Via Rolf:
Boomershoot is this coming weekend. If you are there, you will be shooting at 4″ square targets at 375 yards. You can also shoot at 7″ square targets at 700 yards. This is good practice for a golf ball at 300 yards.
If you can’t participate this year, you should know that spectators are welcome.
On the road! See the crew in a few days! Got a bet to win with my colleague.
How reactive are the targets? At that range, is a 5.56 round enough, or do you need something bigger to make it go boom?
I can’t go this year, but it’s on the bucket list….
The definitive answer is Bullets and Boomers. The short story is that from a medium length barrel 5.56 will detonate the targets just fine at 375. At 500 yards you are going to be lucky if you can get detonation even with a 24″ barrel. If there is significant wind, even at 375, you will have trouble hitting the targets. The wind pushes those little bullets around far more than most people have the patience for.
Gene Econ will tell you that the 5.56 rounds don’t make a lot of trace in the air, so it is way harder for your spotter to see where the round lands if they don’t see mud splash up. So they can’t give you good adjustments… and you burn up a lot of ammo to no good effect.
I use 53gr Vmax in my 223. At ~3250fps (20″ barrel), I have no problems popping the 375 yard boomers.
Haven’t tried FMJ.
5.56 out of what? I want to bring my .22-250 and see. I think hollowpoints at 50gr moving at 3500fps at muzzle will pop the boomers. But that is out of a beast of a rifle. Still might be marginal on the longer range boomers. .223 out of an AR is marginal but some rifles might deliver them with enough energy. You can do it but it might be frustrating.
If you have a choice, get a rifle for this purpose. I brought a .308 and it worked OK using 168gr FMJ Federal Gold Metal. Same rifle on Hornady 178gr Match was much better. Then I bought a 6.5CM and it changed the experience. Excellent Boomershoot rifle and lots of options nowadays that are reasonably priced and shoot sub-MOA out of the box.
Can’t recommend one highly enough but you must invest in good glass regardless. The best money I ever spent was on the first focal plane glass with graduated reticle. Holdover is effortless. Changed my shooting. 4 boomers first trip, a couple dozen the next. Got a friend bringing a 6mm Creedmoor this year to see what it can do.
The targets are quite reactive with enough energy on arrival. You have to get it there. Spend a little money and you will enjoy the experience immensely. .223 is best for High Intensity, not to chase a perfect moment at 700+.
Is there enough data to do a correlation between “effectiveness on boomers at X yards” and “efffectiveness for ‘social work’ at the same distance(s)”?
Yes.
A standard golf ball has a diameter of 1.68 inches. Let’s round up to 1.8 inches, since nicking the edge counts as a hit (1.79 inches for a .22 bullet and 1.83 for a .30 bullet so I’m approximately splitting the difference).
1MOA is 3 inches at 300 yards so this works out to a precision requirement of 0.6 MOA, which is tight but very achievable.
Actually more achievable since I only added a half a bullet on1 side not both
Agreed. Especially since it is not stated how many shots were taken to get the hit.