More Shooting Last Week

Dan here at UltiMAK put a new trigger on his Mosin, and since the snow has been out of the hills long enough to let the ground firm up, we had to get out to a favorite spot and try it.


Dan hit an aerial clay with the Mosin on his fifth shot, so I had a go at the clays with an M1 30 Carbine.  I did poorly – only three hits in about 40 rounds, whereas at time I’ve made 20% or better, which would have been 8 hits  On the 500ish yard targets, using a Rem 700 .308, I did a bit better, after some confusion over yards and meters.  My cold clean bore first shot was a near miss on a gallon jug.  Second shot was a hit, and by the third shot I felt it was not a matter of whether, but where I could hit the target.  The jugs don’t explode from the .308 fire at 500 yards like they do closer in, so I got to hit the same one twice.


Lessons learned were; 1. My Remington 700 trigger sucked as delivered, compared to Dan’s new Timney.  2. As a shooter/spotter team we suck at communication.  This happened at Boomershoot too– spotter on one target, shooter on another, and after many words thrown this way and that.  Very frustrating, and a waste of time and ammo.  We made a pact to fix that.  3. My rangefinder is not adequate beyond 400 or 500 yards, depending on conditions, and that is not acceptable.  I guess I know where my next 500 or so bucks are going.  4. See, I’m doing it right here– talking in yards, when I was in fact ranging in meters, because my scopes are BDC graduated in meters.  That’s been a source of confusion in the past, as I was accustomed to ranging in yards.  This time, I was ranging in meters, but still doing the corrections from yards to meters out of habit.  That of course wasted more time and ammo.  I seem to recall NASA (or was it JPL?) having a similar problem with a Mars probe that made an expensive crater instead of a soft landing.  OK.  Got it now.  Reading in meters, BDCing in meters.  No conversions.  5.  I don’t know how you can dope the wind when you’re shooting across a very deep ravine.  Surface clues aren’t necessarily applicable.  Come to think of it, I’m a lousy wind doper anyway.  Must fix that too.


I found out only recently that Timney uses the Remington trigger design, which means I could have adjusted my 700’s trigger a long time ago.  I knew the Timneys were adjustable for weight, engagement, and overtravel.  I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t taken apart my Remington strictly for the purpose of understanding every aspect of its design, as I’ve done with my other guns.  That means that only as of yesterday do I have a decent trigger after using this rifle, on occasion, for several years.  Much better now.  JEP (Joe’s Evil Plan) marches on.  We have to get right back out there very soon.

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3 thoughts on “More Shooting Last Week

  1. Almost completely off topic, but when I read the headline, I immediately assumed that the shooting in question was a police shooting of a citizen.

    I think that is a pretty sad statement about our current society.

  2. I hear you, Phelps. I entitled another post “School Shooting Fun”. Maybe this one should have been “More Shooting Fun Last Week” but that might have been taken as blistering sarcasm by some. Hard to tell. The categories were “Gun Fun” and “Ballistics”.

    Anyway, I just wanted to bring up some of our problems, or things that need improvement, rather than just talk about the recreational aspects of shooting. We’ll call it “purpose oriented recreation” or “goal oriented recreation” or something.

  3. Hey, is this location you are shooting at on public land and near Moscow? The only place I’ve found that can go out to 500 is http://www.lcwildlife.org/, which is an hour away. I’d love to find someplace closer and/or longer range. No big deal if it’s private or your secret spot. But I thought I’d ask just in case. 🙂 Thanks, and have fun!

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