K, guess I'm doing more shooting lately...

[sse]

Anyway, the guys at the club have set Sunday for a walk-thru, plus, we mosey over to the 200 yard range.  They hang a big piece of metal, everybody puts a dollar in the kitty, the first guy to hit the steel at 200 yds, offhand, gets the kitty.  

The last time I participated, I won, but....this was a sunny day, with a lot of dew still in the grass.  I took aim and let 'er fly...we all watched as the RB plainly struck the ground in front of the steel, bounced up and hit it!  I was the only to hit it, so I won nearly 10 bucks...!  I mention the dew, because the ball hit the ground and threw up quite a spray of dew in the sunshine.  That was good for a few laughs.

Now my question...If I wanna hit the steel on the fly, how high should I hold over the steel?  I'm shooting The Swan,  .54 cal, about 95 g of Ffg...I await the considered wisdom (if'n there is any around here...LOL)

[rollingb]

If it were me,... I'd see what happens when holding about 3 feet above the center of the gong (you don't mention the "vertical size" of the gong however).    :notworthy

[sse]

At 200 yds, that sounds about 10 ft too low...!!??!!

The going is a rectangle about 2 X 3 ft, hung upright.

[Bigsmoke]

I'd guess that rollingb is about on target (pardon the pun) with the 3' hold over.  As I recall when I used to shoot silloettes (sp?) in years gone by, the bears took about that much extra elevation.
Shot at one of them once with the 8 bore with 300 grains Fg and a 835 grain ball.  Amazingly enough, I hit the darn thing.  Knocked it back into the ditch in back of the target stands and nearly punched a hole through it.  Pure luck shot, but it sure was effective.

[sse]

I think I held way above the target, only to hit the ground in front...you guys better not be feedin me a line...

[rollingb]

I think I held way above the target, only to hit the ground in front...you guys better not be feedin me a line...

Any way you can do a little experimenting between now and the day of the "shoot"?

Another thing you might try, is to "up" your powder charge to 110 grs. (if you're using FFG),... and try the 3' over-center hold.  

[sse]

Uncle Russ is s stinkin expert on this stuff...we'll see whether he'll agree with you potlickers...

[rollingb]

[sse]

Knocked it back into the ditch

That must have knocked you back a bit, too...

[Hank in WV]

Just add the distance you were low the whatever your hold-over was. Should put you pretty close.... or not.

[sse]

I don't remember...

[Riley/MN]

From Bob Spencer's page:

 Many hunters, for whatever reason, sight their rifles in for too short a range. By doing so, they lose much of the potential of the gun and make the job of hitting accurately with it over a variety of ranges very difficult. To illustrate this, we'll look at two trajectory charts generated by Gun Controller®, by RSI. Because I'm strictly a roundball shooter, they will illustrate roundball trajectories, but everything we will discuss is exactly the same for conicals. The charts show the trajectory for a .530 inch lead ball of 223.5 grains weight, fired at a velocity of 1800 fps. All parameters for the two charts are exactly the same except for the distance at which the rifle is sighted in. First, consider what we get if we sight the rifle in for 50 yards. On the plot, the line-of-sight is shown as a straight black line at the top, marked with a "0" , and the path of the ball is shown in red. Drop is the curved blue line, but that's of no concern to us now.



It is easily seen that the path of the bullet deviates very little from the line of the sights out to 50 yards, rising to only 0.13 inches above it (Mid-Range Trajectory) at 38 yards. Notice, though, that at 100 yards the ball is 3.77 inches low, and at 125 yards it is 8.15 inches low. A definition must be discussed here, that of Point Blank Range. Technically, it is the range at which the ball falls as far below the line of sight as it had risen above it at the Mid-Range Trajectory. Practically, it means something more useful to us, and that is the range at which we can pretend the rifle is doing just exactly what we would like it to do, shoot in a perfectly straight line. Point Blank Range is given as 56 yards in this chart, and that means that for any target from the muzzle out to 56 yards we can just point and shoot, and we will hit. Out at 125 yards, though, where the ball shoots 8.15 inches low with the rifle sighted for 50 yards, it will require some good guessing to put the ball where we want it.

Now, let us consider the situation if we sight the rifle in for 100 yards, not 50 yards.



Of course, your ball could be traveling at 1800 fps with 95 gr of Ffg, or it could be much less....

[No Rod]

Riley, that looks about right. When I shot 200 yd high power targets with my .54 I held at the top of the target frame and came in about right. That is about 3.5 feet.

[sse]

Thanks Riley, I did go to his page and checked that out...haven't looked at it in about 5 years, glad it's still there.  So, the drop is over 3 ft at 200 yds, and the plan, based on what Jon said is to hold over by the same amount.  Guess I'll try it, won't be easy.

[Riley/MN]

If you could get someone to stand out there with a yardstick it won't be that bad - I think I am busy that day, however....