The 2016 King of 2 Mile competition is over and it is time to start thinking about next year. Overall we didn’t do terrible...
Durvin placed 3rd and I placed 6th but we certainly got our butts handed to us by the Applied Ballistics teams. Like last year, we use an “Off the
Shelf” Barrett model M99 chambered in .416 Barrett. Realistically, this type of rifle is not a Benchrest match quality rifle out of the box but they do shoot well. The biggest issue with shooting an M99 to extreme distances is in the rifle tracking properly due to tactical design of the stock. They are simply not designed to shoot to 2000+ yards. However, there is a solution to the tracking problem and we are working on an “attachment” for the stock that will allow perfect tracking. We will more than likely use a non-stock bipod as well since we are customizing anyway. Enough excuses, we did not prep as much as we should have and the AB teams just shot better with better equipment.
After the first day Darik Bollig from Barrett was third, Durvin was 4th and I was 5th and it stayed that way through the second day of qualifications. All of us were shooting a M99 .416 Barrett. Here are the top 10 that qualified. The yardages shot were 1454, 1556, 1724, and 2011 yards. First round hit score was the distance multiplied by the number of shots on that particular target which in target 1 there were 5 shots. 5 x 1454 = 7200 points for one hit. Second round hits were 4 times the yardage, third round hits were worth 3 times the yardage, etc. On the remaining 3 targets where there were only three shots per target were scored accordingly with first round hits worth 3 times the distance, 2nd round hits worth 2 times the distance and 3rd round hits worth 1 times the distance. First round hits were critical and as you see we did not make first round hits on the first two targets. Since we had a 1600 yard zero in PA thinking we were going to be shooting much further than the yardage we started at, we did not have our elevation correct on the closer targets. Once we saw where the first shot went (high), the remaining shots were on target. Vertical stringing became much more evident on the 2011 yard target and not just to us.
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The finals consisted of shooting 5 shots on each of three targets, 2011, 2477, and 3375 yards and scored in the same fashion. Durvin managed to get shots 3 and 4 on target at 2011 adding 10,055 points to his score but did not get points for the 6th round hit at 2477 yards and did not get on at 3375. I only managed to get one shot on at 2011 and one shot on at 2477 yards which allowed Paul Phillips to leap over me and Randy. No doubt the Applied Ballistics teams shot well and congratulations to them all.
Daniel Smitchko
President of Cutting Edge Bullets
