What I see through the scope at 788 meters...

Long range shooting tends to hold some mystery for most. This is probably in the most part due to the way it's portrayed in movies. Mostly the movies get it wrong. I'm that guy who sits watching a movie and calls out all the errors in respect of gun handling and usage. One of my pet hates is the way movies will have someone come into a hostile situation and have cause to draw and fire their sidearm. Have you ever noticed that they'll fire 3 shots then the trigger simply clicks? Well with a semi-auto pistol that doesn't happen. The slide would stay open if the magazine was empty. Besides, who would only have 3 bullets in a magazine that fits 16-17 rounds? Idiots, that's who. Anyway...Long range...

I often get asked what I see when I look through my rifle scopes and how close things look. Mostly I get asked this by people who will never get anywhere near a real gun and so I'm left trying to explain it which, of course, is bloody hard to do!

Well, the other day I remembered to take a picture of what I see. I haven't used purpose-made camera equipment. Instead I tried to line it up with my iPhone and capture the sight-picture. It's not perfect, but you get the idea.

In the image you will note a few things. You will see the cross hairs, the target downrange and that the picture is slightly out of focus. The optics I was using on this particular day was a Nightforce ATACR scope with 5-25x variable magnification. It is a very high quality optic and the picture when I look through the scope is completely clear. The reason it is slightly unfocussed is because of my iPhone which has picked up a focus on something other than the target.

The target in this case is 788m away and I have the zoom set at 25x magnification. So, what you see in the scope is what I would be looking at right before I shoot. Usually however, at 788m I would not have full magnification on. I would wind it back to about 12.5-15x magnification. The reason for this is because I shoot tactical competitions where I have to acquire multiple targets and engage quickly. Having the scope zoomed in closes down the field of view, the sight-picture, making it more difficult to locate new targets quickly. The target you can see in the scope is a white painted steel gong of about 15 inches in diameter with a pink dote in the centre and suspended on a steel frame.

So, from what you see in the picture I would line up the cross hairs and shoot. Of course I would go through a process to make sure my shot hits the target.

I acquire the target, check/adjust parallax (focus as such), dial in the correct elevation to the elevation turret, check rifle level (I have a scope level fitted), place my hand in position, finger to trigger at the same time as starting my breathing cycle, load the bipod (push forward on the rifle bipod for stability)...Slightly depress the trigger and when my breathing reaches it's natural pause (bottom of exhale) the trigger breaks, the gun fires and sends the bullet to the target. Providing I got all of that right, the initial windage call (wind reading) also, and brought it all together correctly the bullet will impact where I sent it. That all takes about 2 -3 seconds or so in a competition, sometimes less. Flight time to 788m for the bullet is about 1.25 seconds.

So, there's a basic idea of what I look at through my scope, when shooting steel gongs. In a competition stage there could be 7-10 targets at different ranges and angles and the shooting takes place from odd and difficult situations like barricades and under time pressure, 60-90 seconds for instance. They also make us run around a to so we are shooting whilst puffed out etc. It's great fun and all done with extreme caution and safety. All licensed shooters and registered firearms.

Thanks for reading.