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It's wet:

Serves you right!lol

Just finished cleaning the rifle and drying the kit off,

I Think it was Andy McNabb who said "you don't need to practise being cold wet and hungry, you just deal with it when it happens".

Well that's how I felt in the rain, I don't need to practise being cold, wet and shooting in the rain, I will deal with it when I have to, and I packed up early ish and headed home.

Thanks to Ovenpaa and Rox for the company,

DM

Getting wet:

Back to blue skys after a rather dark and interesting Stickledown, more to follow but my favourite quote of the day (Bearing in mind DM and I happily babbled away to each other)

Me: So do you T/R types talk much on the firing point?
Rox:.......................................................not as a rule.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Really good day, thanks guys!

The usual obligatory not very good pictures taken with my ifon on a rainy day through the window of the car, can't get worse can it.

Ovenpaa, that second photo down makes you look like that mad Scots guy that was part of the SAS team that stormed the Iranian Embassay, John McAleese is his name.Poor soul lost his son In Afghanistan last year.

I'm also loving the jacket/pants combo. Are thise this seasons colours :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Tell me more about the jacket, ie sis it keep the rain out and where did you get it from?

Mike357 wrote:I'm also loving the jacket/pants combo. Are thise this seasons colours :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Tell me more about the jacket, ie sis it keep the rain out and where did you get it from?

The jacket is an American ECWS (Extreme Cold Weather System) Made from fully taped goretex. Mine came new off eBlag for around 35 quid delivered which was a huge bargain as prices doubled soon afterwards. It is fully waterproof and wind proof and has some handy pockets inside and out and pit zips.

EDIT - Prices are now dropping a bit, here is one: https://www.elliottmilitary.co.uk/catal ... eeb7c50ca7

Bit of a range report:

Bisley is always a special place for me and I was sure today was going to be no exception so as usual we were driving by 06:15 with the plan being to miss the worst of the M1/M25 traffic. The plan mostly worked as well and we were on Short Siberia before 08:00, I wanted to find a McQueen castle to measure up so we can copy it at another club but they were nowhere to be seen, what was evident though was it was going to be a rainy day.

I had just signed in at the range office when I bumped into DM so we had a quick natter and then headed our different ways, DM needed to zero and I needed to find Rox who was up at Stickledown. A light rain was starting to fall and the flags were down well below quarter so it was not looking so bad. This was going to be an interesting morning as Rox is a TR shooter and DM an F/TR shooter so I opted for the middle position. Rox shot a string followed by Myself and DM. Despite the now fairly heavy rain I was using under 3/4 minute wind and just over 30 minutes for elevation. My revised neck sizing method seemed to be paying dividends and we were all finding the V fairly successfully. Given the huge differences between rifles, sights and methods this was impressive. DM and I were shooting in strings of five during which we happily chatted to each other about all sorts of crap, he always seemed to end on a V so when I took my shot I had something to focus on. I am chasing the throat on my poor old AI these days and it does show sometimes but the 155 Scenars seemed to be doing OK even if I am hitting them hard.

The rain however was not good and when after 90 minutes it reached what I would describe as the 'heavy' stage we packed up and headed for cover and a cup of tea and at this stage DM made the right call and headed for home and a change of clothing.

The rain had slowed a bit so we headed back up to the 1000 yard line, light had appreciably improved and the wind had got up to 2.75 minutes and I needed to give it another 1.5 minutes of elevation to get where it counted. Shooting 1:1 with Rox was interesting. He seldom falls out of the V and I have no idea how he does it, I mean all he does is put his bondage gear on, attach a few straps to his rifle, wriggle into position, settle his breathing down and shoot with no 'proper' support, I had the benefit of a front bipod and a squeeze bag to support me and I think we were for most quite well matched.

Respect to the T/R types!

We need to do this again but preferably on a drier warmer day next time.

My day did not start with a bang, as Ovenpaa mentioned I headed straight to a very busy zero range to make sure that I was on target at 1000 yards.
There were several target shooters, possibly from the same education establishment, going through their paces. Thankfully they realised that I was only going to be a few Min's and space was made for me.
I had with me a box of 50 x 155 SMK's and 25 x 175 SMK's which I had made up yesterday.
As I am leaning to wards the 155's, I intended to shoot those first but was stopped in my tracks. My bolt would not close, not tight, no where near even getting to that stage, I could tell by closing the bolt that something was wrong.
With what felt like the rest of the world watching me I packed up and left the target shooters too it, having not fired a shot. One of them thought that my necks needed re sizing but I was not sure about that.

I met up with Ovenpaa and whilst rox shot his first string we had a chat. The 155's were in once shot cartridges, fire formed to this chamber, or so I thought, so it did not make sense.
You may remember me saying that I had to pull some 175's with an unknown powder. Well I had re loaded all those cases with Viht 550 and knew that they were new cases. So when I went forward with Ovenpaa, I tried to load the 175's and they chambered no problem at all.
Ovenpaa watched for my splashes in the bank and withing 3 shots I was in the 5 ring, and so it went on through the rain, 5's and V's.
I have to say though, that the 5 and V ring on the practise target was way bigger than those used in F class and I imagine that there would have been quite a few 4's had we used the real targets!

Unfortunately for me, for the first time in months I did not take my waterproof trousers, so I had a wet bum on the drive home.

Tonight I have had a play with various new and used cartridges in my chamber. Apart from the ones that had the 155's in I have not been able to find any other cartridges that are not feeding in my chamber.
The only process that they have been through that the others have not, is that the new Redding dies were used to seat the bullet.

I have of course had to pull the 50 x 155's (I wish I had done this much pulling before I met the wife), I have re sized the cases and they all fit nicely again.
I have also had a play with the neck sizer and de priming die. I love the precision that these Redding dies give me and they are a pleasure to use.
I notice that the portion of the case neck that I am not re sizing appears to bubble out.



No idea if this is normal or anything to worry about - any ideas?

DM