Once a year Mill Creek Rifle Club in Desoto, KS hosts a walk back style elimination match called Snipergeddon.  The competition starts at 300 yards to make sure shooters can be trusted to make hits and not do something stupid like send rounds over the berm before starting the "real" competition at 500 yards.

You get 5 shots at 500 and have to make at least one hit then move back 100 yards and repeat the process.  If you fail to make a hit in 5 attempts you're out.  It was billed as a 1200 yard max but organizers were able to set up firing points out to 1500 in case daylight and shooter skill allowed.

Because I'm all about doing things the hard way I decided to see how far I could make hits with my Daniel Defense M4V7LW (16" lightweight barrel) with a 1-4X Burris MTAC scope.  

I'm an Appleseed shoot boss so wanted to do this using the technique we teach.  Just a rifle and sling prone.  No bipod, no bags, no funny coats.

Here's the rifle.


Here's the reticle.  The center dot is 2.5 MOA.


That 2.5 MOA dot is great for doing a snap shot on a generous target but started to get in the way as the target got further away.  
The target was a 24" circle gong.  At 400 yards its a nice fat 6 MOA but at 800 it was only 3 MOA and nearly blocked by the center dot which required me to start using the lower (and smaller) BDC dots rather than just dialing more elevation.

I'm ready to crash now but will update this thread with my experience preparing for and competing as I get more photos uploaded and type out the details.

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Updated results links
Initial range report after the match near the bottom of page 1

Official match results with competitor's calibers and rifles list near the bottom of page 2

That sounds like a really fun competition. What kind of loads are you using?

You used just a sling in prone to hit a 24" target at 1200 yards in 5 shots or less with a 1-4 optic? That's impressive.

Long ass ways out.
Good luck buddy!

Damn. I'll have to keep that in  mind for next year.

With that reticle, it's going to be an uphill battle for you, but go enjoy it anyway.

I've shot my 16" 6.5 Grendel out to 1500yds up at altitude, and it was surprisingly repeatable.

It was scary POI = POA at 1200yds with 123gr AMAX factory load, and my hand loads are much better for SD.

So for what it's worth, the link says the competition is on Nov 20, and the OP says he's too tired to post anymore details tonight...

I don't get it. Today is Nov 20th.

Oh I think I get it, meaning he won't be posting tonight. I thought you were doubting something, my bad.

2 hour drive each way and an early morning means my ass is kicked.  I did pretty well but the wind ended up kicking my ass.  I'm shutting down now but will update tomorrow with load and practice info.  Waiting for results to be emailed to see where I actually placed.

1200 yards with a 5.56 NATO round qualifies as indirect fire.

Subscribing for more pics and updates, sounds like a good time.

OST for updates. Very cool OP.

Can't wait to see the results.

Incoming, indirect fire can wreck your day.

 

Yes, it can.

In for updates.

Where was this at in Desoto??

Mill Creek Rifle Club is a couple miles north of DeSoto, KS on Hwy 7.  It's a private members only range that allows non-members to shoot at competitive events (I'm not a member).

tagging.  sounds like a fun time

Testing hold overs and sight picture

With a 24" target I knew I could use the 2.5 MOA aiming dot of my reticle out to at least 600 (target of 4 MOA) and maybe even 700 yards (target of 3.4 MOA) but past that would need to start using the smaller BDC dots lower on the reticle to avoid hiding the target behind my dot.

Here's the reticle.


The problem is that my Burris MTAC scope lists the reticle subtensions in mils while the scope adjustments are 1/2 MOA clicks.  (Thanks a lot guys!)

I sort of understand the mil system but am not very conversant in it.  At Appleseed we teach Minute Of Angle which is what the military (at least the army) uses for their iron sights and ACOGs (Marines just have to be different and have a click on their ACOGs equal .3 MOA which I think is .1 mil).

Anyway I’m very comfortable thinking in MOA so converted the reticle mil subtensions to MOA so they would make sense when added to the MOA clicks on my scope.

This scope has some “settling” that has to happen after an adjustment was made so my initial plan was to make as few adjustments as possible and use the BDC as much as possible.  

For instance if I dialed in 10.5 minutes of elevation I could use the top of the “T” for the 300 meter target, the center dot for 500 and the next dot down for the 600 yard target then redial some more and use the dots to make the 700 and 800 yard targets before having to dial again.

Then I had to test my BDC reticle and see if it really agreed with my conversion math and if it was even useable.

To do that I made a bunch of scaled down circles that represented the size the 24” target would appear to be at each distance (300 – 1200 yards) and posted them all up at 200 yards to test my BDC holds.  The smallest dot is 4” which represents a 2 MOA target (what I’d see at 1200 yards) and the biggest dot is 16” to represent the 8 MOA target I’d have at 300 yards.

I then used my planned BDC holds and fired groups at each target to see if this would work.

Here’s the target after shooting at 200 yards.  I fired this slung up prone unsupported just like I would in the competition.


The red circles are my guess before firing at where the rounds would land when fired at that dot with the hold over/under.  The blue circles are the actual rounds fired for that target.  The green are a couple zeroing groups I fired later on.  I was originally going to fire 5 rounds per target but was way rushed for time and started with 4 then ended with three per target.

While the hold worked it was extremely difficult to use the lower BDC dots.  For me it was not intuitive at all to move my eye down in the scopes field of view while keeping my eye centered in the scope.  Very weird.  So I decided to just accept that I may be off by up to a minute on my first shot after dialing in elevation for the next target and use my turret as much as possible.

The next day I came back and refined my zero a little bit more.  All my testing and zeroing was done at 200 yards as that’s the furthest distance my range has available.

Zero target at 200 yards


On average I was able to shoot something under 2 MOA prone unsupported with the ammo I loaded for this competition.  I’m looking forward to improving my technique and hopefully getting closer to 1 MOA.

Coming up later I’ll explain my panicked load development.  Right now I’m off to go grocery shopping and have a meeting I have to attend tonight.

ost

I did some long(ish) range shooting yesterday with a DPMS 5.56 AR. 16" BBL, 1:9 twist 55gr bulk ammoes. Looking through a 3-9x40 P223 Nikon

from 250 -450.....nothing but gongs. A good 7-10 mph crosswind, gusting to 18-20mph.

550 yrds.....1 gong out of 4 shots, variable impacts, mostly to the right ( wind).

Wind was a bitch, so 500 was the max I could do 18x18 steel plates.

I am sure if the wind is not there, 800 yrds easy. maybe, not sure I have the elevation to do it with this scope.

You will be basically sending mortar fire at 700+  1200? Lemme know how that goes

I've made hits on a 30" rock at 750y with my Stag: 16"bbl, m855, MBUS sights.  The issue with 5.56 at long range is reading the wind; all my shots were within 4ft of either side, but my vertical spread was only about and 2ft above/below.

Before I add more details I wanted to thank LRRPF52, popnfresh and Sinister for answering questions in some threads in the Precision Rifles forum leading up to this.

Unpossible.

Hope it was fun.

If it wasn't on a Sunday I would have been there too.

With a bit more than an AR.  

Threads like this remind me how I need to learn to shoot long distance

No kidding, I'm really trying to get more into longer range stuff. I'm thinking of ordering some 69gr tmk bullets to build some loads with.

My dream is to work mine out to 600 yards and hit a 12" target.
Cool for you!

Go shoot some NRA or CMP high power. Mid-range prone matches are a good introduction. There are plenty of divisions and optics are allowed. It's the best way I know of to get comfortable at 600.

If you're just getting started, start with smks.

The tmks are jump sensitive. It adds a problem you don't need when cutting your teeth on working out lr loads.

Also check out the load data from Highpower sources. They've got it down to a science.

Leveling the scope.

Having read about this being a problem I wanted to make sure my reticle was as level as I could possibly make it.  When I first installed it after a couple different attempts using various scope leveling systems that I wasn't convinced worked I used a crosshair style laser level and a level on the top of the receiver rail.  It turns out that the top of the turret cap and turret isn't necessarily square to the reticle and so it makes a lousy reference to set a level on top of.

In the interest of testing my scope to see if it was really level I decided to shoot the Tall Target Test.

Here's the video explaining it.


I set the target at 50 yards because I also needed to see how much elevation adjustment the scope had so I'd know if I could make enough adjustment to go the distance.  At 100 yards I'd potentially need a 6 or 7 foot tall target.

I used a long strip of blue masking tape as my stripe and used a level to make sure it was level.

Here's a closeup of my rifle with the target in the background and a zoomed in one of the target.


At the time I didn't have a bubble level on the scope so relied on keeping the vertical part of the reticle centered on the blue tape and used the base of the tape as the aiming point.

Here are the results after shooting it.


Here's the back side of the target after shooting it twice to test my results.


In both cases I kept the reticle center dot on the bottom of the tape and dialed 20 minutes between each 3 round group until I ran out of adjustment.  I ended up with 79 minutes of usable elevation adjustment.

I thought it was really interesting that my best group was at the end of the scope's travel suggesting that with the turret one click away from a hard bottom it eliminated the walking I saw after the earlier adjustments.  

After going through all that I cranked the turret all the way back through 79 minutes of adjustment to my zero and fired the last 4 rounds I had at a fresh target I made of pasters.  The first round landed 2" (4 MOA) to the right of the others and then I got a nice tight little sub 1" group where I expected it.

This whole exercise convinced me that while my scope was level I needed a bubble level to keep the rifle vertical on "real" targets.  I ended up getting the Vortex Lo Pro Bubble Level.  I like it because I can open my left eye and see the bubble in front of me while maintaining proper sight alignment.  I shoot handguns both eyes open and am able to do the same thing on generous targets with the scope.

The exercise was useless for determining the exact click value of my scope because the group size was too large to get a precise measurement.  I think to do that I'd have to fire the test again a few different ways to eliminate the group spread caused by scope settling.  Probably it would include two or even three targets where I'd fire my first round on one target, a few more on another and finally the last 3 on a third target to compare the stages of scope settling to final group location.  The reality is I just need to accept a minute or two of settling anytime I make an adjustment.

One thing I didn't do but intend to is shoot a box test as captrichardson explains in this post.

Ammo

After going back and forth I decided that making some single load 80gr Sierra Match Kings would be the way to go.  The problem is I've never loaded rifle ammo before.

I've loaded handgun ammo for years on an old Lee Pro 1000 but that ain't going to hack it for this kind of job.

A few years ago a friend died unexpectedly (RIP Green Beret LTC Ron Ward )  just as he was getting into loading for High Power and his wife gave me his stuff so I had a Redding T7 turret, Redding dies, the SMKs and Reloder 15 powder that have just been sitting in a corner.  I decided what better way to get started using Ron's stuff than to do this.

So here I was three weeks before this comp and never having loaded a rifle round in my life.  I had read a couple of Glen Zediker's books on reloading for High Power and felt like I had a pretty good grasp of the process.

With the goal of "someday" loading rifle ammo I'd acquired a couple 5 gallon buckets full of once fired .223 brass from the ammo I'd shot and the Appleseeds I've taught when the shooters didn't want it.

I sorted out a few hundred pieces of Winchester brass which seems to generally get pretty good marks among reloaders.

The first thing I did was clean and resize them.  I used a Hornady headspace comparator to measure some fired brass out of the rifle (1.043") and sized my new brass so the shoulder was set back .003" further (1.040").

During the sizing die adjustment phase I sized with and without the expander button to see if anything needed modified.  I ended up sanding down the button so the post-sizing neck ID was .221.

After sizing them I measured each piece and sorted them by headspace keeping the tolerance to .001".


I then used a Sinclair .222 carbide sizing mandrel to kiss the .221 neck ID and get neck tension as uniform as possible at a perfect .221 (there's always some spring back with brass).

After that it was time to trim the brass.  I ran into a problem here.  The trimmer I have is a little hand powered Redding 2400 match trimmer that uses a collet to grab the case rim.  The problem with that is depending on case rim diameter the trim length can vary by as much as .006".

I verified this by sorting brass by case rim diameter before trimming to compare.


If the trim target is 1.750 a spread of 1.746 - 1.752 is no big deal for blasting ammo but I selected a spread of 1.750 - 1.751 for my length tolerance to keep neck "hold" as equal as possible.

So now I have brass that is both headspaced and trimmed to a .001" tolerance and it needs finished.  I used a RCBS Trim Mate Case Prep Center to square up primer pockets to a consistent depth and chamfer the inside and outside of the case mouths.

After all that I tumbled the beautiful brass in very fine walnut media to clean the lube off the cases.

Based on what I'd read I settled on loading the bullets so they were .01" off the lands.  I didn't have a bullet length comparator so painted a few bullets with dykem and then started playing with seating depths until I found where the rifling barely kissed the ogive.  I then adjusted the seating die .01 shorter (Redding Competition seating die comes with a very nice micrometer scale).  That left me at 2.530 COAL which means they won't fit in a magazine and need to be single loaded (as the 80 gr SMKs are designed).

Here's one of those bullets.  You can see the marks where the rifling rubbed the dykem off.


Now it was time do do load development.
Warning - The loads listed below are safe only in my rifle and may blow yours up!  If you don't understand exactly what's going on don't do this!

I know from checking sources online that the 80gr SMK with Reloder 15 powder is going to use something between 23.2 and 24.6 grains of powder so chose that as my margin.

I loaded 5 rounds of each charge in .2 grain increments and fired them with about 1 minute between rounds to keep the lightweight barrel from heating and skewing results.

Here are my test targets.

23.2 - 23.8 grains


After the first target I adjusted my scope to bring the POI closer to the center of the plate so I could more easily compare POI differences among the more likely loads.

24.0 - 24.6 grains


I got what I've heard referred to as an "accuracy node" at 24.2 and 24.4 grains and both charges shot to the same point of aim so I split the difference and went with 23.3 grains for my load.  That gave me an average velocity of 2573fps and an SD of 10.6fps so a pretty solid load.

At 24.6 grains I was getting some primer flattening but nothing as bad as I've seen on USPSA 9mm major guns and 2653fps and an SD of 25.3fps.  If I had more time I'd have played some more to see if I could get a better load that was hotter but didn't have the time to play games for an extra 50fps.

I used an RCBS hand primer to prime cases with CCI #41 military primers.  I know that's not what the High Power gang is using but wanted a tougher primer to eliminate one more worry.

Powder was dispensed with Redding BR-30 Competition measure.


 For the cost I had hoped for a measure that was more nicely finished internally.  I did everything I'd read to get the most consistent charges thrown and grounded the measure and rubber banded a static sheet to it for whatever that was worth.  After some grumbling I figured out that I needed to lock the micrometer locking screw down after every adjustment and give it 3 soft taps with my fingers on the side of the measure drum after every operation to get the best consistency.  I'll tear this thing apart and do the fixes dryflash3 recommends in the reloading forum.

I loaded up 100 rounds before I noticed that some of the cases were shaving a tiny bit of jacket material off as the bullets were seating.  To fix that I ran the remaining cases through the carbide neck sizing mandrel one more time.  That last bit of .0005 opening up or smoothing out the ID of the necks made a big difference in how smoothly the bullets seated.  The first 100 with shaved jackets I marked for practice with the last 100 for competition.

Ultimately I had a load that I could shoot to just about 1 MOA (I know, I know) prone unsupported if I could eliminate the single flyer I seemed to always introduce.  No matter what I would tend to pull a single shot of five (called) and wreck what was a nice group.  That's gonna take some work.

Here's one of my 200 yard zeroing targets.


I used these 4.5 MOA dots because that gave me a perfect aiming point to center my 2.5 MOA reticle center dot in.  When I do this again I'll use a smaller 3.5 or 3 MOA target dot to force me to have a more refined sight picture.

ETA - Here's a shot of my 100 happy soldiers ready to do their duty!

came here to post this. no way you are accurately shooting to 1200 yards with 5.56. even with 77gr, i have serious doubts. a fart will blow that bullet off course at 1200 yards.

Results
I drove up there with a USPSA shooter friend of mine who's also a sniper for an LE team.  He got all of 2 hours of sleep the night before because they'd gotten called out on a barricaded bad guy the night before this (BG eventually gave up).  In spite of the lack of sleep he was determined not to miss out.

The moment of truth!  I made it out to 800 yards successfully but the wheels came off at 900 yards.  

The wind fluctuated from 0-12 mph at just about perfectly from our right and was continually changing with the gusts getting stronger and longer as the day continued.

The target gongs were 8 feet off the ground and about 20 feet in front of a vegetation covered berm so there was no feedback on misses.  
You had no idea if you were off on elevation or windage or by how much or even what direction if you missed.  
This made correcting for misses pretty hard unless you had a spotter behind you who was able to catch a trace.  
The weather ranged from 30 - 50 with clear skies and low humidity.

The first 500 yards of the range had a side berm and trees on the wind side so you were sheltered from the wind.  For 600 yards and beyond we crossed a dirt road (closed for the event) and shot from a farm field with no wind blocks for a mile or more.

My drop figures are based on my 200 yard zero and my chrono'd velocity of 2585 fps for the 80 grain SMK's.  I used the Strelok Pro app on my iPhone and it was 100% accurate as far as I could tell.

300 yards
3.2 MOA/9.6" elevation
0 windage


The targets are 5 - 24" circular gongs on the right side of the back berm.  The organizers had everyone shoot at 300 just to prove they could be trusted to make hits before moving back where there would be a greater chance of shooting over the berm if someone made a gross error.

500 yards
10.9 MOA/54.5" (4.5 feet) elevation
0 windage
4 hits, 1 miss (last round)


This was the last of the range firing lines.  After that we crossed the dirt road and shot from a field.

Here are the 70 some competitors at the 600 yard line.


600 yard firing line
15.6 MOA/93.6" (7.8 feet) elevation
3 MOA/18" of right windage - 5 MPH breeze
4 hits, 1 miss (last round fired again)


Organizers had arranged for a flat bed trailer, a couple deuce and a halfs and some kind of military ammo hauling trailer to be used as elevated shooting platforms in the field.  They'd put some serious work into building a stage on the ammo hauler and using jacks and blocks to stabilize the trailers.  It was impressive and much appreciated.

The 600 yard line was just across the dirt road from the range property and on the range side was a wire fence to keep tresspassers off.  My "squad" was on the lower flat bed trailer and the top wire of the fence was almost perfectly in line with our muzzles 40 yards away.  I scored a first round hit on the gong then missed the second round and some guys behind started laughing.  Sure as hell I shot the fence wire so my fellow competitors wouldn't have to worry about it!  

700 yards
21.1 MOA/147.7" (12.3 feet) elevation
3 MOA/21" windage - 5 MPH wind
2 hits, 3 misses


800 yards - Shit's getting real!
27.6 MOA/220.8" (18.4 feet) elevation
3.5 MOA/28" windage - 5 MPH wind
4 misses, 1 hit


The 800 yard target was small enough (3 MOA) that I had to switch to my highest BDC (dot #2 on the reticle) and dial less elevation.  That coupled with the windage now being greater than the target size meant no margin for error.  The wind was constantly changing and the last 500 yards were wind free so making a decision on windage was difficult.

900 yards - Pack it up!
35.2 minutes/316.8" (26.4 feet) elevation
1.2 MOA/10.8" windage - 2 MPH wind
4.5 MOA/40.5" (3.3 feet) windage - 5 MPH wind
10.1 MOA/90.9" (7.5 feet) windage - 10 MPH wind
12.3 MOA/110.7" (9.2 feet) windage - 12 MPH wind
0 hits, 5 misses


I was still using my #2 dot as my aiming point.  The wind kicked my ass regardless of any shooting errors I was making.  The app was showing a velocity of 1061 fps at the target so the bullet was either sub-sonic or heading that way fast.

I listed the various wind drifts from the low to the high that I recorded so you can see the huge variation and how easy it is to miss the target if an error is made in guessing how much to dial or hold for with a 24" target.

Mistakes I made on the line - I had really bad follow through and even though I kept mentally telling myself to fix it I didn't.  The gongs had flashers on them to indicate a hit because we couldn't hear impacts and even though the gongs were being repainted after each yardage move it was very hard to spot impacts after the first round of shooters marked it up.

That flasher made me want to shift my visual focus onto the target as I was firing the shot to look for the flash.  In doing that I was moving my head slightly and releasing the trigger completely as soon as I fired the shot.  None of that was helping my hit ability.

Here I am on the line.  


I'm the goober without a bipod in the red sweatshirt.  

I think the lady next to me was also shooting .223 (I didn't ask but the noise was less than the .308's that a lot of shooters were using).  She struggled at 800 like me with only one hit but did very impressive and got all her 5 hits at 900.  She was a very good sport about being pelted by my brass.

What did I learn from this?
1 - I'm a decent shooter and can load pretty good quality ammo.

2 - A Daniel Defense 16" LW carbine may not beat the 1 MOA ALL DAY CHALLENGE challenge but it can shoot pretty accurately if the shooter does their part.

3 - A $400 1-4X scope can reach out a little bit but there's a reason the good scopes cost a lot more.

4 - People who think they're going to be making uber-long distance shots on some TEOTWAKI battelfield are kidding themselves.  

5 - If I want a rifle that can reach out and touch someone I'll probably get an AR10 in 6.5 Creedmoor or something similar that does a good job of fighting wind.

6 - As Old Painless says "Shooting stuff is fun"!

75' of drop? Would be fun to see what happens anyway.

65.5 feet is what Strelok is showing for me if I made it that far but yeah it'd be fun to try if I had a proper facility with a target camera or something else that would allow me to properly see my misses to make adjustments.  It's frustrating to have misses you can't account for and have no idea what happened.

More pics of girl next to you?

That sounded like a fun day!

I so need to get more into loading for my rifles. Hell, for all my guns.

That would be so cool. I would love to learn how to shoot long distance

That is some mighty fine shooting, Lomshek!

20" AR, Nosler 77gr bullets loaded with CFE 223, you can easily get 2700+ fps.

Good shooting BTW.

I have successfully shot out to a little over 750 with a 16" AR throwing 55 grain bullets at 3200fps.  

Anything beyond that was luck.  OP's results are not surprising.

Still not bad for no bipod and low powered glass.  How many people if any made it to 1200 with .233/5.56?

Very nice detailed write up

Fine shooting. Fine prep and documentation. A+ job OP
Even 7.62 is running out of steam at 800, but handles wind a tad better

Indeed and I wish we had events like that around my way.

I would be lucky to make 5 of 5 hits at 300 with that setup. Well done.

OST

Don't know yet.  The organizers haven't emailed final results out.  Not beating them up as it was a very long day and will take a bit to tabulate the 70+ scoresheets and double check results.

I'll update this once I hear from them.

awesome!