….ok so not really hitting them, but it’s a fun story…here it is….

Great day at the range today! Really; isn’t any day at the range great?

Sparks556 and I went out to test out my new DPMS LR-308JP.   It now has a new barrel, replacing the minute of barn that came on it, new VTAC hand guard and rail, and a new Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14x44 with the Z1000 reticule, in a LaRue SPR-S 10moa mount.


I absolutely love the scope.   It is very, very clear, and crisp, as was the Conquest on my .338win mag that I’ve used for years.   The glass is fantastic.   The reticule, I had hesitations about.   Most keyboard commandos said anything but a mil-dot with mil adjustments was not even a consideration, but I’ve found it’s the best part about this scope.   I love the Z1000 reticule!   It’s much cleaner than I would have thought it would be, looking at the picture on their website.   It is made for the 7.62x51 with .50 bc bullets.    For this rig, it is a perfect fit.    I love the windage marks; solid lines equal 10mph, and dots reach out to 20mph.    Each dot equals  2.5mph.   For the shooting we did yesterday, it was extremely useful.   I loved how quick I could switch from a 200yrd target to the 800 or even 1000 without making adjustments on the scope; yet I can still make adjustments if I change altitudes, or temps, or even if we stretch it out to 1200yrds, like we plan to do in the future.

Anyway, I love the scope, and playing around with the calculator on the website and with a 5.56 69gr Sierra HPBT at 2900fps?, it would work perfectly with that load too.  I might have to get another for my next AR build.

I sighted the LR-308 in last weekend, but wanted to get a little more refined for the reticle today.  I loaded up some 168gr Hornady HPBT Match loads with 43.0gr of Varget.   They clocked at 2700fps last weekend out of my 24” barrel, which lines up with the Zeiss reticule perfectly at 4400ft above sea level.     We put up paper at 217 and 550yrds, as determined by my Leica LR800.
 
Picture of the range; note the orange circles at 217, 550, and 977 around the life size metal Buffalo.


Picture of arfcom member Sparks556 behind the rifle


I first shot at the “200” yrd target to ensure that everything was zeroed.   We had an annoying 6-15mph breeze from right to left, that got increasingly worse as the morning wore on, but since I had already verified the windage zero last weekend, it allowed us to play with the scopes windage marks on the reticule.
Check out the reticule picture from home….the house is more than 1/2mile away; the far ridge in the back ground is about 5miles.
Taken at 4.5x….yeah, it’s not the greatest picture, I apparently suck at doing this with my sons camera


Here it is at 14x.  There is some blurriness, but in real life, it was quite crisp and clear.  Anyway, it gives you a nice picture of the reticule on the Zeiss.   You can see the windage tree.


Here is my target at “200” yrds.   Nice 5 shot group, three touching, in a 1 and 3/8”  group.    You can see how much the wind was affecting the groups drift, as I was holding right in the middle of the big diamond.  I was very pleased with this, as the rifle spent all summer at DPMS getting a new barrel put on it to replace the minute of barn one that came on it from the factory(another story)


Then it was time to shoot at 550.    Sparks556 shot this very nice group of 4.   He used a 10mph windage hold off.  We won’t talk about the 5th shot, as he was “surprised” with the lightness of the JP trigger on the second shot.  He was waiting for the reset but got his next shot off instead.


With the rifle verified at “550” we shot the gong at 750yards with much ease.    We then started shooting at the buffalo at 970yrds.    That also was relatively easy, and hard to see exactly where are impact points were, as both were heavily pitted.    

When we were out at the buffalo, we laughed at the row of 3 or 4 orange clay pigeons lined up on the hill behind the buffalo.   I said something like, “yeah, who the hell thinks they are going to hit a clay pigeon at 1000yrds?”    Well, back at the shooting line, as we were finishing up, Sparks556 suggested we shoot the last 3 rounds at the clays, and see how close we could get.  

You can see the pigeons behind Sparks to the right of his shoulder….
 

The wind at this point was relatively stiff at the line, coming up from the river valley below, but only about  5mph at the buffalo.  With a wind hold of 12.5mph My first shot hit slightly right(15-24”), but about right for elevation.  I was using the 975yrd mark on the reticule.   The second was still just a bit right about 12”, maybe a bit less.   I shortened up on the windage hold and held the 10mph mark on the reticule.   The third put dust all over the pigeon, and at first we thought I hit it, but alas, I was just a bit low.  

Here you can see the reticule and the exact hold I was using on the pigeon…..


Here you can see the impact of the last two shots….it looks further than what we were seeing from the bench, as the angle was right over top.


Here is a picture of the impact points from as close to the bench view as we could estimate…


We were both pretty shocked,  at how close we were able to get to the pigeon.    Yeah, in reality, if the gun can handle 3/4MOA groups, we should easily be able to put the shots into 7-8inches at 1000, but until you see it, it doesn’t seem that real.
 
What a fun day.    I’m excited to shoot the rifle again without wind, and out to some further distances….maybe 1200yrds.    

Sweet man!  I definitely like the rifle/glass combo, and it obviously puts rounds down range where you want them.

Good job on the photos and storyline as well.  You get an A+!  

Wow that looks like fun.  I'd be curious to see how far you can really push it out there.

We both felt pretty stupid for not putting up paper at the "1000" mark, but we will next time.   We have some portable man sized targets that we are going to take out and set up at the longer distances, and past 1000yrds.

Looks like fun...I have a SASS that I wish I could find a 1000 yard range for ....furthest I can get locally is 420 yds but it did great there

Not 977, but I was hitting clays at 600 with my LR308 fairly reliably before.  



LOVE the DPMS 308.



Nice write-up.

Sweet glass and nice shooting

Cant wait to get home so I can see the pics, Guns.  I've heard you talk a lot about this, on here and xbox, so I am happy to see you got it lined out.  Hopefully I can get mine to this stature when I bring it home in December.

We talked about this a bit in depth.....

My load is fairly light at only 43.0gr of Varget, and I'm getting 2700fps with the 168gr Hornady.   I tested up to 45gr, and had some fairly flat primers, but nothing too bad.   I didn't get any chrono info on those, as that was the bad barrel, and I was so pissed at that point I forgot.

My 43.5gr of Varget clocked at 2800fps out of the 24" barrel, and were actually a bit more accurate in the test group...could have just been me.    I stuck with the 43.0 gr to stay as close to zero on the Zeiss, but with some stiffer loads, I could easily increase the effective range well past the 1000yrd mark.    If I play around with my range calculator on my Droid X, I should be able to make some adjustments to get there.

It will be fun experimenting.

i'm very enviouse of you for having that kind of range by you. in california if there is 1000 yards of bare land, they gotta put up a housing track and a frigging strip mall. my local range only goes to 200 and thats only if your a member on special days. gotta drive almost 100 miles to get to a longer range. nice shooting btw. that scope is dope, er...nice.

what barrel did you end up going with?

wanted to ask the same

I have the 24" fluted bull barrel.    It's probably more than is needed, but for me this is not meant to be a battle rifle, but a DMR capable of hitting past 1000 if I can do my job.     I'm considering having it cut down to 22" and threaded at some point, but not sure yet.   I like being able to use the lighter loads to achieve the velocity I need for the Zeiss optic.

So it will kill you to know, I can drive 10 total minutes from my house; closer than the range pictured, and shoot out to 3000 or even 4000yrds pretty easily?

You have to drive to do that? Thats gotta suck.

Great rifle, love the optic.

One good thing I like about Kentucky are all the flat top mountains from stripjobs, etc.  We have several places to shoot that are well over 1500-2000yd that is just a 20 min drive away.  

And the LR308 I am getting has only a 18'' barrel on it so I am thinking of upgrading to a 24'' or even a 20'' that is threaded.  Once tax time comes around, I think a can will be going on the end of it or my RRA-15

My LR308 also wears a 24" fluted, factory tube, and while I wouldn't consider mine a 3/4 MOA gun, it's still pretty darned accurate for my purposes.  The longest range I've shot mine was a bit over 200;  looks like 5 times that distance is a real hoot.  Can't wait to try some really long range targets.

Wow. Great write up. I can't believe that z-1000 recticle can almost hit a clay pigeon at 1000yds. I might be getting this scope now.

Question: I see you used a LaRue SPR-S 10moa mount. Do you have to use a 10moa mount with this scope or can you use a 0moa mount? (I have basically the same rifle)

Nice write up, thanks for sharing.

Pretty sure I could do with out the 10moa mount, but I thought it couldn't hurt, and it  will allow me to mess around with distancs further than 1000yrds, when i want to.    I've still got 2(exactly) full turns on the Zeiss before it tops out.

I had the opportunity to try a 6" diameter steel target at 400 yards over the weekend.  I did not have a spotter, and the recoil, even with 14 lbs of gun/optic/ammo, was enough to take me off target so I couldn't see the impacts in the dirt behind the gong.  Because the target was so far away, others were shooting near by, and I was wearing two sets of hearing protection, I couldn't hear the three hits I did make.  Without a spotter, it was essentially an exercise in frustration.

Given that experience, I'm now even more impressed at your shots at the clay pigeon at that distance.