colinbentley wrote:I am using two rifles for bench shooting. A 222 Remington and a 243 Winchester. I am shooting MOA at 100 metres but beyond that I am hopeless. Both scopes are 3-9 x40 and at 200 metres I barely make it onto paper. What strength scope would be recommended for 2 or 300 metres.and should In be looking at 50 mil.?
First up on the barrel cleaning products.
I have up until recently (medical reasons) shot Benchrest Fly Shooting at National Competitions. 500m and 300m plus 200yds Rimfire. I use nothing but Bore Tech Eliminator to clean the bore at the end of a days competition, Moly coated bullets but did start with plain naked bullets which showed a very minor drop in accuracy at the very end of the day but still good enough to result in a 4th place from 30 odd other shooters. I have never had a carbon problem which is confirmed by regular checks with a Bore Scope. I do not use Bronze Brushes at all ever...!! I do run my first patch to soak the bore as soon as possible after my last shot for the day whilst the barrel is still rather warm and that may soak for hours or even overnight before a few more patches and that is all it needs. These are Stainless Steel Barrels, Chrome Moly I do not use for any form of target shooting, they aren't as accurate and much harder to clean.
A couple of friends use the same proceedure. Good enough for a couple of 1st Place results at 500m and kept them in the top few shooters for most events.
I gave up using Sweets, Hoppes, ProShot etc many years ago as did also the use of Bronze Brushes. It's nice having a Gunsmith friend who can check barrels regularly.
I use "Ballistol" which is just an oil, very much like WD40 to wipe the Carbon Trace off Case Necks and about mid shoot, lunch break if there is one I put some Ballistol on a Chamber Brush to soak the Neck Area of the chamber then dry patch it out. Never seen any carbon in the chamber neck or lead section of a bore.
Second....
Amoungst all this I shoot 300m Factory Class with a Sako 85 and Tikka T3 both .243W using Berger 90gr BT Moly Coated Bullets. Good enough for 1st place.from a couple of dozen shooters. BTW about 42.5gr AR2209 jammed 0.010" into the lands. Both SS Barrels, one fluted. The accuracy at 100m is about 1/2 MOA or better otherwise it's not worth competing. Factory Class has a Scope power limit of 25X and that is good enough. One rifle has a 8.5-25x50mm Leupold and the other a 10-60x52mm March which is wound back and set at 25X power. Of course it's much better using higher powers when conditions allow but not allowed in the competition shoots, just practise and load testing.
Calibres used I remember others using are .223R, 22-250, .308W, 7mmR Mag, 6mmPPC but I'm sorry no .222R in the comp. The heavier bullets have the edge if there is any type of breeze during the whole day. Including warmer target usually about 50 rounds down range per day.
The fun with this "Fly" shooting is the yellow target card and red Fly that will test your ability to see when Mirage happens.
Hope it helps, good shooting....it's fun competing against mates.