waterman wrote on Sep 7^th, 2016 at 11:21am:

Waterman, this is ammo I bought back around '96 when I was shooting pistol matches. It was $152 per 5,000 rd. case then, and I think I bought three cases. It has been stored in my finished basement ever since, where environment is a steady 65-75 degrees all year round. It shoots as good as it did when I first purchased it!

rafter3c,

Ya know, if you sit back just aways further behind the bench, I figure you might be able to squeeze almost 150 yards out of that range of yours.

What a place to shoot!

Hayface

Please post equipment & results from that match.

Biggest problems shooting 22 rf @ 200 yards (assuming an accurate rifle decent ammo, and optics, and good bench equipment and bench shooting skills)  are the "conditions"   mostly wind and mirage.   
  Poor "condition management" will render to nil the best equipment and premium high dollar ammo (that DOES work in your rifle at 50 or 100 yards). 
Those little 40-odd grain bullets are incredibly susceptible to horizontal spread with very minimal shifts in the wind. 

I know there is a relationship between bullet velocity and wind drift---or maybe its rotational speed. But from what I have seen from my 22 rf shooting at Etna Green the higher velocity 22 rf (often gained at the price or a significantly lighter bullet--percentage of bullet mass wise) do not fare as well as the standard-weight bullets at normal target velocities.   the lighter, faster hi-speed simply seem to drift more.   

Learning to choose your "condition", even if its only in the first relay--or the first part of the relay, might be as good as spending 25$ more per box of ammo.      learning when NOT to shoot is equally critical.

optics and mirage are  whole 'nother cauldron of worms.

Here are the results of our 200yd .22LR match. Some tough 'seeing' conditions with all the mirage. Good shooting by JohnH, DaveW (40-82 on the forum), JoshR, VinceD and LynnC. Quite challenging in our mirage & wind. We'll try it again next month.
200yd .22LR Match      750 possible            Ammo
Scope                                    
JohnH            696      MW                  RWS Rifle Target      CPA Stevens
DaveW            688      2nd                  Midas +                   Ballard w/Win52 barrel
ErnieB            672                        RWS Rifle Target      Ballard
PhilS                    651                        Center X                  Ballard
GlennD            641                        Midas +                   DZ Arms Hepburn
ChrisC                   604                          SK Std +                  Ruger 10/22
Open Sights                                    
JoshR            647      MW                  Norma Match            1885 Low Wall
VinceD            644      2nd                                                Mossberg 44US
LynnC            635                        Rem Match               Marlin XD22
RalphC            616                        CCI Std Vel               Roller w/Crossno
AlL                    603                        Wolf Match Extra        Win 52B
PaoloA            598                        SK Std +                   BSA Martini MkII
MikeB            593                        CCI Std Vel               Ruger American

Can these scores be fairly compared to ASSRA?

Any comment re. the so called "Biathlon" ammo. offered by Eley, Lapua  & RWS (R-100)?

RayH wrote on Sep 12^th, 2016 at 2:45pm:


RAY:
   They were fired under much different conditions.   ASSRA 200 yd would be like we used to shoot at FR&G, bench, unlimited sighters, unlimited time.   GLENN's shoot was from prone, mostly with X-sticks or some other front rest.   Serious wind and mirage, as it was later in the afternoon.   The bullet hole images would fade out and come back.   Quite difficult.  I think it was pretty good shooting given the conditions.
    At our FR&G shoot at 200 yd many years ago, the late Buddy Streat shot 5-shot groups under 1" two years in a row.   I have one of the targets, ca 0.80", and documentation, which I am going to try to get recognized as an ASSRA record, in Buddy's memory.
   So, I think that good ASSRA bench guys could do a lot better than we did at GLENN's match, which was staged on a regular hi-power range.  Best 5-shot I have made at 200 was about 1.6", many years ago with some of the old ELEY Benchrest Gold, which hasn't been made for about 20 years.
    My opinion, FWIW, is that the only advantage of the high-dollar ammo is lower vertical dispersion, presumably owing to more uniform velocity.   The weather effects begin to come in pretty strongly, and overwhelm the extra accuracy.   As a practical statistician, I recognize that errors of this sort add as sum of squares, so it is easy to see why this happens.   Great ammo is absolutely required at 50 yd, nice at 100 yd, but probably not useful at 200, unless you can REALLY dope the wind, both horizontal and vertical effects.
    I'm looking fwd to trying this again next year. 

CHRIS
RGChristensen

PS:   Hope you can come and play with us again next month!