Been a few weeks between posts. Forgive my absence. Moving and the bills associated with a new home occupy much time.
I have been doing a little shooting lately and tried to alter my setups. Last setup was attempting to zero for a 6 o’clock hold on my targets. I found out rather quickly that this doesn’t work for targets at longer distances. If we are attempting to hit a man-sized target with irons at various ranges, it is important to zero for a dead on hold. I thought six o’clock would give me a greater view of the target when I am pushing out past 200 yards. It did allow me to see the whole of the target, but the technique had some major disadvantages.
Judging distance to the target is not an exact science but it can be made easier with practice. With a six o’clock hold if I didn’t judge my distance correctly some of my rounds would hit the dirt if the elevation was not adjusted properly. Similarly if I adjusted too much elevation into the shot then I would have a fairly easy time hitting the torso with a 6 o’clock hold. I think I would like the elevation adjustments to be more forgiving for too much vs too little elevation so a dead center of mass hold works much better. With a dead hold (in the center of the target) such mistakes were more forgiving. If I was low with my adjustments, rounds would hit low in the belly of the target instead of hitting the dirt. With a 50/225 yard zero and a 55 grain projectile, a dead hold would still allow a hit out to 350 yards whereby the round would drop 10-12 inches and still impact the lower torso. A dead hold for a neck would still be capable of hitting the head to the upper torso from 0-300 yards with 5 inches of bullet drop at 300.
The dead hold allows more forgiving shots and elevation adjustments. While this may be common knowledge, I decided to try something new and then quickly dropped it because it simply didn’t work well.
The next article will be on going to your first carbine competition. What I learned to bring and what I learned from others. Bonus feature: competing on a shoestring with a basic kit setup.
