You guys have probably seen your fill of tiny little groups with high power scopes and thought,"Yeah, but how well does it shoot at low power and in poor light, like when you're hunting?"

Me too. Gary has a bunch of groups posted using a Simmons 4X shotgun scope and they are great. But I was wondering if I could do nearly as well since I'm not as good a shot naturally.

As some of you have deduced, my Yukon is in build. The scope I've decided to get for the gun is a Nightforce 5.5-22x56. I decided on this scope because the gun will be used for target shooting 99.9% of the time and hunting the rest. Ideally, I'd mount a 1-4 power scope for hunting but I do have to watch the bills... Maybe after I buy a Zeiss for the Woodsman (and sell the Bushnell back to Gary ), I'll get a quality 1-4 for the Yukon for those rare hunting forays. Anyhow, I figure the 22 power of the Nightforce ought to be good enough for shooting out to 200 yards off a bench and at 5.5 it ought to be low enough to hunt (although the gun and scope are going to be a pretty heavy combination, I may need a sherpa). Another reason for choosing the Nightforce is its reputation for reliability and repeatability when dialing the aimpoint.

Anyhow, I got to thinking, "can I shoot at 5-6 power?" I never do. I've got a 18 power scope on the Woodsman and it's almost always set to 18 unless we're shooting slugs at over 100 yards. I've got nothing less than 12 power on the Maverick and any other gun I really shoot and the Prairie 3 has a 50 power that is usually set in the 40-45 range!

So, I decided to try and shoot at low magnification. Since it was 20 after 5 and the light was fading fast and the Woodsman was setting there on the bench...I decided to dial the Bushnell back to 6 power and give it a go. I quickly grabbed 5 bishop slugs and tossed them into a tin. Fortunately, I had a clean target on the wall at 43 yards. I wasn't sure it was a clean target as I couldn't see it clear at 6 power! I dialed in to 18 just to verify and then dialed back to 6 power to shoot. At this range and power the cross hairs would cover all the white in the center of the target when centered. The gun is currently sighted for a different slug and that's good as I would not shoot the aimpoint out (if I was steady).

I pulled the first shot high (didn't know until after the rest of the shots were taken) but overall, I think I did OK.

I shot this group as fast as I could. Load, cock, shoot, load, cock and shoot as soon as the center of the target went black as the crosshairs covered the white lines. I figured that was as close as I could come to hunting pressure given a stationary target...

I'm pretty happy with the group. Including the first shot at the top the group measures 15/16" and the remaining 4 shots measure 9/16". That's shooting about as fast as I can load, cock and gain the sight picture. Given time to use bench technique I'm sure I could tighten the group but the point was to see if I could hit anything using low power just resting the gun and sighting/shooting quickly.

Good shooting Jerry! Nothing like honing those shooting skills.
Over the holidays I have been doing something similar, practicing off hand shooting with a number of my guns at various distances. I'll post on it soon.
Cheers
Neil

Hi Neil,

Yeah - Jerry does pretty good. Better than he lets on. I think he's trying to get my guard down, so he can whoop me again.

We need to get out and call in some varmints. Sharpen up those killer instincts.

A shame you're way down there in Paridise.

Gary

I think that's pretty good too!!!

to me - not that I'm any expert - target shooting and hunting are clearly different obviously.....but so is "group shooting" if you want to call it that

Seems to me in "hunting" you basically get 1 chance, in whatever circumstances you are in, to put the slug within a certain area - ie kill-zone

otherwise, either the game is gone, or you miss completely, or you miss enough that you have to chase it!

"target" shooting is much more controlled, but again, if you are shooting for a score, you still have to put the round within a "specified area" for maximum value

"group shooting" seems a little different - consistency (from both the shooter and his equipment) is mandatory, but "accuracy" is not necessarily as valuable as in hunting or target shooting for score

ie you can "miss" the aimpoint by a foot 5 times, and still have a great "group" - your quarry would be long gone!


anyway, I only muse on this because (not being a hunter of anything but pest animals) I find that my ability to do any of the 3 disciplines varies, and at times I am better at one than other or vice-versa. I've shot the targets "played" thus far pretty well, but just the other day I was trying to peg a squirrel that keeps going into my barn and chewing on stuff

I caught him outside, with the same rifle I've shot the targets with. Really no wind (very cold though!), just under 15 yrds - so virtually the same as the 10m I've been shooting at........

missed him COMPLETELY

forget minute of angle, not even minute of squirrel!!!!

Now, this past summer, I had some crows get into the garbage cans I had out to be emptied - about 70 yrds away, same gun (sighted at 50 yds) and I was 2 for 2 !!


Anyway, I guess unless you do this for a living, your "skill" varies at times. I think that even the best "natural" shots have good days and bad days.....and I saw on one of the various cable channels a show that had the Canadian sniper who has the longest kill ever recorded....something like 2200 meters in Afghanistan. Apparently, his first shot missed by like 7 feet, but he got the job done with the second round.

Nice group Jerry.

I can certainly relate to :

"At this range and power the cross hairs would cover all the white in the center of the target when centered"

Lon

Good shooting Dude,

I suspect there was a lot of stress involved, fearing someone you know may actually SEE you shooting at 5X. That's would rattle ALMOST anyone.

Hey ... I had a similar humiliating experience last evening. I was relaxing, browsing thru a midwayusa.com sale flier. Started by looking at the electronic predator calls on page 22. I'd circled a few things in the flier - I'd get back - think about them, and never order any of these either (like the last time ... haha). I browsed over to page 25. I had circled a nice Simmons 6.5 X 20 by 50 AO scope. But ... the thing was $124.99 on sale. I'd think about it. And then!!!! I noticed ... literally in the left hand column of the same page ... directly beside my circled Simmons .. there it was!!!!! A NIGHTFORCE 5.5-22X by 56mm Side Focus with 62mm (or was it 62 inch bell?) ....... ........ yeah .... I can see how you wouldn't want to go crazy, and buy a 4X too. that would be .... silly ....



Joebill. Actually, the difference between 10 and 15 yards (on your scope) might be alot more than you think. If your small bore is shooting about 830ish fps .... then 10 yards and 50 yards will be about the same setting. The pellet is rising at 10, and falling at 50. However; since it's rising at 10 yards, it has risen alot more at 15 yards. It's the distance between about 25 and 40 yards that will be the closest to level (at the top of the curve) ... if I remember my time at the small bore range correctly.

That's why, with airguns, it's the "range finding" that's so very important. That's also why I missed my Bobcat by parting it's hair a few years ago.

Gary

Gary

you're probably right

the .22 shoots at about 950 fps, and I thought it would be close enough...guess not ! Stepped it off, and the shot I took was 14 yards vs sighted at 11 yards (10m), but I guess the difference was enough to miss...or else i just took a real bad shot, which is certainly possible

yeah, that Nightforce Scope is pretty........nice.....large.....

Jerry's making it so "if" he ever misses, it will be the gun's fault. haha. Couldn't be the scope.

"Ah, Gary; I missed another one ... must need another coat of finish on the stock ... "



Gary

Perfect! Well done. That's exactly what I described! hahaha.

GAry

I should get bonus points (or a huge discount on custom mounts) for the first all smiley post!

Fine ... you get 5 Bonus points.

Did another little test today. Gary's right, I have to make sure I get the gun to where IT can't miss because I sure can!

First, I wanted to get sighted in pretty close to where the gun would be set if I ever actually hunt something! My guess is 50 yards is a good sight in range. I don't have 50 yards here so I just guesstimated an inch high at 40 is close enough.


I started at dead on at 40. I needed to make sure I had a good batch of slugs anyway. These'll do.


Dialed up a little and I think I've got the gun set for "on" with the first shot.

Next, I took the gun of the regulator filled to the proper pressure for 4 shots. With the gun shooting .62s I can get 2 shots that are dead even and a third that is easily compensated to the same POI. With the insert, I can get 4 shots with the second 2 needing just a little compensation from the first 2. I have not really spent enough time figuring out the compensation and when I did I was using too much magnification. That last point became obvious today.

I figured my best chance was to shoot from a kneeling position as I might brace myself some. Ha! I was still swinging like a weather vane in a tempest! Oh, turn the zoom down... OK, the target is smaller but the whole wall is still jinking from right to left! Yeah, I guess when I find something to hunt I better have sticks or a tree trunk to lean on... I'll just use the door frame to help a bit... Target still moves but I think I can get it on the way by! Boom!


Holy cow! The first shot is in the center! Reload, cock, find dancing target, Boom! Second shot is a 9! Well, I'm real happy about now. Reload, cock, find that squirmy dot and oh wait? Zoomed way out my correction for the 3rd shot is not familiar looking anymore and I need to estimate the offset I used before. OK, where is that dot again? Yeah there it goes, aim a little high and shoot. High and left. So much for that group... Try again with a little less "correction" and I'm still high but at least on the 8 ring.

Oh well, I've got more lead and targets and the need to practice. I better get to it.

That's fine shooting. Offhand or kneeling is a bear. I'm far better standing than kneeling.

Looks like you've got that antique Bushnell dialed in just fine.

Remember too ... Jerry's not using his hot shot Prairie III bench rifle. This is his shotgun with a sub caliber rifled insert in place. That gun wasn't built to be a target gun (but it is).

Good job.

Gary

Hey ... anybody else shooting? Don't make us have to go to the bottom of the world again to find another shooter! Neil!!!

Did another quick 4 shot string...



I shot these just like the first four, kneeling and leaning. The first 2 of this group are the ones touching, pure luck. The third shot is high and left again.

I tried for a good ten minutes to figure out photoshop and how I could layer one of these groups over the other to see how close my bad third shots are... Forget it! What a pain in the butt that program is! I use Nero for photo editing just because photoshop wants to take over the computer and make things as painful as I might allow. Curious how the video program from the same company is easily figured out but the world famous program in a version for amateurs is such a pain?

To my eye, your new third shot is one pellet left, and 1/4 pellet lower than your previous third shot.

Gary

I think you have the shots reversed but the measurements pretty darn close!

Just for the heck of it. I wanted to clarify that all the "scope grief" is in good fun between friends. I'm honored that people want to spend serious bucks to purchase good glass for my guns. I'm glad the guns hold up to the expectations. Heck - I've never seen anything like Jerry's $800 Nikko Sterling scope before ... I can't imagine what could be better, but there must be more. I know Jerry has spent some significant time researching the topic.

If I ever had a gun to call mine ... which I could hang on to, I'd come up with the funds to scope it well. The thing with me (for the last 14 years anyway) ... is that anything I make to shoot ... soon gets assimilated by the Collective. Most of my range time is spent with a handful of T hex wrenches mounting a scope ... banging off 5 shots to get on target, and then shooting some groups. Can you imagine taking a fine scope on and off and on and off and using every imaginable scope ring configuration possible? I'd have the entire length of the tube corrugated with crimps and scratches.

Therefore, I manage to put some "groups on the table" with my $60-80 scopes that are expendable. (and sometimes beat the boys doing it ... hehehe ... But, when I grow up, I want to get a fine scope and put it on my very own rifle.



Gary

Gary

no worries !

I'm sure Jerry has a few "hand me down" scopes he can give ya !

or maybe, you should force him to trade in some scopes toward the next rifle......

Great shooting Jerry, I knew that half hearted protest you made about shooting off hand was a ploy. And with that in mind, why don't we shoot some squirrels off hand. Here's nine of the tree rats.

[www.airgunsmith.com]

Shoot'em off hand, use no sticks for the first shot and stick or sticks for the second round for a total of 18 shots. Any squirrel hit is one point, touch the red and get two points. Yes you can use 1/2 caliber from center to measure the hit.

Jerry I see you have tried some photo editing programs. What do you recomend for the casual user/poster. From your post it looks as if I need different programs to handle the high speed video as well.

All your shooting is well within the vitals of the medium sized game I'd expect you'd hunt and the small game you could head shoot as well. Are you practicing for a hunt down under this summer with Neil?

Kent

Hi Kent,

Thanks for the comments and the new target. Off hand eh? At least I also have the project of working up some shooting sticks for round two.

For the regular photo editing I use Nero Photosnap, it has all the most useful tools in a very easy to use format. For the video, the Adobe Premier Elements program works really well. It is not super intuitive but it's not hard at all. It does a nice job compressing for uploading too.

Thanks Peter.

Hi Kent,

It struck me as a good idea this AM, to shoot the target. Looked neat - I felt good.

I used the ball reservoir gun with the mono-pod 4X scope. A Barnes 25 Falcon slug. Started "Off-hand".



Not bad.

I had thought I'd overshoot the target for the second round, but figured it would be a mess to tell the difference in the shots. Good thing too. I'd have been annoyed.

I got a scrap stick ... perched it atop a leather glove on the floor, and proceeded to miss the first three squirrels by about an inch! Wonderful. Of course, I'd forgotten that the gun is going to recoil totally different from a stick rest - then from offhand. I did the same thing at the last Miss. shoot. Kent pounded three 50 yard targets offhand. Handed me the gun, and I used sticks and missed three in a row by about a foot!

Realization is a bear, afterwards.

I thought ... nutz, I did better offhand. So - I got another target, and shot a second round offhand ...



But, by then - the concentration was broken.

So: SAVE YOURSELVES!!! Your gun won't shoot the same from sticks as from your hands. Don't suffer the humiliation that befell me!!!

hahaha

Fun target. I've got a similar one in mind. We'll see how that goes.

Gary

Nice shooting Gary. Thanks for the tips too!

I got home way to late for daylight due to this miserable season. Since I won't likely get home early this week and it's too dark for a booming Woodsman when I get home, I'll probably have to switch to the Monsoon for this target and use artificial light.

I can see I'm in big trouble though so I might just keep making excuses!

Good post and good shooting Jerry! look like you can hit anything you want when hunting with that gun. I like to practice shooting in hunting situation myself. I love to use the bipods for long distance hunting or sitting position, I'm suck with standing offhand, and I only use the bench rest to test the gun's accuracy and sightin.

Good shooting Gary, I'm printing the targets as we speak so I can shoot tonight. I may get the big boys out to shoot.

he hold is so critical that it's almost a shame to hand one to a friend to shoot. They invariably put the death grip on it and shoot anywhere but on target. The last one was a week ago at a deer drive. I handed the Grizzly to a fellow hunter who proceeded to death grip two slugs about 6in over the 9in steel pig. Of course, I had told him before the second shot to hold it lightly but to no avail. I did prove the gun at the same target twice, not trying to rub it in but to show him the slugs after a good hit. He did later plow one into a pine, no vertical error problem here, which he dug out with a screwdriver.

Jerry, I made shooting sticks for a recent event by using two 1x2 clear poplar from the molding area at H Depot and articulating it about 5 in from the end with 1/4 bolt. The fancy one, don't let Gary see it, I trimmed the inner edge to 1in and leather covered. Cut the base of the legs off at an angle and screw a 3in deck screw in the bottom and cut the head off leaving a 1 1/2 in spike to stick in the ground. I went fancy on this one and mounted a couple of rare earth magnets in the legs which hold the unit closed until needed. Not quite 1000 words, pic to follow. As nice as this is I still always place my hand between the sticks and the gun to prevent the bounce Gary notes above.

Kent

Ahhhhh ... the old "hand between the gun and stick ... trick!"

Yeah - that trimmed version you did allowed the proper cradle rest without the sticks being spread too much. Good engineering. I've just decided it's better for my ego to "miss" offhand, than to "miss" off of shooting sticks!

Well, I'm glad to hear you shot the Grizzly. Didn't see a "Tweet" about that ... nor a Facebook entry. I'll look again.

Ok ...9 pm ... gotta put feet up ... I'm taking the rest of the evening off. In the middle of making top ends for 4 Nitro Express projects, I was pressed into duty fortifying the kitchen against mice. This involved removing the face from a kitchen base cabinet so that an airgunsmith might screw his bulk into the interior. Insulating, foaming, fussing, carrying most of the tools I own from the shop to the kitchen, etc. Fun was had by all.

I finished and went back to work - much refreshed. When I came in for dinner, I was carefully holding myself upright, while squinting at the small kitchen TV to hear the news. AHHH!!!!! brought my last nerve to the surface. It's a "baby mouse" my wife said , from atop the refridgerator. Once I'd used the paddles on my heart, I stumbled over to the staircase ... where the offending creature was rumored to currently reside.

I opened the door, and ... yep ... there it was. Calm as a defense attorney with a guilty client he'd just plea'd off the charge.

I flew into action. The mouse flew into my deck shoe, on the step tread. ..................................

....................

I slammed the other shoe atop the first .... and carried the thing outside. At which point ... it declined to leave the shoe. Until my 4000 X weight advantage over came the situation.

And, that's my story.

Gary

I'm hurting from laughter!

Jim, no pain from laughter smiley... need more!

Well, since Gary posted his targets here; so will I. Somehow, I think we should be more disciplined in using the stiky posts and dealer posts etc. but since we're such a small group of actual participants , we can wander about the forum as we please!

I had to leave work early to get Timmy a hot pad and tylenol for his recurring sore neck. So, I figured I'd use the available daylight to shoot before getting to work on the 10MB of compressed PowerPoint files I sent myself to work on tonight... oh pending joy.

Having little time, I decided to use the Monsoon as I could fill it once and shoot all the shots without any re-fills and just pause to re-set targets and switch magazines.

Here's the first attempt at shooting offhand:


A whopping 6 points. I noticed that 7 of the 9 shots were above the bull.

Here's the next target, shot using a collapsable monopod I remembered I had (and can't use very well). I didn't have time to lash together a bipod.


Notice the two shots at the first two squirrels? The ones that count (first try) are the misses. What the heck? Oh. I adjusted the magnification before the first target and again before the monopod target. What was I thinking? I'm using dots not crosshairs at this range and those are second focal plane and change with zoom... I know that! Good time to have the lesson reinforced I suppose. Anyhow, the second shots on the first two targets helped me figure where I was supposed to be aiming. 11 points, better than I expected with the monopod...I guess my timing was getting pretty good as I only had to figure out a target going side to side.

Having figured out the new dot setting, I re-shot the offhand series:


9 points. Better. I was pretty deliberate with the top three targets but tried to shoot the next 6 in a continuous series. Not so good there.

Anyhow, that was fun and reminded me of some things to pay attention to. Good target Kent!

Yeah ... it's hugh-milly-ate-tin .... ain't it? (icon of smilie scuffing the ground with one foot).

I was thinking of taking another crack of the target ... with a chainsaw!!!

Gary

I was thinking of just sneaking up and stomping the target flat using my 4000 to 1 weight advantage!

Gee Jerry, in that first monopod target you hit him right in the bum Ouch

Well said.

I can't help but notice, that there are few of us here, willing to suffer such humiliation. "The Pioneers take the arrows".

Gary

Hey Jerry, nice work with that .62 cal. It's hard to tell that it's a smoothbore from those targets, especially from offhand.

Last time I went out shooting, a friend of mine had a no-name 1 X red dot scope on a Ruger 10-22. It's surprising how well you can group with those things, even when you're used to using high-mag scopes for target work. I wonder how a fine-dot Aimpoint would do on a Woodsman, or one of those Holosights. Those things are neat to shoot with, the dot just floats out there like it was a laser pointer or something even though it's really all inside the glass slab.

I have wondered that myself. Looked at one in a magazine this am. However; I think the rub would come in that the parallex might do you in. This said it was parallex free @ 100 yards. If the dot moved around, relative to your head position, then it would only be good for plinking.

Gary

"Hey Jerry, nice work with that .62 cal. It's hard to tell that it's a smoothbore from those targets, especially from offhand."

Thanks Rotor! The shooting wasn't all that hard but blowing up the target on poster board was a real pain!

Poster board!!!! Ah HAH!!!!!

You guys are the uber-geeks when it comes to the web stuff.

I just post a straight JPEG, and if that doesn't turn out for some reason....I take another picture.

bugger ,,, thats where ive been going wrong , i just press print ,,, my targets are only about 40 mil square ,,, and yours are poster size ,,,, thats my excuse and im sticking to it ,,, fine shooting guys .