the safe.  I eventually brought it down and got a good zero at 100 yards, but I’m not at all proud of the string of 3 round groups that led to it, so no picture.

Next came the new AR-15.  I finished putting the lower together Saturday night in anticipation of going out to Knob Creek on Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately the wind and the Irish Woman changed my mind about trying to zero a rifle on Sunday, so it came out tonight.  I zeroed it the same way I did in the Army at 25 yards, then pushed the target out to 50 and 100 yards.  I’m proud to say that I got my zero in 9 rounds, which is about what I used to do in the military. (Hey, small victories are still victories).

Yeah, I’m not particularly proud of that.  The shots above the target are at the 50 yard mark, but after looking at them, I changed point of aim to lower on the target and they came back on.  The string inside the inner ring are from the 100 yard shots, also aimed at the 6 o’clock position.  I need a lot of practice.  I have shot an AR exactly twice in the last 14 years, but with practice I think I can get back to the skill level I had when I was shooting expert.  I just have to work on it and remember the pattern that a 5.56 takes in flight.

I swear, a better picture is forthcoming

Yeah, I geeked out a little when I asked Wally and company to make this for me.

The AR is a 5.56/.223 lower from York Arms, with a lower parts kit from Palmetto State Armory.  The rear sight is a Magpul MBUS that folds down and comes up on a spring with the push of a couple of tabs.  The upper is a CMMG 16 inch setup with Magpul MOE handguards.  I am still working on building my own upper, but cost and availability of parts convinced me that it made sense to invest in the carbine length upper now.  I was going to get one anyway, so when I saw a good deal on this one, I got it.  One of the reasons I wanted an AR was for use as a trainer for Girlie Bear if she decides to join the military, and using a carbine length upper that approximates an M-4 makes sense.

The build was pretty straight forward.  I found a really good how-to at ar15.com, and I supplemented that with a few YouTube videos.  The trickiest part of the build was the trigger, but once I figured out how it all fits together, it’s not that challenging.

One thing about shooting a brand new rifle that surprised me is how tight this thing is compared to the M-16’s that I shot when I was in the military.  Even the brand new rifle I was issued to take to Bosnia wasn’t as tight as this thing.  However, with a good coat of RemOil, everything ran very smoothly.  At first the trigger felt rather grainy, but after putting 40 rounds through it, it got a lot cleaner and crisper.  It’s not as nice as the trigger on my Savage or the Timney I put in the Mosin Nagant, but it’s not bad.  It broke at 7.5 pounds, and after I put a few hundred more bullets into her, I’ll measure again.

So it was a really good night.  Girlie Bear’s shooting has significantly improved.  I have a good zero on both of my hunting rifles.  And I have a zero on my new AR-15 and a new goal to achieve with it.  Now I just need a whole bunch of ammunition to practice with.