Well, I had to take some Venture Scouts to the range this weekend. Rough duty but someone has to do it right? I finally got my T3 .308 Light Stainless to the range. I've been fighting and fighting to find the right combination of mounts and rings before I order them via web so I finally just slapped a cheap Nikon ProStaff 2-7 on it with the Tikka rings. Stripped two hex heads in so doing. That'll be fun to fix... Anyway after some trap, some pistol and about 550 rounds of .22 from a friends 10/22 (man will that thing shoot, I'm gonna have to get me one of those!) the scouts were officially done and I could shoot. I had mechanically centered my Nikon before I installed it. But I was really surprised at how close it was. First shot was about 2 inches low and about an inch left. I was shooting at 50 meters so I had to make a bunch of clicks but it finally came out for shots 7-9 at about an inch high and about 3/4 inch group with two making one hole and the third a little higher. The barrel is a little light and was starting to get pretty hot so I got out my thumper... it's a Steyr ProHunter in .376 Steyr. It came stock at about 7.5 pounds which I didn't like so I had added 1kg of #9 into bags in the butt stock. That made it better but I still don't care for it from the bench at all. I pulled off a nice 1.5 inch three shot group at 50 and decided to put it up until I could add another pound by getting a scope on it. It's just under 10 pounds now but hey, I'm a big guy and there is no reason I can't carry 11 pounds all day if needed.
I moved over to the 100 meter range with the Tikka and put together a group of three at just about an inch but not centered perfectly. I had to leave but I saved my target so I can make some adjustments next time I make it out. I'm really happy to have it so close to "on" the first time out of the box. I'm pretty sure on a better day with better targets (ones made for sighting in... not bullseye circles) I can get it to shoot smaller groups. I was shooting 150 Federal Power-Shoks. If they get a better variety in, that might help as well. I "could" hunt with it now but really want to get it sighted in a little better first although I don't know why. I have to start over when I get the right mounts and rings for my Leupold to fit on there.
