260 yards with the Ranger 45

My usual 260 yard gun is my Haley 257, seldom a day goes by that I don’t shoot it on the steel at long range. But this weekend it broke down. The hollow set screw that acts as a bushing and seal for the valve stem came unscrewed and was struck by the hammer and ruined the screw. Doug came to the rescue and within 2 hours after emailing him about my plight, he sent pictures of the replacement screw.

The week had been sunny and windy all week and was really frustrating for shooting, but as soon as the rifle broke the wind stopped blowing. The blue faced wind god really though he had me, but I still had a ace up my sleeve, the Ranger 45 with the new Leupold 4.5×14 VX111 with mildots and turrents was waiting in the closet for it’s chance at the steel.

I had sighted it in with the 412’s at 100 yards cast of 30-1, but I had some fresh 20-1 bullets sized to 453 that dropped at 406.5 grains to shoot. I shot at 100 yards at my back breaker 100 yard target again to check the zero before dialing in the elevation to reach out to the next step which was 150 yards. I screwed my back up last week lifting that 90 lb target off the 5 foot “t” posts to move it to a different location.

After confirming the 100 yard zero, I dialed in 13 inches of elevation or 19.5 inches of elevation for 150 yards and fired these two shots at the plate.

It was a good group for two shots, .75 inches at 150 yards so I then moved back to the 260 yard line/2nd story deck and set up. View thru the sound suppression box and a 406.5 grain AccurateMolds bullet.

I had shimmed the Burris Signature rings and had 45 inches of elevation with a 100 yard zero. Handloads.com said that I need 119 inches of correction, but being a Ballistic Calculator it is a guide and not gospel, so I had to do some corrections, plus shoot to get a absolute zero at 260 yards. What I found out is that I need more tin under that rear scope ring. I ended up having to use the first mildot as hold over, gawd what an ugly term perhaps one mildot correction is more fitting, as the day wore on and the rifle leaded up velocity dropped enough that I needed to use the 2nd mildot.

All the shots at the steel at 260 yards, the circled group at the bottom is the last group shot, I was shooting at the white dot to the right that is painted over on the circle around the group.

After shooting I tried to put a thicker shim under the rear Burris Signature ring between the insert and the scope, while screwing it down I heard a distinct pop and the wrench lost tension as the screw pulled the threads out of the hole. I put the spare extension rings back on which are better suited to shimming. I have 75 minutes of elevation in the scope. It had a wasted 30 inches of elevation from bottom to get to 100 yards, at 260 yards it was maxed out and was not giving the full accuracy potential of the rifle due to not being optically centered. I did not have enough to get a zero at 260 yards and had to hold on the the first mildot.