Another outing to Barton Road and for some odd reason I found myself reaching for the Schultz & Larsen again, a 5kg 12X ‘scoped rifle shot with a Harris bipod and squeeze sock seems like an odd combination for anything over 300m but something seems to work for me.
A mixture of showers and proper rain with temperatures around 8C with a bit of a breeze made for less than ideal conditions however I am never one to turn down a challenge and I was not RCO today so I could relax and generally enjoy the day.
Barton Road is one of those odd MoD ranges that has a public footpath crossing it at the 100m point which means we need to post sentries either side of the range, ‘long sentry’ (Left) and ‘short sentry’ (Right) Metal sentry boxes that can be grim on a cold day, 8C is hardly cold so I volunteered for short sentry and caught up on my email and forum news whilst the first detail did HME zero and moved out to 800. There are only so many emails I want to read on an iPhone, my flask of tea (Black no sugar please) was rapidly going down and I was starting to feel a bit chilled so I was quite pleased when the radio called me in and I headed to the 800 point.
Last outing with the S&L was colder and called for 19.3MOA elevation, today at 8, maybe 9C should mean around .125 minutes change so I dialled in my drop and took the first shot, 36″ blacks and I was 3/4 up the target! Hmm… I had to drop a minute out over the next two shots to get in the 5 ring (1MOA) and I over estimated the wind by a minute which was odd, these 139 Scenar’s seem to deal with the wind quite well and I keep falling back to a .308 mindset, a good twist of the drum got me where I wanted to be and I finished with a couple of V’s before heading back to my sentry box and a well deserved cup of flask tea to wash down a kit-kat and chicken tikka salad bread roll, I am Brit so I prefer to eat proper English food like bacon and cheese rolls, fried potatoes and good curries – Hey that is what Statins are for.
1000 saw me a whole minute down on the last outings drops and the wind was generating the occasional odd vertical, I was paired up with a .308 shooter and I noticed his 185 Berger go nigh on 2 minutes high, my next shot went a good minute high so either we had both snatched our shots or something odd was happening. Eventually the RCO asked if I wanted to move back to 1200 so I said yes and moved back to find I was the only one rash enough to play at that distance. I noticed the day was not without it’s attrition as we had a few shooters stumble away to their cars…
I can usually spot the marker at 1200 with my 12X Kahles but the light was dropping so I was pleased when a TR shooter (One of the RAF TR guys according to his cap badge) offered to spot for me, now I am always suspicious of the bondage mob as we all know they never speak on the firing point but this chap was a pleasure to be on the point with, he gave accurate calls as I danced in the 5 ring around the V, the penultimate shot looked to be a solid V but that didn’t count as I still had one round to go, I took careful aim, the wind had picked up a tad so I aimed slightly to the left of the V and squeezed the trigger. The frame came back up and the marker was hovering on the edge of the 5 and the V at 12 O clock, my spotter confirmed this and I had a squint through his Kowa 40X…. It looked close, annoyingly a radio call to the Butts confirmed a good 5 about an inch above the V.
BUGGER
Now a quiz, can anyone identify the logo below, I notice these days it is being used by A group calling themselves ‘Treachery Unlimited’ but it was used by a group of a different name before, I will give you a hint, the name of the group is in this post and a virtual beer and pizza to the first person to identify the group.
Meanwhile I will ponder on this S&L thing, I have a Danish wife but does this mean I have a Danish mistress?