1K Yards with the Aero M5E1 6.5 Creedmoor
This build is a rather older one from quite a few years ago. My wife and daughters got together and snagged me one of the Aero receiver sets in Winter Multicam. I picked up the lower parts kit including the buffer tube, the bolt carrier group, American Defense scope mount, Burris MTAC scope, Ballistic Advantage premium stainless steel 22” barrel, SLR adjustable as block and the Accu-Tac bipod from the folks over at Brownells.
Over the years the maximum distance I’ve shot this build was at 300 yards and it would handle that with boring regularity even with just S&B plinking ammo. I always wanted the opportunity to stretch it’s legs out to 1000 yards, but it’s not that easy to find a place to do this here in North Carolina. I had the opportunity to attend a meet up in TN at the Dead Zero shooting park which is an awesome facility by the way. This particular range has everything you can think of including a 100 yard range that has both steel targets(to check your shots with) as well as a very nice digital targeting system. Since I knew that I’d be getting this opportunity I picked up 100 rounds of Federal Premium 140gr Sierra Match 6.5 Creedmoor ammo to run in this rifle. My plan was to use my Rugged Radiant 7.62 suppressor of course. The big concern that I had was the optic I was using. This is an old Burris MTAC 4.5-14 SFP scope that I got way back when I put this rifle together. This scope although it has great glass for the price point, I thought for sure that it would be the limiting factor. It’s in Mils of course.
Once I got setup on the bench, I checked my shots at 100 yards on steel then proceeded to work my way down the range. Most yard lines had steel to shoot at first before testing your accuracy on their digital targeting system. The purpose of this was to minimize the potential damage to their very expensive targets and this worked juts fine with me. Out to 300 yards things were super easy, but once I got out to 600 yards, that’s when math was critical and I needed to do some calculations in order to get positive hits on steel so that I could then switch over to the digital targeting system.
After a decent amount of rounds, 20 or so, I finally got my chance to try out this rifle at the 100 yard line. I first ensured I could hit steel targets with regularity then I switched over to the 1000 yard digital targets. The winds were fairly brutal causing me to have to hold off the target just a bit to compensate for the winds that day. But my first 2 shots were almost in the same spot. I ended up taking a couple more shots before calling it. Had 1 a tad bit low then one pretty close to the bullseye.
Shooting at 1000 yards was quite exciting and I quickly earned more respect for the folks that do it on a regular basis. It’s not an easy feat, but with great ammunition and gear from Brownells, even a novice long range shooter such as myself can get on target at 1000 yards.
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