Shooting Steel at Top Gun

I ordered a ½ IPSC steel plate from LETargets.com and it got here on Thursday. It really is ½ size, but big enough to get the job done. Today, I took it out to Top Gun in Leonard to try it out.

One cool new thing at Top Gun is that there are now spinner targets at 200 yards. The plates are about 3” square. When you hit them they’ll start swinging. If you time it right and hit the spinner on its way back you can get it to go all the way around. Hence the name spinner.

Overall I’m pretty pleased with myself. I was able to nock the target over without too much trouble at the 200 yard line. Biggest problem I have is that I need to get a really good zero on my scope (was about 4” high and 4” left at 200 yard when it should have be dead on). But once I had it corrected I was able to drill the target really well. Which brought up the next problem: the legs do a pretty good job of keeping the target up, but even at 200 yards a 308 hits pretty hard. After about 10 strikes the target would be leaning back enough that it was no longer safe b/c the bullet would go up instead of down.

I tried using a 2x4 with a slot cut in it to hold the target at a 10 degree down angle. Did I mention that 308 hits pretty hard? The 2x4 was snapped after a few shots. So I guess it is time for another RNE project to see if I can’t build something that will keep the target where I want it.

I also took some paper targets. Here is my best group:

We don’t need to dwell on the others. I already know I’m not Simo Hayha. But, if I can see it I can generally hit it. I might not make pretty clover leafs on the paper but for what I was taught to do – it’s good enough.

I’ll probably go back out again in June. Right now I have a bike to get ready for the track and a new project to get going. Oh and I need to get ready to head to Italy at the end of June, so not a lot of down time right now.

UPDATE – in case you are curious about the face: Google the name.  Not quite Bin-Laden, but bad enough.  There is also theory behind training using actual faces vs. just silhouettes or bulls eyes.  People in actual self defense situations will hesitate before shooting when presented with an actual human face.  In context this is a bad thing.  But it also says something good about the true nature of humans.