We have a early season rifle/archery hunt that starts in mid August thru mid September. It is a cow elk, actually 'antlerless elk' hunt, and it is called the Green Field Season. Local farmers can submit a bill to the State for big game damage to crop fields, and to help keep these payments down the Fish & Game offers these hunts to help move the animals out of the fields and back into the back country. So in preparation for that hunt - decided to go work out the Ultra-Lite this morning. The only time I would hunt elk in that season is early in the morning and it would have to be a cool morning. This morning was much like that so a testing trip was in order.
Got to the rock pit and got set about 8:30 - the temp was still in the low 60's. And that is really important since I shoot MMP sabots - because of their polymer formulation they are not fond of warm temps and hot barrels - probably should use Harvesters at that point, but the MMP's are so good in the cold temps.
I had decided not to shoot paper - so I placed a set of 'clay pigeons' on the rock wall at 100 yards down range. I was shooting 120 grains of T7-2f, with a 300 grain Bloodline in a red Knight sabot. The load was shot using a W209 primer which fits perfectly in bolt/breech plug set-up. Little bit of primer nose pressure and really close to 0 blow back.
I do not know about anybody else but some days I have do not shoot as well as I want and then there are other days that are just awesome! Today was one of those awesome days! I really had a difficult time missing. The first set of clay targets proved to be no problem at all. In fact I ended up shooting up partial bottle of T7-2f with and opened a new bottle. I was kinda shocked when I opened the new bottle. It was labeled #5 - Between January and now I had shot 4 pounds of T7-2F powder and was opening the 5th pound. The bottle of 3f in my box was labeled #3 and it was nearly new - so I had also burned up 2 bottles of T7-3f. It has been a busy 2013 already....
Well, anyway here are some pictures of this mornings expedition to the rock pit.
At the end of shooting the full sized birds - I spent another 45 minutes shooting and chips that I could find down range - it was just a great morning for shooting even though I had to let the rifle cool a bit between shots - I just do not have the patience for that part.