This morning I woke up before down to drive a long ways to the monthly 600 yard match. It's a well run but informal affair, with no prizes awarded - not that I would have been in the running, even with the best rifle there. There were many excellent shooters, and I was lucky to have my friend Greg, a Presidents Hundred shooter, calling the wind for me, and saying "remember the fundamentals" when he would see me doing something wrong.

I had intended to bring my Saiga 308, however, I decided to bring two AR carbines, both home builds - a 16" S&W 5.45 upper and a 14.5" Sabre barrel in a MUR with a permanently attached Vortex. As you can see, they are my home defense carbines. I didn't bother taking the flashlights off, though I did swap the EOTech on the 5.45 for an A2 carry handle. In this pic, the uppers have been swapped, since the 5.45 rifle has a heavy hammer spring, resulting in a less-than-desirable trigger pull for this type of shooting. Still, I did pretty well with it before swapping the lowers. I should note that the painted lower has an RRA 2 stage trigger (modified with a pin that won't walk out by Adco), and I experienced no failures to fire with the Russian 7N6 surplus I was shooting.



I had roughly zeroed the A2 sight on the 5.45 rifle the day before, but that was at 50 yards, and I was shooting at weeds on the side of a hill. I ended up going around 24 clicks up on the rear sight for 600 yards.



I can't really express the difficulty of shooting a carbine with irons at 600 yards. Especially since the 5.45 rifle has a tritium front sight that is wider than the standard FSP. At 600 yards, my front sight was approximately 1.5 times the width of the target stand.



My first few shots were above the target, as we dialed in the elevation. As you can see here, I was less than pleased with them.

Once I dialed it in, however, I was reasonably accurate. I'm not going to lie - not every shot was in the 10 ring. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that my best 5 shot group was about 3 MOA, or 18" at 600 yards. I did have one 3 shot group that was about 1 MOA, but the 4th and 5th shots opened it up considerably. As the wind died down, I had to adjust the windage from fully to the left to dead center. These 53gr 7N6 bullets weren't designed for this sort of thing, but they did pretty well, in my opinion. If I were to average all the shots I made (around 35), I'd say that they were all within 5 or 6 MOA. Not great by any standards, but pretty good for an out-of-practice shooter using Russian surplus ammunition, carbine sight radius, a gritty 8-10lb trigger, etc.









I did shoot the midlength with the Aimpoint (CompM2 4MOA), using 75gr Prvi Partisan ammunition, but holdover and windage was very difficult using the red dot. Once I had it figured out, I fired this shot. I gave up after that, though, and went back to the 5.45 with the A2 rear, which is much better suited for this distance.



I really enjoyed getting to the range this morning, and highly encourage those of you who are so inclined to give it a shot. I should be back at the range next month with a Trijicon TR24 1-4x24 with the German #4 reticle, we'll see how that works for 600 yard shooting.

Nice write up and happy shooting!

I would give it a try if I had somewhere to do it

Good shooting. Nice post.

What's the big deal?  

"So simple a cave man can do it."  

Fort Monroe MP sergeant shooting a rack-grade iron-sight M4 at 500 yards at the 2007 All-Army.

Very cool write-up!

What kind of ammo were you shooting through the Sabre barrel?

Like I said, my FSP is quite a bit wider than yours, and I'm a bit out of practice.



75gr Prvi.

awesome write-up, dude

I'd say anyone who can put 5 shots into 18" at 600yd with iron sights is doing a good job. Sure, .mil sharpshooters can do it routinely, as can long-range competitive shooters, but for a civilian with a stock rifle, it's plenty good. 600yd is a helluva long ways away!

Good work.

.
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I tried some 500yd shooting with a scoped A2 rifle not long back. Any hits were purely accidental

As an FMF Corpsman did you ever have the option or requirement to shoot the Marine Qual?  If so, how'd you do?  Good shooting.

nice "sinister" note for post 666.


OP, nice work, wish I had a 600yd range to do some plinking. looks like fun.

You are forgetting that "sinister" is very familiar with long range weapons, just ask the ARMY.

Nice shooting.

Do you actually shoot with your face all the way forward on the rifle like that, or were you just getting a feel for the sights?

I shoot like that.

Many, if not most, AR-15 shooters park their nose on the charging handle for long range prone shooting.

Oh.  In twelve years in the Marine Corps and several more years of shooting ARs since I got out, I have never seen anyone shoot an AR that way.  I guess I have been missing something all this time.

Most impressive, I would've expected a 53grain surplus projectile to be all over the paper at that range, sounds like you held most of them in the 36" black rings.

Ditto for touching the charging handle with your nose for HP matches, it helps keep your cheek weld consistent.

Nice shooting, looks lke fun.



Yep,  I put my nose there too.  All about consistency.

Sorry, I missed this before.

I was a range Corpsman for a while, they let me qualify just for shits and grins, once everyone else had shot. I think I scored a 229. This was in 2006, I hear they have changed the scores since then.

I did later ask to actually qualify for record, but they wouldn't let me.

Does that H53  mean CH-53?

I spent 13 yrs in the Corps. Fast Co, Line company and Force Recon.  If I was on the qual range or for a long range target,  it was nose to the charging handle.
If it was SHTF, just point and pray.

Nice job 87!  No controversy at all.  Thatnks for the write up.

I was reading you post and Isaiah, my oldest, says "Hay, We went shooting with that guy."

Is that the Three Points Range, by Tucson?  I shot a 1000 yard BR match at Three Points once, although not with an M4forgery.  Shooting that far for record was a rewarding experience.  I am no accomplished rifleman, but I was happy with what I could do.  I have not since been able to improve on that performance.

I did on a few occasions shoot clay pigeons on a hill side at 700ish yards.  I never hit one with my AR at that time, a parts built LoPro Carbine with a fixed 6x scope.

Yes you have been missing something...

Nice shooting OP.

Thanks, everyone, for the compliments. I don't think I did all that well, especially compared to some of the people that were there. But I was pretty happy with the rifle. I think I am going to invest in some 5.45x39 dies and resize some 69 or 73gr bullets.



Yeah, Three Points. I haven't tried 1000 yet, that would be neat, but I don't think I have the skill yet. It is about 50 miles from my house, so it isn't a range I frequent, but it's better than nothing.

I doubt it.  For me personally, if I get that close to the rear sight, it makes the aperture hole appear larger and that in turn in makes it harder to get a natural, quick, and instinctive sight alignment.  It has a similar effect as flipping to the large hole aperture.  But that is just me.

Iron sights at 600yds?  Very nice!

I know at one time a 1000 yard range was being considered as part of the new Prescott Sportsmen's range that has yet to be built.  I have not talked to any one involved in that project recently so I do not know if that is still the case.  It would be great to have a 1k range up here.  If I am only going to be accomplishing 1.5MOA, I rather it be 15" groups at 1000 yard.  Sounds better to me then 1.5" groups at 100 yards.

That doesn't look like the range at 3 points. . . . is there a separate range down the road from checkin?  or was this match at a different location?  Talking about the pics in the OP

I enjoy sitting at the 500 yd range there, ringing the 12in gong.  there are also some 6-7in plates at 500, very satisfying to hear the impact about 1 sec after pulling the trigger. . .

Nice shooting 87GN.



While I was an FMF Corpsman, I always shot for qualification with my Marines and Navy admin always accepted it into my record.



I qualified twice as sharpshooter, never made expert, but I always had 6-8 hits out of 10 at 500 yds. with A2 iron sights.



Also cool to see you making use of the S&W 5.45, I use one for most of my shooting nowadays.

I saw the nose to charging handle thing quite a bit in my time in.  

You would generally hear this:  BANG - Oww.  Bang - Oww.  Once you were used to it though it is not hard to ignore.  Only saw folks doing it prone though, particularly with the shorter stock on the M16A1's.

87GN –– Doc, don't get me wrong, I think you did FANTASTIC (heck, your photos show a 10,10, 9, and 10).

I think with a carbine you shouldn't be cheating yourself –– you're shooting against a bullseye with an iron-sighted Carbine.  Try it against something more reasonable (the Marine "Dog" or F-type silhouette).

A hit with either a 5.56 or 5.45 gets someone's attention when he realizes he has a new "Owie."  Something about letting the air out of a hostile changes their whole perspective on the day.

Nice guns.  :)

Good shooting doc.

Probably weren't holding the rifle tight enough into their body. When it's loose it smacks back into you, which hits your face, rather than giving a quick push. The gun shouldn't move a whole lot relative to your body.

As a many years high power competitor and long range prone shooter (Palma 800/900/1000 yards) your performance with the S&W 15R and surplus Russian ammo at 600 yards is excellent!  Don't be so modest.

As a side note, I have a Suhl SSG82 bolt rifle in 5.45x39 that I have been shooting for quite a few years.  Bore/groove dimension of the Suhl are the same as the S&W M&P 15R but the chamber in the Suhl has a longer throat.  I have been pulling the Russian 70 grain bullets from the ammo I have and replacing it with the 69 grain Sierra Match King unsized and shooting them in the Suhl with no problems and the accuracy shrinks from about 2.5MOA of the factory Russian round to about 1.25MOA with the Sierra 69MK replacement.  I have also pulled the Russian bullets, dumped the Russian ball powder and replaced it with 20.2 grains of VN135 and that brings the 5 shot group size down to about 1MOA.

Why was I so fool hardy to shoot unsized bullets the the 5.45 bore?  Well all of my Palma rifles, and most Palma shooters I have shot with over the years shoot 308 Winchester in a tight bore, typically .3065" groove/.298" bore and have never had a problem.  It was because of reading your Blog I decided to buy a S&W M&P 15R upper.  I did initial zeroing with factory Russian ammo and then was going to try my 69MK loads in it and that's when I found the camber is different in the S&W than in the Suhl and the bolt would not close completely.  I need to seat the 69MK a little deeper in the 5.45x39 case.  Unfortunately I am in the middle of a move and all my reloading  gear is packed away in storage so it will have to wait  until I can get to my dies and press (my dies were special ordered from RCBS about 7 years ago).

All of that is FWIW.
Don  

Wow!  Nice shootin'.  I've never shot a 600 only match, but have shot XC a little.  I'd say, if you shoot that good with a carbine, you need to get a DCM gun.  
Quite awhile back, I shot at a regional XC match in the Expert class.  When I (finally) got to the 600 yd line (my scorer was a Master) took my first sighter, my scorer says "Your first sighter is a 7" (it's @ 3:00).  Next sighter "Your second sighter is a 7" (it's @ 9:00)  He looks @ the guy on the ready line, grins/chuckles and says "You've bracketed the target, now fire for effect!"  Smartass Masters, anyway!  (guess he earned the right)  
Anyway, congrats, nice shooting and keep it up!

Excellent.. well done.... you finally put that hammer down for awhile.... now this is a good post to show folks you don't need a 20" musket to engage a target at 600 yds...  you need some skill behind the trigger....

Did you ever shoot the TR24?