Thunder Valley Precision AAR:
We left Fort Wayne around 6pm and arrived there around 10:30 at night. The drive was mostly uneventful until we got to the last stretch of road which in daylight is beautiful and rolling, but at night is a perfect opportunity to come around a corner or over a hill and hit a deer on the other side, which we nearly did twice.
Upon arriving we met the owner who was out and about and talked for a little bit. He was a super nice guy and a genuinely good dude. After talking with him we setup hammocks under the metal roofed shooting line. The stars that night were absolutely out of this world beautiful. In the morning we saw an equally beautiful sunrise and put away all our camping gear from the night before. We made up some coffee, laid out our gear and cases for the day and stood around talking till the range safety brief at 10:00am from the RSO.
Camping Loadout:
This was my cousins first time sleeping in a hammock and I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a bad/cold experience in it. We used full military sleep systems in the hammocks. I put an ENO underquilt on his setup and used my swagman roll as an underquilt on mine. We didn’t have to worry about bug nets because of the time of year and the metal roof saved us from having to setup tarps. We slept like two well fed snoring babies in their momma’s arms.
Facility:
This place runs on the honor system quite a bit. There was a box of swag t-shirts, hats, and other things with a price list saying to leave money in the envelope if you wanted to buy anything. He had a couple of porta johns and even offered to let us use the refrigerator in the shed if we needed to. They were incredibly accommodating.
There was a small pistol range, a zero range, and a carbine range nearby, but everyone who showed up seemed only be interested in the long distance range. The main range mostly had single plate targets at 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 1,000, 1,100, 1,200, and 1 mile. The biggest target out there was an 18” gong at the 1 mile mark. Something I noticed though was the amount of broken clay pigeons laying on the backstops at these distances. It was pretty obvious that the guys who shoot here often are playing in a much better level than I have been to this point.
At one point, I was chatting with the RSO and he was such an incredibly helpful guy. He was a wealth of knowledge on reloading and we geeked out on that quite a bit. I knew when he talked class was in session and he was an exceptionally humble and nice guy. Some ranges near home get different reputations based on the attitude of their RSO’s and if I were to judge this range solely on the quality of their RSO I would say it’s outstanding.
Guns, Ammo, & Optics:
I took two rifles with me to test out and play with on this adventure.
Big Lessons Learned on Ammo:
I learned something new especially about my beloved 6.5 Hornady Match factory ammo on this trip. I’ve noticed this before to a lesser extent in the past but at 1,000 yards the extreme spread and nothing to brag about S.D. of Hornady match ammo in my rifle is barely noticeable. When I stretched out to 1,100 and 1,200 I kept seeing rounds hit much higher or lower than I had dialed for but the wind didn’t change. I’ve missed high or low before but it’s always been repeatable. For example, if I was hitting low the next round would be low as well. At 1,100 and 1,200 I really started to see that one round would be lower than my cross hairs and the next round would be equally higher than my crosshairs and it was enough to miss the small plate targets out there. Up till this point I had never seen any results that made me want to do anything besides buy more of that ammo when I saw a sale price. This issue showed up at 1,100 yards and was greatly compounded at the 1 mile target. I would fire a round at a mile having dialed and be off because of wind, then fire another round and be a little more off because of wind, then fire a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] round that would be 5 MOA low, then fire a 4[SUP]th[/SUP] round and be 5 MOA high, then fire a 5[SUP]th[/SUP] round and barely miss again because of wind. The way the elevation was fluctuating so wildly yet the wind was remotely unchanged really pointed out a glaring error in my whole setup. I need to tune my 6.5 ammo to my gun. That kind of problem really pointed straight to the ammo. The day as a whole didn’t have much wind and honestly couldn’t have asked for a better day regarding the weather and conditions.
By comparison my 338 lapua handloads had some amount of deviation in elevation, but it was significantly tighter than my 6.5. I realize there’s many reasons for this, but ammo plays a major part in it. The 338 Lapua was worked up using the Satterlee method and handloaded to this rifle. The 6.5 ammo is factory ammo for all guns.
Range Finder Testing:
Despite what every company trying to sell a rangefinder says it’s good for on the box I like to confirm them at distance on a known range. I took both my rangefinders with me. I’ve had a bushnell elite 1600 for many years, and recently purchased a Leupold RX-2800 TBRW. The bushnell did fine out to 1,000 as it has many times before, but once I tried to get a range at 1,100 or beyond I didn’t get anything. I switched through the different modes and tried multiple targets to get a reading and didn’t get a thing past 1,000 yards. The Leupold impressed the heck out of me. It read everything spot on with nearly instant feedback. There wasn’t any delay between hitting the button and seeing a reading. Even at the 1 mile distance it measured 1740 yards so maybe it started to be a little off there, and maybe that’s the actual distance. I didn’t confirm the exact 1 mile plate distance, but it was dead on at 1,100 and 1,200 and the kestrel dope was on for 1,740 yards. I was exceptionally impressed with how well the Leopold worked. Honestly, I’m still happy with the Bushnell and now I just know it’s limitations. So I have one rangefinder that’s good for a mile and another that’s “only” good to 1,000 yards which is still over a half a mile away.
Overall:
I’m very glad I made the trip to this range and I’m even happier to have gotten to spend some quality time with my cousin on this trip. I learned the limitations of some ammo, and some range finders. I know what works past 1,000 yards and what currently does not. I can honestly say that going to this range taught me a lot, and now looking at a 1,000 yard range seems too easy. I can’t recommend this range enough and I have every intention of going back as soon as I’ve got some tighter handloads for my 6.5 and more ammo for my 338 Lapua.
We left Fort Wayne around 6pm and arrived there around 10:30 at night. The drive was mostly uneventful until we got to the last stretch of road which in daylight is beautiful and rolling, but at night is a perfect opportunity to come around a corner or over a hill and hit a deer on the other side, which we nearly did twice.
Upon arriving we met the owner who was out and about and talked for a little bit. He was a super nice guy and a genuinely good dude. After talking with him we setup hammocks under the metal roofed shooting line. The stars that night were absolutely out of this world beautiful. In the morning we saw an equally beautiful sunrise and put away all our camping gear from the night before. We made up some coffee, laid out our gear and cases for the day and stood around talking till the range safety brief at 10:00am from the RSO.
Camping Loadout:
This was my cousins first time sleeping in a hammock and I wanted to make sure he didn’t have a bad/cold experience in it. We used full military sleep systems in the hammocks. I put an ENO underquilt on his setup and used my swagman roll as an underquilt on mine. We didn’t have to worry about bug nets because of the time of year and the metal roof saved us from having to setup tarps. We slept like two well fed snoring babies in their momma’s arms.
Facility:
This place runs on the honor system quite a bit. There was a box of swag t-shirts, hats, and other things with a price list saying to leave money in the envelope if you wanted to buy anything. He had a couple of porta johns and even offered to let us use the refrigerator in the shed if we needed to. They were incredibly accommodating.
There was a small pistol range, a zero range, and a carbine range nearby, but everyone who showed up seemed only be interested in the long distance range. The main range mostly had single plate targets at 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 1,000, 1,100, 1,200, and 1 mile. The biggest target out there was an 18” gong at the 1 mile mark. Something I noticed though was the amount of broken clay pigeons laying on the backstops at these distances. It was pretty obvious that the guys who shoot here often are playing in a much better level than I have been to this point.
At one point, I was chatting with the RSO and he was such an incredibly helpful guy. He was a wealth of knowledge on reloading and we geeked out on that quite a bit. I knew when he talked class was in session and he was an exceptionally humble and nice guy. Some ranges near home get different reputations based on the attitude of their RSO’s and if I were to judge this range solely on the quality of their RSO I would say it’s outstanding.
Guns, Ammo, & Optics:
I took two rifles with me to test out and play with on this adventure.
- GA Precision custom 6.5 creedmoor shooting factory Hornady 140gr ELD match ammo, with a Vortex Razor Gen 2 4.5-27x scope on top. This rifle has been my go-to long range rifle and at 1,000 yards on in has never given me a reason to be anything but impressed.
- Ruger Precision 338 Lapua magnum shooting handloaded 250gr Fort Scot Munitions at about 2865fps with a vortex strike eagle 5-25 on top. This rifle has been a long time project of mine and currently still has just shy of 200 rounds through it. It is 100% factory and I have no plans to change anything on it other than I slapped some stick on neoprene padding on the cheek piece. Otherwise that gun is 100% stock.
- My cousin took a Tikka T3 compact tactical 6.5 creedmoor shooting Hornady 140 ELD match ammo with a vortex pst gen1 on top. He was absolutely slaying targets out to 1,000 yards and then he ran into the same problem I did. Both our 6.5’s have 20” barrels and we were using the same ammo.
Big Lessons Learned on Ammo:
I learned something new especially about my beloved 6.5 Hornady Match factory ammo on this trip. I’ve noticed this before to a lesser extent in the past but at 1,000 yards the extreme spread and nothing to brag about S.D. of Hornady match ammo in my rifle is barely noticeable. When I stretched out to 1,100 and 1,200 I kept seeing rounds hit much higher or lower than I had dialed for but the wind didn’t change. I’ve missed high or low before but it’s always been repeatable. For example, if I was hitting low the next round would be low as well. At 1,100 and 1,200 I really started to see that one round would be lower than my cross hairs and the next round would be equally higher than my crosshairs and it was enough to miss the small plate targets out there. Up till this point I had never seen any results that made me want to do anything besides buy more of that ammo when I saw a sale price. This issue showed up at 1,100 yards and was greatly compounded at the 1 mile target. I would fire a round at a mile having dialed and be off because of wind, then fire another round and be a little more off because of wind, then fire a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] round that would be 5 MOA low, then fire a 4[SUP]th[/SUP] round and be 5 MOA high, then fire a 5[SUP]th[/SUP] round and barely miss again because of wind. The way the elevation was fluctuating so wildly yet the wind was remotely unchanged really pointed out a glaring error in my whole setup. I need to tune my 6.5 ammo to my gun. That kind of problem really pointed straight to the ammo. The day as a whole didn’t have much wind and honestly couldn’t have asked for a better day regarding the weather and conditions.
By comparison my 338 lapua handloads had some amount of deviation in elevation, but it was significantly tighter than my 6.5. I realize there’s many reasons for this, but ammo plays a major part in it. The 338 Lapua was worked up using the Satterlee method and handloaded to this rifle. The 6.5 ammo is factory ammo for all guns.
Range Finder Testing:
Despite what every company trying to sell a rangefinder says it’s good for on the box I like to confirm them at distance on a known range. I took both my rangefinders with me. I’ve had a bushnell elite 1600 for many years, and recently purchased a Leupold RX-2800 TBRW. The bushnell did fine out to 1,000 as it has many times before, but once I tried to get a range at 1,100 or beyond I didn’t get anything. I switched through the different modes and tried multiple targets to get a reading and didn’t get a thing past 1,000 yards. The Leupold impressed the heck out of me. It read everything spot on with nearly instant feedback. There wasn’t any delay between hitting the button and seeing a reading. Even at the 1 mile distance it measured 1740 yards so maybe it started to be a little off there, and maybe that’s the actual distance. I didn’t confirm the exact 1 mile plate distance, but it was dead on at 1,100 and 1,200 and the kestrel dope was on for 1,740 yards. I was exceptionally impressed with how well the Leopold worked. Honestly, I’m still happy with the Bushnell and now I just know it’s limitations. So I have one rangefinder that’s good for a mile and another that’s “only” good to 1,000 yards which is still over a half a mile away.
Overall:
I’m very glad I made the trip to this range and I’m even happier to have gotten to spend some quality time with my cousin on this trip. I learned the limitations of some ammo, and some range finders. I know what works past 1,000 yards and what currently does not. I can honestly say that going to this range taught me a lot, and now looking at a 1,000 yard range seems too easy. I can’t recommend this range enough and I have every intention of going back as soon as I’ve got some tighter handloads for my 6.5 and more ammo for my 338 Lapua.
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