Frankengrendels' big day out at Bisley.

[Buck2732]

Frankengrendels' big day out at Bisley.

Well a bit about Frankengrende,l it started out life as a CZ527 Carbine in 7.62x39 it was converted by rifle craft in Norfolk UK to Grendel. They put on a 22" 4 grove 1:8 Barrel which is cut for a moderator. The home loads for this trip are Hornady brass, 123g SMK, 28g N133 with CCI 450 primers for 2600FPS. On top there is a 2.5-10x44 Vortex PST.

The day started with a drive to one of the shooting parties home 30 miles away, and from there the 110Mile drive to Bisley. We started at 07:00 and arrived at 10:45 thanks to the large amount of road works on route.

We arrived at the 600y firing point and quickly set up and meet the 4th member or the group. He had arrived earlier he had been shooting before we got there. We had received a text message from him saying that the shooting was "interesting". We could now see why, every range flag was straight out.
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The wind was gusting between 20 and 35 MPH in our favour though it was mainly full value from our 9 O'clock.

This was the first time I have taken Frankengrendel over 100y so was quite nervous about getting the right amount of come up on the scope and used a ballistic app to get a rough idea. I ended up with 17 MoA dallied in after some high low shots on the screen the windage ended up being around 11-12 MoA.

After finding my way on to the target I shot the following practice;

S1 3
S2 4
1 4
2 4
3 5
4 4
5 Vbull
6 Vbull
7 Vbull
8 5
9 5
10 Vbull

So, I know it was me that let Frankengrendel down as its been a long while that I have had to read my own wind. Target sizing as follows;

Screen H 60" W 70"
Scoring Vbull 7.8"
5 13"
4 26"
3 39"
2 52"

I then shot my straight pull AR. I was quite impressed with the performance with it at this range and win conditions. I scored a few Vbulls though many more 4s and 3s than with Frankengrende. The lunch time siren sounded at this point so I was un able to shoot a card with the AR.

We moved to the 1000y firing point after lunch, the weather was kinder after lunch (for a while any way), the gusts of wind where not as strong.
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So, at the 1000y point I had trouble getting on to the screen ( my inexperience started to show this range) I had fired 10rnds and not made contact with the screen. Which at 70" H and 118" W was quite embarrassing. I was getting "I told you so" looks from my shooting companions who had been telling me that "that little thing wont make the distance when we get to the 1000y point".

I decided to wind the scope back to zero and start once more, my sheet said to put on 47 MoA which I did. This got me over the top of the target and was luckily spotted by our scorer in the buts, (Thanks Steve). I bought down the scope 4MoA. This got me my first hit on the screen at 1000y. I was so happy I laughed out loud (not a typical reaction from me). Now I could see where I was impacting I could make corrections. I ended up with 40.5 MoA from my normal zero, and 13 MoA windage. I was still aiming off, on the fly for the frequent gusts.

The afternoons shooting was broken by rain and hail storms, which where bad enough that the Army sniper pair on the 900y point two lanes to our left stopped shooting.

So how did I do at 1000y
Scoring Vbull 14.4"
5 24"
4 48
3 72"
2 96"

S1 3
S2 4
1 5
2 5
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 Vbull
7 Vbull
8 Vbull
9 Vbull
10 3

Again I let Frankengrende down not the other way round.

So what did I get out of the day,

1, I am so impressed with the little cartridge I out shot some .308s and was not to far behind one guy using .260AI.
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I was trounced by a guy using an AI AX in .308.
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2, I eventually got to say I told you so to the naysayers (childish but they started it).

3, Remembering that I have to do some more work on my windage calculations.

4, A great day out with much piss taking with good mates.

Thanks for getting this far.

Buck

[LRRPF52]

After working with this cartridge for the past 4 years, I still find it hard to believe it does what it does from a 1.5" long case at 600yds in bad weather.