1,000 Yard Shooting (M1D Garand Sniper Rifle)

[John Kepler]

Frankly....the 168 SMK is NOT a 1000 yd. ball (it was designed for 300 meters and is a chronic over-achiever making it adequate for 600 yds.). If it was being shot at true 1000 yds with that MV....it was arriving on target sub-sonic, making hitting much with it far more of a random event than current competition standards will let you get away with. That you were shooting a 168 and staying even close to where you were pointing the rifle is an even clearer indication that the range was something less than 1000 yds.

As for the rest of the comments....I have no dog in this fight, but I AM a fairly compitent Long Range Service Rifle shooter, not a collector, and campaigned a modified .30-06 Garand in that venue for a significant number of years (my 17 year-old son is still shooting it in LR-Service Rifle). I know what it takes to shoot a Garand successfully at 1000 yds....I know what works, and more importantly to this discussion, I know what doesn't. A 168 at 2680 fps doesn't...not reliably. BTW, if you were shooting that load at say Camp Perry....your load would be dropping sub-sonic at around 800 yds and your ability to even hold the load on a 6'-square target highly problematic....you're better at 4000', but not completely out of the woods!

John
ORPA National Long Range Service Rifle Teams "Silver", "Purple", and "Green"