http://www.levergunscommunity.com/viewt ... =1&t=40797
While awaiting the arrival of some better fitting test bullets courtesy of w30wcf, I loaded up a couple boxes of ammo with the 200 grain RCBS 44-200-CM bullet over SR4756 powder and took the rifle along to a Cowboy Lever Action Rifle Silhouette match today. Yes, it is more suited to the Lever Action Pistol Cartridge discipline, but I just wanted to see if those light 817 FPS loads were capable of taking down the full-size long range silhouettes.
Starting with the 50 meter Chicken, I was able to quickly get a sight setting with the Marble's tang sight and the rifle took them down easily. Same with the 100 meter Pig. By the time I was done testing on the 150 meter Turkey, it was still taking down the targets, only a bit slower. I had cranked the tang sight up a lot, and knew there was not enough elevation left in the sight to reach the 200 meter Ram. Sure enough, with the sight all the way up, I was still five or six feet short. Using Kentucky windage, I held over the top of the Ram and after a few tries was able to hit one, and whatta ya know, it went down! Not real fast, and not real hard, but it went down. (We do have our 200 meter Rams soft-set per NRA regulation).
That was pretty encouraging for me, so I decided to install a taller Marble's tang sight that I had in my shooting box and see if I could reach those Rams holding dead on. With near maximum adjustment it worked, and I soon had two Rams down with two consectutive shots. Moving back over to the 50 meter Chickens, I now did not have a low enough sight setting. Even with a 6 o'clock hold I was a foot over the top of the Chicken. I tried changing out the front sight a couple times, but I was just chasing that tang sight either higher or lower, never able to get both a 50 meter and a 200 meter setting on one set of sights. The slow speed of the bullet was creating too high of an arc in the trajectory.
At any rate, I did discover that the rifle is capable of taking down full size silhouettes, just not with authority.
Say, I just remembered, I have a real nice MVA long range vernier tang sight with a Winchester base sitting in my safe! I bet that would work! Right? Stay tuned, more to come...
SHASTA
