BAG Day Zeroing and Range Report

As most of you know by now. I bought a new rifle from Sal’s Funstore back on the 7th.

Yeap, it’s a Barrett M82A1 in .50BMG. Kinda purty, ain’t she. I went with the Trijicon 5-20x50 optic with standard MilDot reticle.

Anyway, I picked up 20 rounds of Barrett’s 660gr M33 for zeroing and another 10 rounds of American Eagle XM33c for fun and went to the range yesterday.

I had crunched some numbers on a ballistics calculator and while Barrett recommends a 100 yd. zero. I opted for a 250 yd zero this time. For two reasons. One, the bullet drop beyond 250 basically lined up with the mildots on the reticle. First dot down was almost 400, next was about 500, etc. With the top of the bottom post at 800. This would make hold over easier to judge on quick shots. And two, I could set the zeroing target up at 50 yds and that would correspond to 250. Since the longest range I have is 300 yds and the 200 yd berm would have been in the way of an actual 250 yd shot, this seemed like the best solution.

Ammo: Barrett M33 factory reload ammo, 661 gr projectile, ballistic coefficient of 0.620, muzzle velocity of 2750 ft/sec.

Atmospheric conditions: Alt: 640 ft., Temp: 68 degrees F, Pressure: 29.70 inHg, Winds were 310 at 13kts according to the airport. (It was a really nice day yesterday.)

It took 4 rounds to get it onto paper and then another 7 to zero and confirm. (Both Geoff and I shot confirming shots. By the way, I want to thank Geoff for the excellent pics of the rifle. Most of the pics here are his doing.)

After that, we were joined by Levi, the range master, and we moved down the bays to one that had some cars sitting on it. I had to see what shooting through the engine block on a car would do. The three fresh holes in front of the tire are mine.

And the gigantic exit hole in the same position on the other side too.

I would have taken pics of the giant divot in the berm behind the car, but we were laughing too hard at the time to remember. Come on, that was just fun! So, yes. The .50BMG will shoot through the engine block of a car, no worries.

After that we moved to the 300 yd berm and knocked over some steel plates there. I mean literally knocked them over. I guess even at 300 yds there’s a butt load (that’s the technical term for ‘a lot’) of kinetic energy left in a .50BMG bullet.

This is an artsy shot by Geoff.

And another.