Define mid range rifle distance

[Twigg]

Given the scarcity of ranges suitable for 300+ yard shooting in Massatwoshits I'd say 100 - 200 yards.

 

[Mesatchornug]

What i said wasn't even racist, people just dont get context over text, which i get. When you're being intentionally square you're ability to get the context is lessened even more.

Sorry, not saying it was. I was saying Paul was making joke, playfully at your expense. Because that's fun.

Then SS got his panties in a bunch...not fun.

 

[PappyM3]

Given the scarcity of ranges suitable for 300+ yard shooting in Massatwoshits I'd say 100 - 200 yards.

We have a higher density of ranges to shoot 300+ yards than a lot of the country. Harvard, Reading, Granby… Yeah, people out west have tons of BLM land to shoot whatever range they want. But lots of people in the south and Midwest would be jealous of our options within an hour or two.

 

[2/1Marine]

I always viewed 300-600 as "mid-range"

 

[Broc]

Drop has nothing to do with the question and everything to do with the shooters ability to make appropriate corrections for the drop. If you’re running a sub MOA or even a 1 MOA setup, 5.56 is a very capable cartridge even out past 800. If you know how to calculate your drop and adjust your reticle or make your holds accordingly. The question is what is mid range for the cartridge, not mid range according to a shooters ability.

Tell me you dont shoot long range without telling me you dont shoot long range.

Drop is the easy stuff. You can teach that to a monkey in 5 minutes. If shooting long range was only about drops, we would all be hitting beer cans at 1K.

Wind. Reading the damn wind is the challenge when shooting long range. Specially if you are shooting through a valley or areas that can have different wind directions. Mastering the art of reading wind takes A LOT of practice.

Pulling the trigger and adjusting for drop, that is the easy part.

 

[Broc]

I always viewed 300-600 as "mid-range"

I will call 600 long range, since most people don't shoot past 200.

I guess it would be useful to define what for.

In competition, 600 is not long range.
In a battle, 600 might not be long range (someone tell me).
But for the average American, 600 is long range.

This is where I was last week. See that swamp down there? ... that was 540 yards, confirmed with 2 range finders.



This part:


It is crazy because I shoot at 600 and does not seem that far. I guessed the swamp was at 800.

Wind at the swamp was going East to West.
Wind where I was going South East to North West.
One day we had 15-25mph winds.
Making that shot and keeping it within 1-2 MOA would be challenging.

 

[PappyM3]

Tell me you dont shoot long range without telling me you dont shoot long range.

Drop is the easy stuff. You can teach that to a monkey in 5 minites.

Wind. Reading the damn wind is the challenge when shooting ling range. Specially if you are shooting through a valley or areas that can habe different wind directions. Mastering the art of reading wind takes A LOT of practice.

Pulling the trigger and adjusting for drop, that is the easy part.

And the wind direction can also be up! Not just in the 2 dimensional clock system.

I will say 5.56 with heavier ammo is “capable” at 800 yards, but definitely not “very” capable. Even if one is really good at reading the wind, you can’t always see alternating cross winds, or swirls, or sudden gusts as you broke the trigger. 5.56 at long range, or even extended mid-range will always have a lower hit probability than higher BC bullets.

 

[Broc]

And the wind direction can also be up! Not just in the 2 dimensional clock system.

I will say 5.56 with heavier ammo is “capable” at 800 yards, but definitely not “very” capable. Even if one is really good at reading the wind, you can’t always see alternating cross winds, or swirls, or sudden gusts as you broke the trigger. 5.56 at long range, or even extended mid-range will always have a lower hit probability than higher BC bullets.

Yup. Where I was last week, it was going UP because we were on top of a steep hill.

Even with the 6.5cm that would have been a hard shot and a sure miss if only adjusting for drop.

 

[Buck F]

I hit my drives 300 yards down the center of the fairway all the time. Every bass I pull out of the lake is at least 4lbs. My di....

 

[PappyM3]

…

Even with the 6.5cm that would have been a hard shot and a sure miss if only adjusting for drop.

Alright, now I gotta call BS. This is where I cease belief. … don’t disparage 6.5 CM like that.

 

[Broc]

Alright, now I gotta call BS. This is where I cease belief. … don’t disparage 6.5 CM like that.

If it makes you feel better, that pic I posted above, was taken in GAYLORD. I was shooting the 6.5 in GAYLORD.

 

[fencer]

If you’re running a sub MOA or even a 1 MOA setup, 5.56 is a very capable cartridge even out past 800. If you know how to calculate your drop and adjust your reticle or make your holds accordingly. The question is what is mid range for the cartridge, not mid range according to a shooters ability.

The Marine Corps qualify out to 500 yards. And when I went through in the 80's, we did it with iron sights. At 500, your front sight pretty much covers the target.

Can doesn't mean effective. .308 can reach out to 1000, but has the power of a .22.

Not true. At 1000 yards, a 308 is still moving about 1300 feet per second. Basically about 9mm at point blank range.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

Plenty of people seem to expect this cartridge to perform tasks that it was never intended to perform.

Because we have seen it perform said tasks.

The .223 is a medium range varmint/predator caliber that was modified for military use.

Here we are back at defining "medium range" again.

Effective range, as far as I am concerned, is the range that a given cartridge can reliably stop an attacker's hostile actions immediately or, in the case of hunting, harvest the targeted game quickly and humanely.

The shooter is always the max effective range of any caliber. And like i said earlier, how many bullets from given cartridge? Just one? Plenty of people have survived center mass hit from 762. A 556 cartridge also weighs less than half as much as a 762 one so you can carry double the ammo, it also doesn't recoil as much so its easier to shoot. So a theory i subscribe to (in some instances) is send my first round, which hopefully connects at distance and incapacitates them, and then either finish the fight and come back to them later or continue hammering them with rounds until i connect with cns or they bleed out.

I think you’re being a slightly optimistic to call it very capable past 800. Even with the 77 grain bullets. It’s still getting pushed all over the place by the slightest wind at that distance and has very little energy if you are capable of dealing with that.

For the more popular variations of the cartridge, I’d say it’s doable for average to decent shooters out to 500 or so with good optics in what I would call normal conditions. 5-10 mph variable winds.

>800 is far for most guys and most 556 guns, but not impossible nor really all that difficult. I wanna say my 14.5 goes transonic at 890~ so thats really where you see the big inconsistencies. That said, im a YUUUUGE advocate of SPRs in Mil/LE applications because you have ammo commonality with everyone else and the guns are easier to shoot more gooder and they're reliable and can even be used for cqb if needed whereas dmrs.... ehhh.... So a good rifleman on an spr is a huge asset to an infantry plt/sq, if he takes his role serious he can effectively control a grid square with a good spr.

With good optics and reticles (i use a leupold mk6 3-18 with tremor 3) ideally shooting 77gr match i can usually land a hit on a human torso size target within 3 rounds at 1000. I simply fire my first round using my dope and a hasty wind guess, if i hit, great, next target or followup, if i miss, i simply adjust my hold based on splash and send the next round, if there are no major atmospheric deviations from shot one to shot two odds are im catching meat.

ETA: At 1000 theres a rough flight time of 2.6 seconds, so another neat thing about 556's recoil is at 1000 a good rifleman can have 3 rounds in the mail before the first one even gets delivered. Thats pretty badass to see.



The rifle doesn't even really need to be anything all that special either, my main rig right now is just a duty grade 14.5 it probably shoots 1 minute on its best day.

What i cant wait for is the new Ridgeline purpose built SPR, that gun is straight up going to f***.

 

[Soundwave]

Because we have seen it perform said tasks.




Here we are back at defining "medium range" again.



The shooter is always the max effective range of any caliber. And like i said earlier, how many bullets from given cartridge? Just one? Plenty of people have survived center mass hit from 762. A 556 cartridge also weighs less than half as much as a 762 one so you can carry double the ammo, it also doesn't recoil as much so its easier to shoot. So a theory i subscribe to (in some instances) is send my first round, which hopefully connects at distance and incapacitates them, and then either finish the fight and come back to them later or continue hammering them with rounds until i connect with cns or they bleed out.



>800 is far for most guys and most 556 guns, but not impossible nor really all that difficult. I wanna say my 14.5 goes transonic at 890~ so thats really where you see the big inconsistencies. That said, im a YUUUUGE advocate of SPRs in Mil/LE applications because you have ammo commonality with everyone else and the guns are easier to shoot more gooder and they're reliable and can even be used for cqb if needed whereas dmrs.... ehhh.... So a good rifleman on an spr is a huge asset to an infantry plt/sq, if he takes his role serious he can effectively control a grid square with a good spr.

With good optics and reticles (i use a leupold mk6 3-18 with tremor 3) ideally shooting 77gr match i can usually land a hit on a human torso size target within 3 rounds at 1000. I simply fire my first round using my dope and a hasty wind guess, if i hit, great, next target or followup, if i miss, i simply adjust my hold based on splash and send the next round, if there are no major atmospheric deviations from shot one to shot two odds are im catching meat.

View attachment 818914

The rifle doesn't even really need to be anything all that special either, my main rig right now is just a duty grade 14.5 it probably shoots 1 minute on its best day.

What i cant wait for is the new Ridgeline purpose built SPR, that gun is straight up going to f***.

When you say SPR and ammo commonality are you referring to 5.56 or .308? Just curious because I built a 18" 5.56 and a 20in .308. Haven't been to my club with the 400yd range in a while though.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

When you say SPR and ammo commonality are you referring to 5.56 or .308? Just curious because I built a 18" 5.56 and a 20in .308. Haven't been to my club with the 400yd range in a while though.

Special purpose rifle, 556, ammo (caliber) commonality with your riflemen.

762 DMRs are cool but the ammo is so heavy that homie with the M110 or god forbid M14 is only humping like 200 rounds of 118LR realistically on his combat loadout because he's usually stuck carrying tons of other shit. About 10 minutes into a firefight and he's suddenly black on ammo and breaking belts off your 240 gunner to feed his dmr which is a big no-go when the belt feds are your biggest casualty producing weapons.

 

[lukewarm_fuzz]

Tell me you dont shoot long range without telling me you dont shoot long range.

Drop is the easy stuff. You can teach that to a monkey in 5 minutes. If shooting long range was only about drops, we would all be hitting beer cans at 1K.

Wind. Reading the damn wind is the challenge when shooting long range. Specially if you are shooting through a valley or areas that can have different wind directions. Mastering the art of reading wind takes A LOT of practice.

Pulling the trigger and adjusting for drop, that is the easy part.

I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home

 

[LakeTrout]

Because we have seen it perform said tasks.




Here we are back at defining "medium range" again.



The shooter is always the max effective range of any caliber. And like i said earlier, how many bullets from given cartridge? Just one? Plenty of people have survived center mass hit from 762. A 556 cartridge also weighs less than half as much as a 762 one so you can carry double the ammo, it also doesn't recoil as much so its easier to shoot. So a theory i subscribe to (in some instances) is send my first round, which hopefully connects at distance and incapacitates them, and then either finish the fight and come back to them later or continue hammering them with rounds until i connect with cns or they bleed out.



>800 is far for most guys and most 556 guns, but not impossible nor really all that difficult. I wanna say my 14.5 goes transonic at 890~ so thats really where you see the big inconsistencies. That said, im a YUUUUGE advocate of SPRs in Mil/LE applications because you have ammo commonality with everyone else and the guns are easier to shoot more gooder and they're reliable and can even be used for cqb if needed whereas dmrs.... ehhh.... So a good rifleman on an spr is a huge asset to an infantry plt/sq, if he takes his role serious he can effectively control a grid square with a good spr.

With good optics and reticles (i use a leupold mk6 3-18 with tremor 3) ideally shooting 77gr match i can usually land a hit on a human torso size target within 3 rounds at 1000. I simply fire my first round using my dope and a hasty wind guess, if i hit, great, next target or followup, if i miss, i simply adjust my hold based on splash and send the next round, if there are no major atmospheric deviations from shot one to shot two odds are im catching meat.

ETA: At 1000 theres a rough flight time of 2.6 seconds, so another neat thing about 556's recoil is at 1000 a good rifleman can have 3 rounds in the mail before the first one even gets delivered. Thats pretty badass to see.

View attachment 818914

The rifle doesn't even really need to be anything all that special either, my main rig right now is just a duty grade 14.5 it probably shoots 1 minute on its best day.

What i cant wait for is the new Ridgeline purpose built SPR, that gun is straight up going to f***.

At 1000 yards, a mere 5 mph wind is going to move that bullet almost 6 feet. And we all know wind is not consistent at all over the course of range between the shooter and the target. In a zero wind condition, I don’t disbelieve that you can make the shot within 3 or so. You’d be a better shooter than me for sure, but I would believe you can do it. On any day with realistic conditions, I’d really have to see it to believe it. Based on all of the shooting I’ve seen done with this cartridge just out to 650 or so, I’d be extraordinarily impressed if you could consistently put 1 out of 3 on a target that size in average range day conditions.

Oh also, add the 10” in variability for your 1 MOA gun to that 6 feet and even if we don’t add another MOA for your capabilities, I think it would be really extraordinary, to put it mildly, to see you land 1 out of 3 consistently.

 

[chris_1001]

Keep racist comments to a minimum. There are many "

Plenty of people seem to expect this cartridge to perform tasks that it was never intended to perform. The .223 is a medium range varmint/predator caliber that was modified for military use. Effective range, as far as I am concerned, is the range that a given cartridge can reliably stop an attacker's hostile actions immediately or, in the case of hunting, harvest the targeted game quickly and humanely. I am certainly not suggesting that the .223 peters out completely at 200 yards and is no longer lethal. It has a maximum range of over two miles and can certainly kill well beyond its effective range. An innocent motorist in NYC was killed by a stray .303 round after some moron on a sailboat in New York harbor, almost two miles away, decided to take some impromptu target practice with an Enfield on some floating trash.

You are pretty new here and are now the resident expert? What’s your background?

 

[2/1Marine]

The Marine Corps qualify out to 500 yards. And when I went through in the 80's, we did it with iron sights. At 500, your front sight pretty much covers the target.


Not true. At 1000 yards, a 308 is still moving about 1300 feet per second. Basically about 9mm at point blank range.

When I got out in 2003 the ACOG's were becoming part of the normal battle rattle. During my time and for my tour in Iraq I mostly used irons and had no issues hitting a man sized target out to 500 yards. I was by no means anything special, just a typical "expert" in the Corps. The only time I used an optic was when I was in FAST and we would use the Trijicon red dots for CQB (in the med post 9/11 doing VBSS). If I recall max effective range for 5.56 out of an M4 was 500 meters for a point target and either 600 or 800 for an area target, cant remember exactly.

 

[LakeTrout]

Oh and another thing for the camp of people that think 5.56 is “very capable” at 800 yards: Very capable for doing what? Hitting your stationary target it no wind I think is what you mean. Even if we aren’t talking wind, you who think the drop part is easy have to remind yourself that it’s easy if you know the exact range of your target. But even those Gucci 77 grainers start to drop an inch per yard or so out there. So if your target is 15 yards further or closer than you thought, you just missed a 15” target. This isn’t the hallmark or a cartridge that is very capable at said distance. Landing a bullet on a target at known distance in zero wind conditions is not evidence that the cartridge can be considered “very capable” at these distances.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

At 1000 yards, a mere 5 mph wind is going to move that bullet almost 6 feet. And we all know wind is not consistent at all over the course of range between the shooter and the target. In a zero wind condition, I don’t disbelieve that you can make the shot within 3 or so. You’d be a better shooter than me for sure, but I would believe you can do it. On any day with realistic conditions, I’d really have to see it to believe it. Based on all of the shooting I’ve seen done with this cartridge just out to 650 or so, I’d be extraordinarily impressed if you could consistently put 1 out of 3 on a target that size in average range day conditions.

Oh also, add the 10” in variability for your 1 MOA gun to that 6 feet and even if we don’t add another MOA for your capabilities, I think it would be really extraordinary, to put it mildly, to see you land 1 out of 3 consistently.

Yeah plus the bullet is transonic at 890 like i said before so its gonna do all the whacky things.

But if you can see your splash and measure it in your glass you can generally get a hit. Am i saying its the best tool for the job? Absolutely not, we are essentially figuring out what the beaten zone is and lobbing them in there and then correcting off what we see downrange. What im saying is 556 isnt this fudd lore bullshit 200 yard max caliber when we're talking about putting holes in people at distance.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

Oh and another thing for the camp of people that think 5.56 is “very capable” at 800 yards: Very capable for doing what? Hitting your stationary target it no wind I think is what you mean. Even if we aren’t talking wind, you who think the drop part is easy have to remind yourself that it’s easy if you know the exact range of your target. But even those Gucci 77 grainers start to drop an inch per yard or so out there. So if your target is 15 yards further or closer than you thought, you just missed a 15” target. This isn’t the hallmark or a cartridge that is very capable at said distance. Landing a bullet on a target at known distance in zero wind conditions is not evidence that the cartridge can be considered “very capable” at these distances.

You're not wrong on any of this, im talking about doing what you can with what you've got/what you can carry. Obviously if your goal is a one shot hit and kill you are gonna go for a more optimized platform/caliber. But im not gonna see a dude at 1000 and be like "nope, too far" with the gun i posted earlier, im gonna put rounds on him, worst case scenario i suppress him and he never gets within his effective range of me. Obviously im not going to hunt elk with a 556 because i dont want to wound it and see it suffer. Humans? Another story.

 

[LakeTrout]

What im saying is 556 isnt this fudd lore bullshit 200 yard max caliber when we're talking about putting holes in people at distance.

I agree. And I think it can be pretty fun and a cheap way to hit the target reliably for average to decent shooters out to 600 yards or so in low wind conditions. Thats my experience.

 

[PatMcD]

Who are you guys that are searching for man-killing"capable" cartridges out at long range? Unless you are are currently in one of our armed services (in which case it doesn't matter because you are not going to be allowed to bring a personal weapon wherever you are deployed), in what possible scenario do you need to KILL humans out beyond a certain range?

I shoot paper with a .223. It is extremely "capable" of that.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

I agree. And I think it can be pretty fun and a cheap way to hit the target reliably for average to decent shooters out to 600 yards or so in low wind conditions. Thats my experience.

Absolutely agree. And in my experience from 700-1000 it can be good enough at putting effective fires on human size targets to best case kill or wound and worst case suppress and disuade an enemy from closing to within his effective range. Again, not some ineffective poodle shooter we have heard since 1965 from the fudd crowd.

Ill try to video some stuff next time im out, ill probably have to use my drone or something to record the target lol.

 

[ThePreBanMan]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ3XwizTqDw

That dude is super human in his abilities...

 

[LakeTrout]

Who are you guys that are searching for man-killing"capable" cartridges out at long range? Unless you are are currently in one of our armed services (in which case it doesn't matter because you are not going to be allowed to bring a personal weapon wherever you are deployed), in what possible scenario do you need to KILL humans out beyond a certain range?

I shoot paper with a .223. It is extremely "capable" of that.

Some people like to have the ability to do something that may be necessary under circumstances that aren’t the current circumstances. Thats probably the mentality.

 

[AllaSnackbah]

Who are you guys that are searching for man-killing"capable" cartridges out at long range? Unless you are are currently in one of our armed services (in which case it doesn't matter because you are not going to be allowed to bring a personal weapon wherever you are deployed), in what possible scenario do you need to KILL humans out beyond a certain range?

I shoot paper with a .223. It is extremely "capable" of that.

Yeah totally unreasonable to think that it could ever come to that.

Who cares? If you shoot paper thats awesome, i shoot paper too. I dont think its unreasonable for people to think that they might not always shoot paper or to think about the effectiveness of their ammunition for things other than paper.

This is the same attitude as the losers who say "your average pistol shooting happens at 7 yards so i dont train with my pistol beyond 7 yards..."

You're better than that.

 

[PatMcD]

This is the same attitude as the losers who say "your average pistol shooting happens at 7 yards so i dont train with my pistol beyond 7 yards..."

You're better than that.

No I'm not.


I'm still waiting to hear the scenario where there would be a need to do that.
In New England (us being NES, and al...)

 

[2/1Marine]

No I'm not.


I'm still waiting to hear the scenario where there would be a need to do that.
In New England (us being NES, and al...)

how about 10 yards in a blizzard with a dunks in your offhand.....since its New England?