Boomershoot

If you're looking for better Boomershoot photos, check out Xenia's blog.  The ones I've been posting come from my cell phone camera, which works but isn't exactly a great camera.  I did have someone there with a better camera, but haven't had a chance to retrieve their pictures yet.  You can also check Barron's blog.

Most people who come to Boomershoot do so with the idea of practicing their long-range shooting with an accurate rifle.  A few, however, think that iron sights and volume of fire are the way to go.

From what the owner of that little beauty told me, it was converted to semi-auto and they didn't really have much chance of actually hitting anything at boomershoot ranges -- but it was fun to play with.  They had hopes of hitting the larger targets at the 380 line mainly by luck, but anything longer than that turned the whole thing into a very expensive way to move snow and dirt around.

I forgot to check back after the event to see if they managed to hit any boomers with it.

My shooting position at Boomershoot.  I was travelling fairly light, so I was basically limited to throwing down a tarp and two mats, with minimal sandbags.  I was able to borrow sandbags from other people there and next time will definitely bring more (mind you, I might acquire the filling material locally).  Others who were there put a lot more effort into preparing their spaces.

It's not immediately obvious but most of the actual targets are in the left of this picture, with the furthest out starting about the center line.  The picture was taken before adjusting the shooting position to more closely match the target area.  Note how the mats are set up perpendicular to the berm when they should be pointed substantially left.

At the top left of the picture you can see a patch of snow.  That's about 500-600 yards away and provided a good range marker for the two days of the PRC.  It was mostly gone before the actual event and the targets in the snowfield itself pretty much got rid of any remaining snow.

The device on the tripod is a spotting scope, sort of like a telescope but optimized for a wide field of view.  It's easier to see a bullet impact through a spotting scope than a riflescope, though a good riflescope can definitely be used.  My spotter and I traded off between the two.  One definite advantage to the spotting scope is that you can get your head out from behind your rifle; after three days of shooting pretty much all day, I was definitely having trouble remaining in the right position to see and spot through my riflescope.  It's one good reason to make sure your shooting position is as comfortable as possible -- at least if you'll be stuck there for three days. 

Now that I'm back at home I figure I can write up a more complete report...

Day 2 of the clinic had mostly the same people as day 1; a few more field fire shooters, but only two more people for the training portion.  Those two were basically taken through the day 1 course, while the people who had been there on the first day got a brief refresher and some additional thoughts from the new instructors -- mostly on spotter-shooter dialog.  The instruction was not as useful as on the first day, but we got to shooting at targets faster, giving more of a chance to apply what we learned the first day.

On a personal level, I spent a significant portion of the morning figuring out what exactly was up with my rifle's windage zero.  As it turns out, several different factors were causing problems.  On the first day, Eugene had spent some time shooting my rifle to establish a zero; he was able to get a pretty good zero for 380, which he wrote down as R18.  Since my rifle scope is a Nightforce Benchrest model, it has a total of 40 MOA windage adjustment available.  I had zeroed the rifle at 100 yards the day before leaving with something like an R6; Eugene was counting MOA right of the scope center rather than from 0.  Between all the different adjustments I ended up with a zero at about R33, which shot fine, except I didn't have more than about 1 MOA left to adjust for wind from the right. 

Once the confusion got sorted out, we took a long look at the rifle barrel versus the scope alignment, and there is a noticable off-angle.  That rifle is going back to the gunsmith who mounted the scope, and from there, either new rings, new bases, or a new rifle from Savage... because something in those three things has the scope mount way off.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the way the rifle performed during the event, but it's too far off center to settle for.  Especially with the limited number of clicks the benchrest scopes allow for.  What might be tolerable in one of the NXS scopes (which have 80 MOA adjustment range) won't fly for a benchrest scope.

After the rifle issues were sorted out, I was able to settle down to shooting targets in earnest.  My spotter and I were having a bit of an off day, which I attribute mainly to being worn out from the frantic pace of preparations, travel, instruction, and shooting the first day of the clinic.  Nonetheless we were able to settle in and shoot fairly well, reaching steel targets out to 500 and 600 yards consistently. 

Our boomers at the end of the day took longer to hit than the day before and we ended up taking only two of three each; the others we bounced around a bit with edge hits but couldn't get anything solid enough to detonate.  Not bad for two relative novices to long-distance shooting... but not what we had hoped for, either.  Being tired out does make a difference, and it's more than just going to bed early can take care of. 

Of course, the man behind Boomershoot is a blogger.  I also met Phil of Random Nuclear Strikes who has an after-action report posted along with some pictures of Boomershoot rifles.  Mine are in there; I'm planning a more detailed post with closeups later for those interested.  He was sharing a tent with Dave, whose blog name I did not catch, and David.  Much possible ground for confusion there!  UPDATE: Looks like Ry Jones was there too, but I didn't make the connection at the time.

Yesterday was the first day of the precision rifle clinic at Boomershoot. it was a very effective instructional experience - more details to follow. I was hitting targets out to 600 yards on a rifle I had only touched for the first time on Tuesday. bear with the sparse reporting until I return; the cell phone is a pita for typing long missives.

UPDATE: A little more thorough update now that I'm home.  The first day of the Precision Rifle Clinic was a mix.  The instruction was everything I had hoped for; Eugene (the lead instructor) covered all the basic information about long-range shooting that I knew existed but had no practical knowledge of.  He also touched on several things that I had not been aware of, some that are obvious in retrospect... and some not.  To summarize the topics covered from memory:

• Safety rules
  
• Pre-action equipment checks (just in case)
  
• reading and correcting for windage, plus several rules of thumb to do so quickly when necessary.
  
• adjusting for distance to the target
• dialog between the shooter and spotter
• estimating distances using your scope reticle
• ballistic behavior of various cartridges
  

It was all great information to have and filled in the gaps in my own knowledge nicely.  Even so, the biggest lesson I took home from the first day wasn't on that list: I was reminded of how important shooter position can be.  I had not shot prone for quite some time (all the local ranges I know of have benches), and the berm I was shooting from is substantially right from the target line.  I had set up my mat square on to the line of the berm rather than square to the targets I would be shooting at.  That mistake resulted in quite a bit of not-quite-comfortable shooting all morning.   Reacquiring targets at range was taking forever even with the scope dialed back to 22x.

Once I got the setup corrected, with the mats realigned and the sandbags I was using to support the stock of my rifle adjusted to keep my rifle naturally pointed at the target I was shooting at, results were a lot better.  I was able to produce solid hits from the 380 yard target line. 

Oh, yes, and I should talk about the conditions.

When I arrived, it was cold.  Very cold.  Below freezing cold.  By the time the instruction started it was snowing heavily, although the snow itself wasn't sticking.  The wind was blowing at about 15 mph across the line of fire, but it wasn't a steady wind; there were gusts from 10 to 20 mph.  The only good thing about the weather was that with the snow falling we had an easy way to gauge where the wind was blowing our shots.

There was a lot of windage correction going on during the morning shoot, which covered up a bit of a technical problem I was having with my rifle and scope.  Specifically I was needing to crank on a lot more wind than others were seeing.  This didn't really become obvious until the wind and snow died down a little in the afternoon, giving me the chance to see more of the rifle's performance.   Eugene shot the rifle for a bit to verify my windage zero and ended up cranking it almost all the way over to the right.  This produced good results but left me little room for adjustments.

With the right zero on the rifle I was able to start reaching out to the 500 and 600 yard targets successfully.  My spotter and I were learning to talk each other onto those targets, but the most effective spotting came from the instructors; it seemed like they almost always had someone behind us to help spot. 

For those who haven't tried, spotting is hard to do well at range; you need to be able to see very subtle visual cues to determine where each shot went, up to and including "trace" -- which is almost literally seeing the bullet in the air.  (Actually, it's seeing the air that the bullet's flight disturbed -- the supersonic shock wave).  Pairing an inexperienced shooter and spotter together can make it very hard on both of them, so we got a lot of help to get things sorted out.

I end the day by shooting at three Boomers, two small and one large, and got all three of them.  The first two took only two or three shots, the last one a little longer than that.  Bear in mind these are 4" square targets at 380 yards -- not trivial to shoot well.  I was very surprised and pleased at being able to handle them.  The much reduced wind and lack of snow in the afternoon helped a lot, too.  My spotter was able to take her boomers with about the same number of shots, except her last, which she bounced around 5 or 6 times without getting a detonation.  

Two Savage 12F/TR rifles, .308	$2400
Two Nightforce benchrest scopes	$2600
1000 rounds .308 Match	$1300
Plane tickets to Idaho	$600
Hotel room in Orofino, Idaho	$300
Rental SUV	$400
Two days of expert instruction	$140
Boomershoot entry fees	$200
Shooting explosive targets from 600 yards away	Priceless!