On target at last!

This week the boss finally paid one of my outstanding travel claims, freeing up the cash to pay off my new rifle.

Its a Tikka T3 Lite. Blued barrel, black synthetic stock and guaranteed to shoot better than 1moa. (Thats better than 1 inch accuracy at 100 yards, much better than my shooting)

The calibre is .223, very popular with kangaroo shooters in this area, but also suspiciously similar to the 5.56mm NATO rounds I fired for Ronnie RAAF in recent years. Call it a coincidence ;-)

They don't seem to make this kind of thing with open or iron sights anymore, so luxury was forced upon me, I had to buy a scope to go with it. The scope recommended by the gun shop was the Nikko Sterling Nighteater in 3-10 42mm.

I took it out in the yard to sight it in this afternoon. I set up a standard NRA target I downloaded from the web and printed on the loading ramp in paddock near the house. I paced off 75 meters, lay down and fired my first legal round on my own property. Missed completely!

Of course, that's to be expected, the scope had only been bore-sighted in the shop and it was shooting well off to the right. A few clicks on the lateral adjustment, and a more reasonable sighting distance of 25m and the next shot hit the paper.

Now I had something I could measure. A calculated number of clicks of adjustment and the next shot was pretty damn close to the centre mark. The rest was up to me. I fired another round, exhausting the 4 round magazine on the Tikka. Still pretty close. No more adjustment needed.

I had another 4 rounds stuck in the elastic bandolier on the sling, so I reloaded the magazine and sent them on their way toward the target. I was quite pleased with the result considering its an unfamiliar rifle and my hands are shaking quite a bit from the flu I'm suffering at present. The pseudoephedrine and coffee probably don't help either!

I've got another 80 rounds or so in the ammo compartment of the gun safe I bought at the same time as the rifle (safety first, I've got a 4-year-old to worry about). By the time I've fired that lot I should be able to face the boys and girls down at the SSAA rifle range without too much embarrassment.

In the meantime, I don't think it's too bad for the first 8 shots on an unfamiliar rifle.

The first shot was way off to the right. The second mid target, just into the white. I have no idea how the low one in the black got there, but targets don't lie.

Perhaps I will take it to the SSAA range soon after all.