I'm looking for a member in the KC area who will take me under his wing and mentor me in the fine art of precision shooting at extended ranges.  I've owned and shot precision rifles before and even worked up handloads but I need to take it to the next level, beyond what I can figure out for myself.

I'm going to be starting basically from a clean sheet of paper.  I haven't decided on a rifle, optic, base, or rings yet, although I have my leanings.  Its going to be pretty standard, caliber will be .308 and I want to use a mildot reticle for ranging.  Nothing too fancy, I just want to learn good fundamentals.  I'm looking pretty strongly at a Savage 10FP as the rifle but I'm not 100% decided yet.  I might invest in a laser ranger but I want to learn how to range using the reticle primarily.  I want to build an integrated system where each part contributes to the whole and makes sense within the system, as opposed to just buying flavor-of-the-month items based on internet reviews and cobbling together a rifle that might turn out to be far less than the sum of its parts because I don't know WTF I'm doing.

My goal is to be able to engage targets at unknown distances between 50 and 600 yards effectively and be able to get a good grasp on precision shooting fundamentals like the cold bore shot and windage holdovers.  If someone will step up and work with me on this project I'm sure I could make it worth your time.  

An individual has to know his own limits, and I know that farting around with a mil-dot master and a video game simulation all alone isn't going to get me where I want to go on this.

Quoted: But I will say look for the Savage 10fp with the Mcmillain stock, Duke... not that plastic flexible POS they usually come with...

Way ahead of you bro.

www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=6&f=5&t=204240

SUB_MG, I've been thinking of staying simple, going with a fixed power like an SWFA Super Sniper and avoiding alot of the whiz-bang features like side focus knobs and illuminated reticles.  The more complexity you add to an optic, the higher the cost, and the more stuff can go wrong and break on you.  I'm sure I'd like Nightforce too, but most models cost about as much as a decent down payment on a new car for my wife, which would have to come first if I had that much money to blow.  I've been looking at offerings from Leupold, Zeiss and Nikon too, if I wind up paying even that much I'll probably be looking at not having a complete rifle until next year.  For some reason the fixed power Leupolds are more than $1100 and the variable powers are hundreds of dollars less than that.  I've heard really good things about the Zeiss Conquest series and they are relatively affordable, but I don't think I can get them with target knobs.  Some guy on arfcom is swearing by Sightron right now, I'll look at those, but buy one off of the advice of an internet post?  Yikes!  If I wind up getting a variable power optic I'm going to want a front focal type reticle, which will bring the cost up.  Argh!

Anyway, you guys are correct about how to range, the formula is=

Size of target in yards x 1000
___________________________  = Range in Yards

Size of target in mils

But its one thing to know the formula and be able to do the basic algebra to figure out ranging, and another thing to actually create a ballistic table for a handload that you worked up and actually implement it into an integrated weapon system that is repeatable.  Part of what makes it suck is that you are using mils to estimate range using your reticle, but then your scope adjustments aren't usually measured in mils, they are measured in fractions of MOA, which is not the same thing.  So you use mils for one part of the shooting equation, range, and then if you have target knobs you need to know how many clicks to move to adjust your point of impact by minutes of angle, not mils.  So there's a conversion to be done there because you need to know how many MOA, not mils, your bullet will drop at the range you just computed.  Then, if you need to do a holdover, say your target is moving and you have to lead it or there's a stiff wind, you have to go back to mils because you have left your target knobs behind and you are aiming off using your reticle again.  There's alot to learn and I can figure out the theoretics, what I need is someone who knows the right way to implement it and will spend a couple of hours under the sun at a shooting range helping me figure out how it actually works with my handloads of 168 grain SMK ammo.

So far, my initial thoughts on my hardware are:

1. Savage 10FP with Accutrigger in a good stock, either McMillan or Bell-Carlson

2. SWFA Super Sniper at fixed 10x or a Leupold Mk4 at 3.5 to 10x or maybe a Simmons 3x9 I got in plastic bubble wrap from Walmart for $30.

3. Ken Farrel base?  Maybe spring for a Badger base?  20 moa base or standard?  Unknown, but I'm fairly sure I'm going with a one-piece base.

4.TPS rings?  Are they hype?  Maybe Ken Farrel for both base and rings? Unknown

5. Harris swivel bipod, possible with a swivel lock.

Something like this, but without the Captain Insano optic (Nightforce that costs nearly as much as two brand new AR15s).

Quoted: Get this one Duke! An instant classic! www.remingtonle.com/images/rifles/m40.jpg

Hmmm... that would be pretty cool.  Only Davidson's is carrying them and the price is $1470.  Man, my biggest mistake in life was being born into a family without money.  What would be neato is if Winchester (now apparently defunct) would have come out with a Carlos Hathcock model 70 with matching 8x Unertl setup.  That would friggin rock.  As it is, those old Unertls are nearly impossible to find in good shape these days.



I know a man who lives in Illinois who could help me if he was closer.  He was a USMC Sniper in Vietnam and now only shoots occasionally.  I've only been shooting with him once.  At 300 yards he put three shots within a quarter-sized group, right in the X ring, then handed me the rifle and said "Ok I'm done, you can have it."  I've never seen anything like that before or since.  His gun is a stainless Rem 700 with a medium profile fluted barrel, standard Leupold rings and a Nikon Monarch scope.  It looks just like a hundred standard guns I've passed by in gun stores for years, there's nothing "tactical" about it at all.  But the shooter knows his shit, knows his handload and his firearm and he's an integrated part of it.  

I asked him what being a sniper was like and he said "sometimes you have to crawl on your belly for about a week, set up in your post, and then have the balls NOT to take a shot, because there's no target worth the compromise.  Then you crawl on your belly for another week during egress to get back to your own lines and the bullet in the chamber's the same one you put in there when you left.  Ever think about that?"

I roomed with his son in college, who later foolishly went to law school and has now become a sucessful attorney in Illinois.  His dad has never talked at length about the war with anyone in his family, nor admitted having a single confirmed kill.  However, the son has talked with other men from his father's old unit who have assured him "back in indian country your dad killed more men than cancer."  

Oh great swami, where in MO do you reside?

The FN SPR uses a Winchester 70 type bolt and trigger, so its alot like the Winchester Stealth series except for its chrome-lined barrel and better stock.  Problem is, a quick search on gunbroker and gunsamerica doesn't show any Stealth I models for sale, and Stealth IIs are going for $750, which is as much as the Savage in a McMillan stock.

Bro Kane, how about I win the lottery first?  I've owned cars that cost less than that rifle.  RSR lists the White Feather at $3,793 dealer price.  I could have the shop order one for YOU, but at ten percent markup you'd be looking at $4,172.  After seven percent sales tax you'd be at $4473 out the door.

Now that's an easy number to remember, LOL!

Anyway, Gunny Hathcock never used an M14 type anyway, he was a bolt action type.  Its just a marketing thing by Springfield, although some of the proceeds supposedly go to his family.

There is a picture in the biography of Carlos Hathcock that supposedly shows the rifle in question, overlooking a valley.  Its in a sandbagged position with an old school Unertl 10x on a mount that has been soldered on to the top of the gun.  The gun has spade grips and a butterfly trigger, so I can guess the trigger pull wouldn't have been anything to brag about.

My google-fu was weak as well when it came to that pic.  Its in the book.