My first time shooting out to 1000 yards update scope issue resolved see post 66

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Lets see if I can make several posts about this before someone posts a reply (and no that isn't a challenge) Just give me a few minutes to copy and past.

Reading the post about the MMPRL recently posted over in rifle competition, and some of the questions being asked, motivated me to do this post. This is the story of what it took for me to reach out to near 1000 yards for the first time, which I will present in a series of 4 or 5 posts.

Background
I’ve done a lot of shooting in the past 60 years. I’ve been reloading for almost 40 years. I can shoot pretty well. I have decent fundamentals (attributed to a misspent youth where I did a lot of small bore shooting). This year I shot my second Appleseed and again earned my patch. I consider myself a competent shot, but nothing anyone can’t achieve with a little practice. I went to a 200 yard benchrest shoot at Harvard Sportsmen’s Club last summer, and finished exactly in the middle of the pack.

I’ve done most of my rifle shooting at 100 yards, with two of three attempts shooting at 200 yards but nothing further. Which was fine as most of my hunting was thick woods and shots over 50 yards were rare. But I started hunting the northern part of NY with fields and big woods and ledges and suddenly shots over 100 yards became common. I joined a rifle club 9 years ago that had ranges out to 300 yards. I have learned a lot working at 300 yards including my first appreciation for wind drift. After shooting a lot at 300 yards, a shot on deer at 150 or 200 yards was pretty strait forward. Which is great as 9 of my last 10 deer were shot between 150 and 200 yards. I was very happy camper.

But I kept reading and hearing about people shooting 500, 600 or even 1,000 yards. So I decided in January 2017 that I wanted to give it a try and this is what I did to prepare to shoot the qualifier to be allowed to use a 1000 yard range. It took a bit longer than I expected to get to point where I was confident of passing. I thought I would be ready in a month or two, turns out it took four. But I probably did it the hard way.

The guiding principal of my preparation was to not spend a boat load of money on equipment that would later need upgrading, but to only spend just enough to qualify, and then afterward watch the guys who regularly shoot to 1000 yards to see what really worked and what I really wanted for equipment before sinking a lot of $$$ into gear that I would need to replace.

Here is the story of what I did. It’s certainly not the only way or best way, maybe not even the right way, but it worked for me. The last paragraph of my post (Story of Joe) will give you another alternative.
 
The Rifle

A survey of my gun cabinet revealed three rifles that were close to being able to go to 1,000 yards, but none were ideal. I hadn’t scratched the urge to buy a new rifle in quite a while (my general life theory is if I don’t already own something by the time I was 65 I probably didn’t need it) but in this case it was time for a new rifle! Well obviously 6.5 Creedmore was the way I should have gone. But a smoking deal on a new 26” heavy barrel Remington 700 in .308 Winchester came up, and suddenly I had a new .308. I intended to quickly swap out the barrel for a REMage barrel in 6.5 Creedmore and make it a switch barrel gun (a project I had wanted to do anyway) but I decided to play with the .308 a bit before twisting the barrel off. Turns out the stock barrel was surprisingly accurate so I left it alone as I wanted to see how far it would take me. Turned out it took me successfully through the qualifier. I did immediately switch out the factory black plastic stock for an old Fajen laminate stock I had on hand. (The stock was pillared but not bedded.) Then I just adjusted the factory trigger, and was off to the range.

Load Development
So in 40+ years of handloading, my goal was always to achieve something better than factory ammo at a lower cost. If I got an inch or less five shot group at 100 yards, I was happy, as that was better than minute of deer or woodchuck. But that level of accuracy would only provide a three inch group at 300 yards and a theoretical 10 inch group at 1000 yards. As I was pondering that issue, I ran some of my handloads across a chronograph to determine their speed. I found that while the average speed was where I wanted it to be, the variance in speed between rounds was substantial. SD of 15 and ES of almost 40 fps. I needed better handloads. After some work and changes to my routine I was able to get an SD of 6 or 7 and an ES of 15 or 16 or better.

The two things I improved in my reloading that I believe got me where I wanted to be was case trimming and case cleaning. I went to a Wilson case trimming system, and my trim lengths were dramatically more consistent. Then second thing was that I started doing a better job on case cleaning after sizing. I suspect I had been leaving a little (and inconsistent) amount of lubricant inside the case neck. This barrel had a really tight chamber and although I did bump the shoulder back in increments I found out it needed full length resizing. These two changes I made had one unexpected effect. I could no longer do load development at 100 yards as many times I could not see any substantial difference in many of my test loads as the five shots were close to touching. I started doing my evaluations at 200 yards which did separate them out. I did my final selection by comparing two different loads at 300 yards with average of three five shot groups.

The Trigger:
So after improving my handloads I was now getting just over 1.5 inch groups at 300 yards for the most part. Shooting prone off a bi-pod I was usually getting five shots in the same one inch box at 300 yards IF the wind allowed and IF I did my part. I say usually as there was one shot in maybe every second or third group that was an inch or two left of the group. As I spent more time behind the rifle trying to figure what I was doing wrong, I became very familiar with the factory stock trigger in the rifle and finally realized the trigger itself was the problem. Putting a trigger pull gauge on the stock Remington trigger it was a very consistent at 2.5 lbs most of the time, but every seventh or eighth shot it took an additional pound or more effort to release. I also found that if I recocked the bolt when I encountered the extra pull it went back to normal. The factory trigger went into metal recycling, and a Timney trigger was installed and things were good from then on.
 
So I was ready to go? Nope, not yet. The system of rifle, ammo and scope was ready. I honestly feel this rifle can consistently shoot .5 MOA (5 shot groups). Most groups were less than .5, quite a few were below .4, and a few were below that with the smallest being below .25 With me behind it, (the least consistent part) I would consistently do .5 MOA (or 1.5 inch) at 300 yards. Of course this is only early in morning on windless days, when I cut back on morning caffeine. Pure luck that a factory barrel / receiver combo shot this well. It never happened to me before, and wont likely happen again. But in spite of this good fortune, I still wasn’t ready because I didn’t have the DOPE I needed to adjust my scope for bullet drop for varying distances out to 1000 yards.

Ballistic Programs
Lets just say you need a ballistic program (or two). They are short money, I think I spent $15 for the App I use. ( Edit update. I just learned the App I used is now free. Ballistic AE). Using the app is how I determined the .243 Win and 22-250 I already owned were not going to stay supersonic out to 1000 yards. I put Ballistic AE app on both my iPhone and iPad. You put in all the parameters on the load you are using (especially the actual chronographed speed out of your rifle) and the info on rifle (scope height above bore), and it spits out a table for you. I will point out that what the program gives you is just a table, it is not yet DOPE. DOPE is Data Of Previous Engagements or what you really needed for adjustment in actual past shooting situations. Case in point, starting with a 100 yard zero, I knew what I needed to use for dial ups to be dead on at 200 and 300 yards as I had done it on many occasions, yet the table in both cases called for more elevation than I actually needed. At this point I did not know if I had a data input error into the ballistic program, or there was an error in the program, or if it was something else. I did know this was going to cause me trouble as I got out to longer distances (600 yard plus) and I did not have a way to get actual DOPE at extended range. I resolved the issue with what I learned by boxing the scope, (the first time I had every done this with a scope)

The Scope and 20 MOA base The scope I was used was from Vortex, a $600 list price scope I picked up on a closeout of a discontinued model. The scope had a 30MM tube, and 24 inches of adjustment up and 24” of adjustment down or a total of 48” of adjustment. But I needed about 40 inches of upward elevation adjustment to reach 1000 yards. So I mounted the scope to the rifle using a 20 MOA base. The way I think about it is by using the 20 MOA base my scope then had only 4” of downward adjustment, but 44 inches of upward adjustment.

Next I made up a target board to use to box the scope. This target has single black dot in the lower left corner (and you will always aim at the one black dot.) All the other dots on the board were orange. The orange dots were precisely 10”, 20”, 30” and 40” above the black dot. Then another row of orange dots were placed precisely 10” to the right of the first row. There were two keys to this test being successful. First, I had already developed my hand loads to the point I was essentially touching shots at 100 yards most of the time. Second, when I mounted the target to shoot at 100 yards I used a four foot carpenters level to insure the rows were plumb and level. (vertical and horizontal). Again, the way you shoot this target is to always be aiming at the one black dot on the lower left of the target. You fire one shot, then add 10 inches of elevation. Fire and then add another 10 inches of elevation. Repeat until you have added 40 inches of elevation. Then add 10 inches of windage to right, and you should be impacting on the top right dot. Subtract 10 inches between shots and work back down to bottom, then move 10” to left and you should impact the black dot. Repeat the process twice around the box.

What I learned about this scope on this rifle was the adjustments were very consistent and repeatable. However, where a 10 inch windage adjustment gave a 10 inch change, a 10” elevation adjustment was consistently higher than 10” by about 5%. I was roughly ½” high with ten inch elevation, 1” high at 20”, 1.5” at 30” and 2” at 40”. Now 5% both is and isn’t a lot. It meant my .25” clicks were acting like .2625” which isn’t a large error. But when you add the cumulative error on 160 clicks (40” elevation needed for 1000 yards) you are 2” high at 100 40” yard target (which was the actual results) and this would put you 20” high at 1000 yards. (I did some slight rounding here in my example, actual data with precise measurements showed a 4.79% error)

So I took the data table from the ballistic program, reduced it by 4.79%, and now my dial ups for 200 and 300 yards agreed with my actual range data, and that adjusted table became the DOPE I used when shooting the qualifier.

A few additional notes about boxing the scope and this test: I have since simplified the test in two ways. First I now only use one vertical row of dots. I don’t bother checking the windage of the scope, for while I dial up for elevation, I hold into the wind using the reticle of the scope. Second, now I only test going up to 30” of elevation while shooting at 100 yards. It makes the target size more manageable and having run the test three times on different scope/ rifle set ups, I learned nothing additional at 40” that I did not learn after 30”.

When I boxed my second Vortex scope which was on a different rifle, and also boxed a less than $100 Tasco varmint scope on my brothers 6.5 Creedmore, both of those scopes tracked dead on for elevation adjustments, and the initial data from the ballistic program was spot on out to 500 yards as we got first shot hits when we used it.

I am not sure I really believe the .25” clicks on my Vortex are off, but the system of rifle, ammo and scope acts that way. I did check my bullet speed off another chronograph, and that was not an issue. What I do know is the modified table data worked effectively out to 1000 yards.

So now I was felt ready, having fired just over 400 rounds in preparation, sorting out my issues and practicing.
 

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The qualifier
The short story I passed what was a three shot test. All the shots were at steel plates. My first target was just under 400 yards (a hit). Second target was a little over 600 yards (another hit). Third target was 920 yards. A miss, but oh so close. Next to the head but over the shoulder of a silhouette target. I passed the qualifier test with the close miss at 920. Those who passed were turned loose to use the range. I found I was pretty solid out to 700 yards. Past that distance the misses started increasing. As the light wind picked up just slightly, I found I was consistently under estimating drift. In general I always under adjust for wind. I don’t recall ever holding too much wind. (Just like when I played golf I would often leave shots short of the green, but NEVER over drove the green.) Both mental errors. I also learned that without a muzzle brake that I could not see my impacts or misses on steel, having to rely on hearing the hits or on a spotter.

I had a blast the first day at a 1000 yard range, and was literally giggling at times on the drive home. (Yeah, go ahead and make fun of me, but I was.) It was that much fun, I learned a lot and it was well worth all the effort.

I am now running another Remington 700 in 6.5 Creedmore (with a brake) for my distance work on steel. I never did replace the barrel on the .308 rifle I used in the qualifier and I thought I had retired it to longer range deer and coyote hunting. But last year it the 308 still made a few trips to the range for longer distances (400 - 700+ yards) at steel and pop up chest size targets.
 
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The Story of Joe

I have a friend who I met getting ready for the same 1000 yard qualifier, lets call him “Joe”.

Joe took a different approach to the qualifier. Shortly before the qualifier he bought a new rifle in 6.5 Creedmore, which I am pretty sure was a savage in a precision rifle type of set up. He put a Vortex scope on it, and bought several boxes of Hornady match ammo for it. Over the course of a week he made no more than two or three trips to the range to break in and sight in the barrel and to chronograph his loads. He was able to check his dial ups from his ballistic calculator at 200 and 300 yards. At the end of the week he shot the qualifier the same day I did with the same results. So it did not have to be as hard as I made it. On the other had, only about half the people who shot the qualifier passed. YMMV
 
Other random thoughts

One side note on a fun toy I bought on this journey, a product called Phonescope. It is an adapter that attaches my Iphone to my spotting scope. I use it to shoot video of my impact when shooting alone to record hits / misses while using the 308 without a brake. I still use it as I back up to what I see, and when I take a guest to shoot steel out to 500, I can send them home with a video of what they achieved. I’ll come back attached a video on that.

Two final thoughts

Don’t get hung up on needing large amounts of magnification. Clarity is more important than magnification. I don’t think I used above 12X power on my scope which only goes to 16X .

Don’t go down the rabbit hole of going for the lowest possible trigger pull. My rifles run about 2.5 lbs. One guy at the qualifier I shot was disqualified when his rifle discharged when he closed the bolt. Don't be that guy.
 
Where did you shoot 1000 yards, I’ve been looking for a range with 600 yards plus

I suggest you go look at the post on the MMPRL (Mass Minuteman Precision Rilfe League ?) recently posted under rifle competition forum. It should give you some suggestions.

I did my qualifier at Granby shortly before they had to "Cease and Desist" the routine shooting at the upper level which went out to 1000 yards. I am not as optimistic as other posters that this is near a resolution. I believe a date in land court is scheduled for the summer, but that is almost exactly where we were last year.
 
Awesome. Loved your chronology of achieving accuracy at 1000 yards!

Just curious... are you an engineer by trade? Or scientist? That's a very scientific approach.

Congrats!
 
Excellent read. Thanks for sharing. I am always learning, so I enjoy hearing other peoples processes to hit at longer ranges.

ETA: What bullets did you settle on for your .308 and 6.5 for 1000yrd work?
 
Awesome to see 1,000 yards. Very hard for most people to even find a place, never mind do it!

I've never shot past ~600m with a rifle, and oh boy that was tricky. I did 1.6km with a MK.19 but that is more like a video game, one of the simplest weapon systems to use on a range. I hope to get out to 1k with a rifle in a few years. I might go up to Sig.
 
Excellent read. Thanks for sharing. I am always learning, so I enjoy hearing other peoples processes to hit at longer ranges.

ETA: What bullets did you settle on for your .308 and 6.5 for 1000yrd work?

For the .308 I mostly shot Hornady 168 grain HPBT match stock #30501, then switched over to the Hornady168 ELD match stock number 30506 (both in hand loads using IMR 4064). On paper out to 300 yards I can't see a difference. The ELD may be better at longer distances so I use them.

For the 6.5 CM I use Hornady 147g ELD match in hand loads, but I will say the Hornady factory ammo (#81501) is better than my hand loads. Its the one time in my life where I think factory ammo may be better than my best handholds.

Once again, let me say that this is just what I do, there are a lot of people with more experience to provide advice on this. (like just about everyone who shoots at longer distances)
 
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There is some good information in these posts.

The .308 is quite capable at 1000yds and it’s accuracy potential is vast. John Whidden has won the NRA Long Range Championships several times with a straight .243. Factory match ammo that is more than sufficient for 1000yds is available in many calibers from several different manufacturers. Even the little .223 can be used for 1000yd shooting. In fact, many very good Palma shooters have adopted it.

Looking out at the targets at 1000yds can be very intimidating, but don’t get too wrapped up in the difficulty of making hits. It’s not as complicated as you might think. If a shooter has a rifle and ammo capable of 1 MOA accuracy and the shooter can shoot 2” groups at 100yds, hitting targets at 1000yds is easily within reach. Easily.
 
Did you use the manufacturers listed BC in your calculator and did you take into account atmospheric conditions before concluding that it was the vertical adjustment of the scope that was off by 5%?

I ask because I'm getting ready to cross the same bridge. My club doesn't have a qualifyer and the range is only 400 yards but we hold monthly matches at 600 & 1,000 yards off-site and I'm going to treat the 600 yard match as a qualifyer for the 1,000.
 
Did you use the manufacturers listed BC in your calculator and did you take into account atmospheric conditions before concluding that it was the vertical adjustment of the scope that was off by 5%?

I ask because I'm getting ready to cross the same bridge. My club doesn't have a qualifyer and the range is only 400 yards but we hold monthly matches at 600 & 1,000 yards off-site and I'm going to treat the 600 yard match as a qualifyer for the 1,000.

If you don’t have a chronograph, you can use the ammo manufacturers velocity. Even then, most chronographs are not necessarily giving you the true velocity. However, they are very useful for measuring consistency.

Most good ballistic calculator apps have a truing function. All apps use an equation to mathematically calculate the bullet’s trajectory arc. Anytime a value in the equation is not exact, the curve of the arc will be wrong. The way the apps correct this is by truing the velocity value. You input the amount of error at several ranges along the arc and the app will manipulate the velocity so that the arc will pass thru all the given points (ranges). Depending on what app you use, there are most likely YouTube videos explaining how to use all the app functions.

Most ballistic apps also have a function for retrieving local weather data and incorporating it into the firing solution.

The Gold Standard for ballistic calculators and apps is the Kestrel 5700 Elite device. It is a hand held weather meter and has on board advanced ballistics software. It runs about $800. It IS NOT necessary for making hits on steel, but it is very accurate and convenient.
 
Looking out at the targets at 1000yds can be very intimidating, but don’t get too wrapped up in the difficulty of making hits. It’s not as complicated as you might think. If a shooter has a rifle and ammo capable of 1 MOA accuracy and the shooter can shoot 2” groups at 100yds, hitting targets at 1000yds is easily within reach. Easily.

This is very true. I was intimidated at first. I was almost surprised when I got my first hit from a cold barrel at 600 yards. The theory works! It probably wasn't as difficult as I made it out to be in my mind before doing it.
 
Did you use the manufacturers listed BC in your calculator and did you take into account atmospheric conditions before concluding that it was the vertical adjustment of the scope that was off by 5%?
I did take the weather conditions into effect, (or at least I tried to) and I have shot that rifle/ scope / ammo combo in weather from cold wet rain to hot baking sun. I need the 5% correction So yes.

As to the bullets BC, I did use manufactures BC.

However, I have not concluded the scope adjustments are off by 5% and I would be surprised if they are. I did correct the problem by modifying my dial ups by 5%. I really don't know the root cause of the problem. Lets start with the rifle, I bought it new and before taxes it was $340 out the door with the Remington rebate. The action was not trued, the barrel / action may not be square. My 20 MOA mount may have an issue. The bore may not be centered in the barrel. I could have mis measure the scope height above the bore or another input. It could be none of these things. I could spend a lot of time and not figure it our. At some point I will move the scope to another rifle and test it.
The key point was the ballistic program gave me a starting point for dial ups. Shooting the 10, 20 , and 30 minutes of elevation at 100 yards gave me some better information, and I had a better starting point, My table of dial ups now has a column for data that worked in cold, dense humid air, and one for data that worked on very hot dry air. Im pretty sure my answer is between the two extremes.

If your shooting 400 yards, you won't have an issue going to 600. Going to 1000 I would check if your bullet is staying supersoncic that far out. You did not say what caliber/ bullet you are using. If you are shooting an AR, you need the right ammo. My accurate 600 yard AR load I use I am pretty sure is tumbling at 700 yards. There are correct bullet choices to get to 1000 with an AR, just not mine. Im sure guys in your club can help if you have questions and likely have better advice than I do.
 
I have a question for the masses. The calculator I’m using from Hornady asks for a measurement of the scope above the barrel. Is that a measurement from the barrel to the middle of the front scope lense? If not what should that be? It defaults to 1.5 inches.

I really want to try this but post like this help, but also make it sound pretty intimidating. Lots of equations and scientific speech, which isn’t my forte. Guess I just need to show up with my limited dope and give it a try.
 
Thanks to both @Dave Marshall and @northny for your answers. I thought it a bit odd that horizontal adjustment was dead on both vertical was off by 5%.

"They" say (they being the conventional wisdom of those who have been there) that you should tweak your velocity to match your DOPE out to 400 or so, and then tweak your BC for ranges beyond.

I've got a Sig Kilo 2400ABS and it offers the feature of truing drop (they call it calibrating) to match DOPE. I don't know whether that will tweak the velocity or BC or both as I haven't even been in that menu. I pulled the bullet profile from the AB Library which will pull AB's Doppler calculated BC and not just the published BC. I could instead manually enter the profile which will then allow me to adjust BC.

BTW I'm running a .338 Lapua Magnum and according to ballistic tables it shouldn't go subsonic until almost a mile. The day before I picked up the 2400ABS, I downloaded the app and entered my profile. The distributor I bought from has a private range with steel out to 1,680 yards. I synched the profile and made a first round hit at 906. :)

After that I pretty much just scared his plates. :rolleyes:
 
I have a question for the masses. The calculator I’m using from Hornady asks for a measurement of the scope above the barrel. Is that a measurement from the barrel to the middle of the front scope lense? If not what should that be? It defaults to 1.5 inches.

I really want to try this but post like this help, but also make it sound pretty intimidating. Lots of equations and scientific speech, which isn’t my forte. Guess I just need to show up with my limited dope and give it a try.

The center of the bore to the center of the scope tube is the measurement you want. If your measurement isn't correct, you might not even notice at short ranges but it could add up further out.
 
I have a question for the masses. The calculator I’m using from Hornady asks for a measurement of the scope above the barrel. Is that a measurement from the barrel to the middle of the front scope lense? If not what should that be? It defaults to 1.5 inches.

I really want to try this but post like this help, but also make it sound pretty intimidating. Lots of equations and scientific speech, which isn’t my forte. Guess I just need to show up with my limited dope and give it a try.

This article also gives some easier although not as accurate ways to do it. Height Over Bore or Sight Height
 
I suggest you go look at the post on the MMPRL (Mass Minuteman Precision Rilfe League ?) recently posted under rifle competition forum. It should give you some suggestions.

I did my qualifier at Granby shortly before they had to "Cease and Desist" the routine shooting at the upper level which went out to 1000 yards. I am not as optimistic as other posters that this is near a resolution. I believe a date in land court is scheduled for the summer, but that is almost exactly where we were last year.

Why be so cryptic about the location? Not getting that...

Overall nice info and should be helpful for someone else to do the same. Agreed that your SD / ES wasn't originally consistent enough and that your final load with an ES in the upper teens was GTG.

What was your muzzle velocity for those 168's? Yes it's obviously possible to shoot 308 at 1,000 yards but seems that it's only sufficient- not optimum? Takes some pushing to keep it from going trans sonic. Regardless, being consistently on target at 1,000 yards is an achievement to be proud of.

If you were at the very last Granby 'orientation' we were there at the same time. As you know, only around 7, maybe 8 of us passed out of the 15 who showed. You must have had ammo with chrony data showing it would be supersonic at 1,000? That was mandatory. I think I was the only one with a gas gun but it's a ~.6 MOA rifle at worst. Built in 6.5 CM. I was off just a little on the first target but after the correction from Nick was spot on for everything else. I used JB Ballistics for a ballistics calculator and spent some time at Granby on the 300 yard target. If I recall correctly I was using 140 ELD's and a load achieving a SD ~7 and ES ~17. Fairly decent for a gas gun. A guy from my local range had equipment problems so I offered to let him borrow my AR but he got a DQ.

I too had some 6.5 CM factory loads that I could not equal with my best hand loads. Tightest 100 yard 5-shot group I have ever shot was with Winchester 140 match. Probably a bit of a fluke at ~0.12" but I shot several 0.3+" and 0.4+" groups with the same lot of ammo. Will give that another try in the near future.

I hear you regarding the Granby situation. There are some very optimistic posts but I don't see anything new on Granby's Faceplant page nor have I seen any emails. As always I support them and wish them the best, but I don't see any concrete positive news. Wish I did.
 
I hear you regarding the Granby situation. There are some very optimistic posts but I don't see anything new on Granby's Faceplant page nor have I seen any emails. As always I support them and wish them the best, but I don't see any concrete positive news. Wish I did.
It's very disappointing. I did my orientation there individually with Lawrence and probably just like you shortly after qualifying they shut down the 1000yd. range. It sure would be good to hear some positive news. I was hoping that there would be some at the last meeting but that was canceled and no word yet on a rescheduled one.
 
I did take the weather conditions into effect, (or at least I tried to) and I have shot that rifle/ scope / ammo combo in weather from cold wet rain to hot baking sun. I need the 5% correction So yes.

As to the bullets BC, I did use manufactures BC.

However, I have not concluded the scope adjustments are off by 5% and I would be surprised if they are. I did correct the problem by modifying my dial ups by 5%. I really don't know the root cause of the problem. Lets start with the rifle, I bought it new and before taxes it was $340 out the door with the Remington rebate. The action was not trued, the barrel / action may not be square. My 20 MOA mount may have an issue. The bore may not be centered in the barrel. I could have mis measure the scope height above the bore or another input. It could be none of these things. I could spend a lot of time and not figure it our. At some point I will move the scope to another rifle and test it.
The key point was the ballistic program gave me a starting point for dial ups. Shooting the 10, 20 , and 30 minutes of elevation at 100 yards gave me some better information, and I had a better starting point, My table of dial ups now has a column for data that worked in cold, dense humid air, and one for data that worked on very hot dry air. Im pretty sure my answer is between the two extremes.

If your shooting 400 yards, you won't have an issue going to 600. Going to 1000 I would check if your bullet is staying supersoncic that far out. You did not say what caliber/ bullet you are using. If you are shooting an AR, you need the right ammo. My accurate 600 yard AR load I use I am pretty sure is tumbling at 700 yards. There are correct bullet choices to get to 1000 with an AR, just not mine. Im sure guys in your club can help if you have questions and likely have better advice than I do.

What rifle scope are you using, specifically? The reason some scopes cost so much is that is what is costs to get accurate, repeatable adjustments. You can also test for your 5% error by using the reticle to hold elevation instead of dial the turrets. The reticle subtensions are not subject to mechanical errors.

If your rifle shoots .5MOA at 100yds, then I would not be looking for problems there.

BC and velocity are not absolute values and I think this is where you’re 5% error is. Adjusting the mechanical dope for shooting from 100 to 1000 yards is just math, but the variables must be correct for the ballistic arc of the bullet to match what the app is calculating. This is typically done by adjusting the velocity value even though it won’t match your chronograph value.

Bullet velocity and staying supersonic at 1000 yards isn’t as significant an issue as you’re making it out to be. Factory ammo in the most common PRS calibers is going to be supersonic well past 1000yards. Handloaded .223, .308 and some obscure calibers designed for AR’s may lack horsepower though. If your 600yd AR load is subsonic at 700 yards, you are giving up way too much wind drift. Go faster.
 
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Don’t give up on Granby fellas. The club is determined not to let up in this fight. Matches are scheduled and no one is planning to needing to cancel them.

There are also new places to shoot PRS being explored. The hard fact is that anyplace suitable is going to be a couple hours drive from Metro Boston.
 
I have a question for the masses. The calculator I’m using from Hornady asks for a measurement of the scope above the barrel. Is that a measurement from the barrel to the middle of the front scope lense? If not what should that be? It defaults to 1.5 inches.

I really want to try this but post like this help, but also make it sound pretty intimidating. Lots of equations and scientific speech, which isn’t my forte. Guess I just need to show up with my limited dope and give it a try.

I’m happy to answer any questions like this. I’m out on disability for a few months, so I have the time.

The scope height measurement in all ballistic apps can be defined as the center of the rifle bore to the center of the scope tube.
 
Don’t give up on Granby fellas. The club is determined not to let up in this fight. Matches are scheduled and no one is planning to needing to cancel them.

There are also new places to shoot PRS being explored. The hard fact is that anyplace suitable is going to be a couple hours drive from Metro Boston.
I'm still a member and I'm not giving up. I'd just like to hear some good news in regards to the ranges. They recently had to close off another section of where we could shoot. I've not been able to make it there lately and if I do I'm not even sure of where I can shoot from.
 
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