350 legend & "cheatin" with ballistic calc's

[Plant.One]

went up to a buddy's on saturday to help with a couple small projects and he asked for some help getting his legend dialed in - the Zero stop turret on the legend calibrated leupy VX-Freedom had him all goofed up. he's old school and tech like that is foreign to him as trying to read a greek newspaper.

anyway, we zeroed the rifle for him at 100, and he had some jugs and a couple targets setup at 200 yds.

plugged the basic data into Strelok, hit calculate, and had a click chart ready to go in about 2 mins. 15 clicks up, cousin pulls the trigger *smack* *pop* jug of water explodes.

friend: thats cheatin!
me: no its ballistic math - its science, not cheatin!

our friend says "lemme try that" hops on his gun, holds on the other jug, flinches and misses. settles in and drills it on his 2nd shot.

i hop behind the trigger - take a bead on the bullseye on one of the targets and fire off a group. then put about a dozen thru the one jug that was still standing trying to hit it in a way that caught a seam or something to knock it over (turns out it still had about a cup of water in it) but all i could do was get it to rotate a bit.

here's the group, 1½ bullseye sticker, 200 yds, 147gr FMJ winchester white box ammo. not bad for my first 3 shots on the gun.

 

[varminter .223]

I use Hornady ballistic calculator for everything. Just out of curiosity when zeroed at 100 did how much drop was there at 200? I am assuming 7.5 inches if you did 15 clicks?

 

[Plant.One]

i use hornady at home.. but i have strelok on my phone...

i like its reticle thing it does.



and yea.. book says 7.6", i think strelok said 7.8", 15 clicks as you can see was about right on... probably could have done 16 but meh.

i didnt bother to verify it with a 100 yd shot to see how high it hit... we just dialed it back to the zero stop, verified it was still on at 100 and handed it back to our friend

 

[NDAR15MAN]

Better shoot a hunting load like the Winchester 150 gr or the other brands 160 through 180 gr. Some guns shoot the 145 FMJ ammo great. Hunting stuff not near as good. Don’t ask how I know. MD

 

[Plant.One]

Originally Posted By: NDAR15MANBetter shoot a hunting load like the Winchester 150 gr or the other brands 160 through 180 gr. Some guns shoot the 145 FMJ ammo great. Hunting stuff not near as good. Don’t ask how I know. MD

oh i already told him that. and i appreciate the differences.

mine will be zeroed for the 165 ftx to hunt with, handloads. i'm pretty comfortable that i'll be able to make it shoot more than reasonable enough to make venison acheive room temperature

 

[Plant.One]

so took the new upper out for a test drive after assembling everything yesterday. Have been chomping at the bit for 2+ weeks for the rest of these parts to arrive with the barrel on my bench giving me the stink eye.

got lucky and scope was only about 12" low and 1.5" right at my cousins 50 yd range so it took me all of 5 shots to get a 50 yd zero on paper and then moved right over to the steel plates for the rest of the box and to test the other mags out.

everything ran like a swiss watch, other than blowing a bolt out of one of the 2" "challenge" gongs i have hanging from chains there. those get a lot of abuse, especially from the 450 bushmaster because it makes people giggle watching them spin around the bar so no clue how long that bolt had been in there lol

will get to stretch it out to 100 and finish the zero next weekend and hopefully do some basic load testing with the 165 ftx handloads at sunday-gunday-funday at the other cousins.


anyway here she is

18" 350 legend, 1:16 twist, melonite, carbine gas, national match profile
4-12x40 Diamondback with Deadhold BDC
BCA side charger with melonite bolt carrier group
Guntec 15" ultralite m-lok handguard ( i really kinda like this, seems like a nice guard for the $)
cmmg set screw gas block
STDA 3 prong flash hider
UTG 2pc offset ar scope rings

ar-stoner 5rd legend mags ran flawlessly, the 20's i ordered just came off backorder today and should be here next week some time.


ya'll have seen this lower under probably a half dozen uppers already. no real changes to it, other than a new upper.

 

[MPFD]

So what did it chrono at? Did you just use the speed printed on the box in sterelok?

 

[Plant.One]

Originally Posted By: MPFDSo what did it chrono at? Did you just use the speed printed on the box in sterelok?

i used box data because its the best info i had available at the time. still havent chrono'ed my buddy's rifle, because well.. i dont care enough to drag my toys up there to get him some data he'll never use.

his hunting spot is 100 yards. he knows he needs to rezero with his hunting ammo before he goes out. i'm not his babysitter or data collector

mine hasnt seen any load development yet - that basic testing happens this coming sunday. its only got a box of factory ammo down the pipe so far for basic zeroing and function testing. i'll get some chrono info as i start to work up data for mine so i have the correct info for my loads, just like i have for the rest of my handloads i use