10 Shots at 1260 Yards

Clayne_b

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Took a whack at 1260 yards with the .308 shooting 168 gr smk...


The day before this I shot a .56 moa 5 shot group at 960 yards.
I realize it Is well past its supersonic flight. Just had to see for my self how it would do. HAHA

Watch the video to the end. I show you some recovered misses
 
I am a noobie to long range shooting. but to me it looks like the bullets were tumbling. Even the mark on the target it a little different shaped. Nice shooting, I would be very happy with that
 
Very good shooting as far as i'm concerned. Bullets may well have started to desablize, others with a lot more knowledge on the subject than me could tell you for sure.
 
Interesting the drop in bullet stability between 960/1260. No doubt at 960 you were close to the max range with 168gr and it would be interesting to see how things would be at 1260 with a better VLD.


Still great shooting at 1260 and I look forward to more of your videos.
 
panasonic hc-v500


I just ran some numbers...

The 168 SMK was going 1000 FPS at target, and took 17.5 Mil to get there

I have shot the 155 SMK PALMA out of my gun at 3029 FPS, But only at 200 yards, But according to my figures this bullet would arrive at target at 1233 FPS, and take 11.9 Mil to get there.
 
Clayne, the .308 Palma chambers and fires from standard .308 rifles? Is it just a difference in load/bullet ? Good shooting as always
 
Yes, Palma, rifles have a shorter free bore and tighter chamber tolerances, Local gun smith has a 11 Palma reamer on the way to do some work on my rifle

But yes you can shoot Palma ammo threw a normal .308
 
Nicely done. Looks like your group was 3MOA or so in size; much bigger than your deeply-sub-MOA group at 960y. BTW shooting sub-MOA at 1000y is a worthy accomplishment of any target rifle. It's quite unusual and remarkable to get this out of a factory gun with a factory barrel, well done!

You probably already know this but the Sierra 168 is a relatively poor choice for shooting beyond 800y (though at your elevation of 4500' you can probably get good results at distances a bit further than that, such as your 960y shooting demonstrated). They have a dynamic instability and at some point downrange (typically between 900 and 1000 yards, though it does vary a bit depending on muzzle velocity and air density) they will start to tumble. This has nothing to do with going subsonic, though that is the most common explanation you'll hear.

If the 155 Palma bullets that you have on hand shoot accurately for you (say, half-MOA or close to it at 100y or 200y), you'll probably get much better results with them at 1000y+ that with the SMK168s. When doing your short range load development and testing, try to get your velocity standard deviations below 15fps (ES below 45) before taking them out to shoot at long range (this is to reduce the vertical stringing caused by slower vs. faster bullets in the same string)

You might also find it worthwhile to try one of the heavier high-performance target bullets. The Berger 185 LRBT jumps to mind as an obvious choice, but there are other good choices too. Factory Remington chambers tend to be very long throated, so the longer (and further-forward) bearing surface of longer and heavier match bullets will let you get your bullet closer to the rifling and also take best advantage of your case capacity. Also your (relatively) short barrelled rifle will be slightly less penalized with heavier bullets than with lighter bullets, in comparison to ~30" barrels.

If you are shopping around for other bullets to try, choose ones with a reputation for being "easy" to tune, i.e. they are relatively insensitive to seating depth. The SMK168 and the SMK175 are quite good in this department. The new SMK155 (part #2156) is a bit fussier. The Lapua Scenar 155 and the Berger 155 VLDs both tend to be quite fussy and should be avoided for this reason especially if you have a longer throat (though both of these are superb top-quality bullets). The Berger 155.5 Fullbore and 185 LRBT are quite "unfussy" bullets. The one time I tried the 155 Hybrid it seemed "unfussy". Haven't heard yet if the 185 Hybrids are unfussy or not.

Keep up the good shooting and documenting. What nice country you have to shoot in.
 
Thanks for posting the vids, I really like them. I showed a co-worker your video at work today, just the last shot before you zoom out and made her watch when you zoomed out. I really like to see the looks on non-shooters faces when they realize just how far you can shoot accurately.

From one brass scrounger to another, good work! :)
 
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