was just reading a thread and someone mentioned a good experience would be to shoot at a pie plate at 500 yards until you could regularly get all 30 rounds in the plate.

i've always had good vision, but now i'm wondering if my standards are a little low. when shooting at a paper plate at 100yards, it looks pretty damn small. i can hit it..but not always consecutively and much less while standing. i'm not sure i could even see a pie plate at 500 yards let alone put 30 shots into it.

is this exercise reasonable for an average shooter with a factory AR and iron sights...say a bushmaster 16"?

am i much suckier at shooting than i ever realized?

edited..as i definitely suck at typing.

At 500 yards?...Iron sight?....He! He! He!  What a laugh.

From a Bench....maybe.   300yds....probably.  All 30rds........I doubt it.  At 300yds I shoot paper plates on sticks, from a bench.  I can consistently hit the plate, but only from a bench, and that 9" plate is pretty hard to see at 300yds! Pretty much just a white dot!  Oh, and, no way, all 30rds for me!  
guns762

Yeah really,  I use a standard 300 yd rifle target at 300 yds.  it's about 2.5' sq and I can just barely see it around the front post.
Pie plate at 500 yds with iron sights?  Show me and I'll believe it.

To shoot that type of group you will need something of a special gun.  With my DCM/CMP AR-15 (done by CLE) I think I could place most of my rounds onto a plate at 500-yards but that is only shooting prone with a turner sling, NM front and rear sights, my Jewell 2-stage trigger, and my shooting coat.

A standard grade AR-15 using factory sights would likely be hard pressed to keep all 30-rounds in a 9-inch pie plate at 500-yards.  Now, I am not claiming that the gun can't do it...  I just don't think many shooters would be able to do it without the aid of better sights and the abuility to use a sling to hold the gun steady!

{edided for clarity}

NOTE:  As described above and below, I likewise am not claiming I could see a pie plate....  I am simply suggesting the group size would be about that big.  To adjust the windage and elevation and actually "HIT" a physical pie plate.....  I am not so sure without a scope!

Believe it or not, I have kinda seen this done.  I say kinda because at the time I was a marksmanship instructor at Parris Island and the target was a hell of a lot bigger than a pie plate, but the kid grouped incredibly.  Easily tight enough to keep in a pie plate.  Of course this was only 10 rounds too and I will say this kid was an exceptional shot.  Naturaly too, had never held a gun before, and the conditions were ideal, no cross wind at all.  Personaly I dont think you could see just a pie plate at 500.

You should be able to do this bump firing from the hip (if you have an AR that does not have the T/C trigger module), if you want to consider yourself a real, true rifleMAN.

Pretty routine for the 600 yard slow prone phase of NRA hipower.  The ten ring is a little bigger than that, and the MA and HM competitors shoot 198-200 on it all the time.  I've been watching it happen, and occasionally doing it, for twenty years.

People who don't shoot competition miss about 50% of what can be done.

A normal white paper plate?  You need more contrast first of all.  An all black background with a white target or vice versa.  

Get some quality ammo too - that makes all the difference in group size.  

Don't worry about seeing a pie plate at 500yds with iron sights - the NM targets at 500 are the size of billboards!  

A Pie plate would be hard to hit, as it's hard to see.  I'd make the assumption that the X rings in the targets used in NRA Highpower are the same size, but the WHOLE TARGET is bigger, thus easier to see, thus easier to determine where the middle/center of the target is.

[sniper]


[edited for bad grammar]

to read this stuff from you guys is seriously cool. i definitely needed to get a better perspective with longer distances. the place i usually shoot only has 250 as their max range. but it's only 15 mins away, so i'm not complaining.

in the past few weeks/months, i've actually been quite pleased at my developmet with the AR. when i read that pie plate shit, i was majorly deflated. i don't find many other ar guys in my area so i really didn't know.

thanks for putting me back on track! [:|]

Nope,you don't suck.You probably just don't know the theory and don't get to shoot at ranges long enough to hone your skills to do it.If you can get a 2in group at 100M you can hit a 10to12in pie plate at 500 with a little practice.You have to change the way you dial in your sights a little as well as getting an idea of what kind of sight picture you should have.I make the target a tiny white half dot in the tip of my front sight and exhale half way and wait until the sights pass the "sweet spot" on the little white speck and POP there it goes.Any well made AR type carbine in good shape will do this.This is just a little harder than basic qualification requirements in the US military and won't be a problem for you(especialy with good eyesight;)if you just start incrementally increasing the range at which you engage.You may want to get a finer fron sight and figure out the elevations for each given range on your carbine(the numbers on an A2 sight are meant for 20in barrel)but you should be able to get it together.I will suggest that you get a Marine Corps marksmanship book and let that be your guide.Another thing that will help is finding a place to shoot that has the distance and back stop to allow this to be done.I live in the sticks and shoot almost every day.A good place to start is at 100M,if you can get your groups to shrink up consistently at 100 then it's just a matter of figuring out bulet drop.Also the target has to be visible at a distance.If it's not reflective enough to see I can hit it.A good start for people who only have 100yd ranges to shoot at is to stake some quarters to a tree stump and poke a hole in each one(makes a cool keychain ornament;).I hope this helps

At 500 yards, the uncorrected 20/20 eye can resolve an object about 5 inches across.  You will be able to see a 10" pie plate, but unless that front blade is [i]real[/i] thin, I'd think the sight picture is going to be less than optimal.  I couldn't even begin to get close to doing it.  Come to think of it, a pie plate at 100 yards is challenge for me![rolleyes]

A little off the topic but for a nominal fee I will introduce you poor shooters to some of our finer marksman around these parts.
  We have one fella who shot a deer a 600yds with his 303 British. His son when in the army used to shoot dimes through the center at 300yds with his service rifle. He claimed his younger son had a string of these at home. Son now lives in Duluth and goes around training other Border patrol.

 Another shoots a heavy barrel 25-06. He claims sighted at 100 he doesn't dare hold high out to 500 on prairie dogs or he will shoot high.His doesn't seem to drop as much as mine.

 Another claimed he could hit a pop can every time at 300 with his 22-250,Bushnell 4x sportview. When I called him on it and we went out to 300 his closest hit was about 8' in front.

  You guys just live in the wrong place. We have many here whom could teach you the basic marksman ship skills required(ya right).

  There are some damn fine marksman in the country so one should never say never.

  Thought I was pretty fair until a guy from PA came out here shootin dogs by the name of Bob Wise. He was fun to watch. Made me talk to myself in my sleep.

Like Celt said.You dont have to see your target,just know where it is

I am under the impression that many people that shoot in areas not marked for yardage severly overestimate the distance.  I don't think that they even know they are not being truthful.

"I swear I saw that guy do a 6 inch group at 500 yards".  Yeah, the group was probably 6 inches, but distance was more like 250-300.

Stroll down to Perry with me next August 4-8, and you'll see about 1,000+ shooters on the 600 yard line.  Probably a fourth of them will be smacking a pie-plate sized ten ring with fair frequency.  And a few will be doing it to the point at which you never have to take a step when you're working their target.

Then there's the Palma crew .... what they do at 800-900-1000 is pretty impressive.

Use the force, Luke.

 

Any idea if that Marine Corps Marksmanship book can be found online?  Where would I find one for sale?

A pie plate at 500yds, better be standing or it's a cake walk. [:D]

Right conditions are a factor. with an AR using a heavy bullet, heavy barrel with match ammo, light or no wind, and a bench rest.

Same with the M1A, which I would prefer.

I think its time to cheat, get the Acog on there.  Better sight picture, but no magnification, He-Man scopes.
Ice

Hell I tried to sell my railgrabber,NSN ACOG at the Tulsa show and nobody wanted to spend the money on it!I'll tell you that it's 10 times easier with a glass than it is with iron sights especially with my eyesight.

Not entirely true.  Yes HM's shoot clean at 600 on occasion but, the AIMING BLACK IS 36 INCHES and is as wide as a front sight post, the X ring is 6 inches and the 10 ring 12 inches on a 600 yard target.  Thats a fair bit larger than a pie plate.  And still it takes a real hard holder to do it.

They are also shooting highly customized rifles with fine sight adjustments (1/2-1/4 MOA), with carefully loaded hand loads(Often too long to fit in a magizine), from a nice padded mat, with high grip rubber patches, wearing a several hundred dollar shooting jacket with more high grip rubber, etc, etc, etc.

Cut out the target center, staple it to a target back, strip away all the junk a high power shooter uses, hand that HM a stock 16" shorty with standard sights with factory ammo and lets see him keep 30 rounds in a 9" group at 500 yards.  

People who shoot competition miss about 50% of what pratical accuracy with a service rifle means.

Edited to add that I have the greatest respect for those that CAN clean at 600.

Wasn't there a guy that posted in the old board saying he was shooting sub MOA at a 1000yds with his stock Ruger Mini 14? Now that was almost as funny as the Mall Ninja thread. Wonder if that ever got archived.

I aint buying it

You know it!It seems that skills that are commonplace among "those who know" are in the realm of fantasy for some of the "kiddies" here on www.AR15.com.I run around with a crowd that would give you funny looks if you couldn't ring a 6 inch gong at 100M offhand,rapid fire.Hell my stepdad is 60+ years old and he can hit the pie plate at 400 offhand with his M1A.What's wrong with this picture?

     [shock]

I shot the primer out of a 12 gage shell laying on its side on top of a fence post at 1/2 mile one time with an old 22 that had the sights broken off of it!  [rolleyes]

At perry this year i ahot a 192 8x. This means in 20 shots 8 of them were in a 6 inch circle, 6 of them not were within 12 inches and the rest were within 18 inches. Not to bad for 600 yards. Or so I thought, but i got my ass kicked badly...so as only an average shooter on the range that day i was able to put 14 of 20 on the pie plate. As previously stated i was aiming at a 36 inch black circle on a 4'x8' white back ground but the center is what counted. I knew the range and i knew the size of the target. This info made the center a known. Post this thread on the compition board and you will be amazed at the groups you will find some of the folks shooting with iron sights at long ranges. The guys to watch are Tippie, and his friends......pat

Like I posed originally...  The guns that do this are not factory chrome linned Bushmasters with a 1:9 twist barrel.  I am far from being the best shot in the world but I do shoot EXPERT in DCM/CMP and my CLE Colt with a 1:8 Blackstar barrel and full CLE National Match sights is quite capable of this....

Perhaps those that don't beleave this is possible should make a trip to their state's DCM/CMP state cahmpionships and see just how good these rifles can shoot.  

I am likewise guilty of having had doubts about the potential of the AR-15 until I started going to the matches and competing myself.  

Here is a good link for more competitive information...  ask there!  The guys on that forum are shooters unlike many of the weekend warior types that visit here...

[url]http://www.competitiveshooter.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi[/url]