The Juniors finally got their chance to “Go Downtown” – try their hand at shooting 600-yards.
It took us most of two High Power Shooting seasons, but we arranged a session at the Hillside 600-yard range. They have shot a lot of matches at 200 and 300-yards, but I was curious to see how they would respond to their first try at shooting at a target over a third-of-a-mile away from them. I was not too concerned about actual scores – we were not going to do a lot of knob turning on scopes – I wanted them to see that shooting at 600-yards wasn’t all that different from 300-yards – it just takes the bullet longer to get there!
I should have known what was going to happen; I should not doubt this group of young women. I had them put their 300-yard zeroes on their rifles and then come up an additional thirteen minutes of elevation. Most of them were on paper the first shot and after some sighting shots, they started a 20-shot string at 600-yards.
When the smoke cleared and the brass was picked up, I was impressed by how well they did. Miss Mia shot the high score of the evening with a 176-3X. It was a well centered group and it did not show the two-group tendency she has shown on 300-yard prone targets. (She really did shoot 20-shots, I didn’t do a sighter conversion for her). Good job young lady!
Miss Addiysn was close on her heels with a 175-1X. Her group was well centered as well. I kidded Addiysn that only six weeks ago she was killing antennas and sensors and now she is solidly holding the black at 600-yards, a lot of improvement.
Miss Kileen shot a group about a minute and a half high with a 162-1X, but it was well centered and had it been down a bit it would have clustered in the black. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t into a lot of knob turning for this session or we would have tried to move the group a bit. Kileen noted that at 600-yards, it just takes a little wiggle to move things a lot.
Mr. McKee, the Hillside Range Officer and an FWRR member, closed the day with a comment; “Beard, you have a bunch of good shooters there”.
Way to go Ladies; you make us proud!