Winter Long Range RRC Shoot

A couple of months back, following on from a thread on here, I was asked by several forum members to host a long range shooting day…Last weekend that day became a reality.

Glenn & his son were first to arrive and were duly press-ganged into helping place the remaining targets, 40+ marker posts, flags and signs on the distant hillside. Meanwhile ‘Admin’ who had also travelled down with Glenn took more of a supervisory role, since his body was apparently falling apart…After Beau had received a suitable introduction to walking/working on the moors - rain, wind, mist, cloud and a stunning crystal clear moonlight night (all in a couple of hours), it was time to start the BBQ.

The fire was impressively lit by Beau & his fire steel / fungus combination, despite my best efforts mid way to put it out by blowing it all apart….Sorry again! With a haunch of CWD & Muntjac, plus burgers and sausages on the go, it was set to be a real feast. Miliscer & Stu arrived at the perfect time and theoretically would have been followed shortly after by Gooner, Paddy, Mildot & Co. Unfortunately one can only presume they thought they were in a cold war spy novel, as they took the most indirect route possible to reach the roundhouse, arriving just before midnight! The evening continued well into the early hours, with deep sleep becoming more of a power nap; interrupted occasionally by the sound of what I can only presume to be, the snoring of a pet walrus someone brought along... With dawn still someway off, under torchlight Mildot & Stu help me do the finishing touches and by 08.30 the shoot was ready to begin.

After a walk up the tor, targets were engaged from 1,026 to 1,300+ yards. The wind added the usual challenging factor, with pretty much everyone drastically underestimating it to begin with. Nine minutes with the .338’s and 16+ with the .308’s was common place and with that steel targets began to transition from being scared, to convincingly ringing with reasonable frequency. Splashes were admittedly hard to spot in the 1,000 yard bunker, thanks to heavy rain on the Friday night. However this problem shall hopefully be alleviated in the future with the introduction of sand and probably large mesh geotex (ideas for cheap equivalents very welcome). Also it is worth noting for future events, that rifles which fire anything less than aprox. 140 grain bullets, produce minimal visible splash beyond 800-1,000 yards on the soggy moorland ground.  

Since the furthest IPSC remained untouched after an hour or so, we descend off the hill to the valley and continued zeroing on steel, clay pigeon, flour, toy soldier, pumpkin, paper and drinks bottle targets; ranging from 500-950 yards and later 100-950 yards. The ringing of steel reassuringly filled the air, as did the occasional flash & bang of a firebird or two. The most noticeable of which was Beau’s camo ‘Elmer Fudd’ style hat that Miliscer surreptitiously procured at lunch - video of the shot and the aftermath to follow…

I’ve not long been back off the moors, so will call it a night there, but not before saying thank you to everyone for making the effort to attending during the depths of winter and an extra thanks to those who helped setup.

Many thanks for a very enjoyable event,

Tiff

N.B. From now one, I plan on hosting four RRC’s a year (one per season), with two 'challenges' and two more informal longer range zeroing sessions like this one.  I am however always open to suggestions…