Holding serve

  Ricks 10X group at 300 yards on his way to a club record 495.  Nice shooting!

 
  Today at Panola we had 16 shooters, typical for the first day of deer season.  We made two relays and scored ourselves.  

  Big day at the range.  Rick Crawford shot a 10X clean at 300 yards.  That's ten shots all in the X ring in 70 seconds with a mag change.  He used his match rifle.  I walked down the pits to take a look at the group.  Very impressive.

  Rick finished with a Club Record 495.  That's also his personal best.  Panola has some good shooters so it's quite an achievement to hold the club record.

  I shot my AR for standing: 97X5, sitting rapid: 99X3 and 300: 97X2.  Medium good shooting.

  At 600 I have seen shooting so badly with my rifle and it's new barrel that I decided to switch to Andrews TSRA-issued DPMS rifle.  It's got an A1 buttstock, a skinny front sight and a web sling but I had a box of my standard 80 Sierra load for 600 so off I went.  The first sighter was a low 7.  I adjusted up and shot a 9 on the same line.  Starting with the first shot for record I shot a 194X7 and never had a round go anywhere that I didn't think it should go.  That's a very different experience from shooting donuts around the 10-ring and having weird off-call shots in the seven and eight ring.  I never had a good string at the Service Rifle Championships at Swift shooting a 95, a 188 and a 185 which crashed my scores.  The sensation was that I was breaking good shots, but they wouldn't go where I thought they were going.  Today that situation was reversed.  Everything went in, or went close to where I thought it would be.

  I've been looking at everything from my eye prescription to the seating length of my bullets, but what I now think is happening is the Douglas 1/8 twist barrel on my rifle won't stabilize 80 grain Sierras.

  Finished with a 487X16.  I've had the up-close scores but been crashing at 600.