As I mentioned earlier, I bought a nice 37 acre mountain property in Southwest Virginia, near Marion and the Mount Rogers Recreation Area. It borders the Jefferson National Forest, has logging trails through out.
I bought the place in April of this year, and immediately set to work clearing a rifle range. So far I've cut about 40 trees, opening up a wide shooting lane 120 yards long. My backstop for now is a large Gum tree stump, the terrain rises 800 feet in elevation behind the shooting lane, which will stop a bullet, but it is not the best practice to fire indiscriminately into the woods. Soon I will rent a tractor and make a proper dirt pile back stop.
Here's some pictures of the range, my bench rest is a Kawasaki "Mule" side by side UTV, four wheel drive, dump bed, a great vehicle for moving about the property, carrying chain saws and wood etc. I call it my "PPV", Perimeter Patrol Vehicle:
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The target is at fifty yards, the wooden crate is for setting a bullet trap on for shooting and recovering cast lead bullets for re-casting:
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Shooting today is my new Ruger 77/44 .44 Magnum bolt action stainless steel carbine. A handy little rifle, 18.5" barrel, full size stock with 13.8 inches length of pull, weighs 5.25 pounds, about the same as a Ruger 10/22 carbine.
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The sights are similar to a Ruger 10/22, bead front, square notch rear. The trigger is "Good", breaks at about 4.5 pounds, no creep or grit, very useable. Smooth action, detachable four shot rotary magazine.
Took me about eight rounds to get the rifle zeroed, had to drift the rear sight to the right a bit with a brass punch, adjusted the elevation up a bit, then started testing ammo. The best group of the day was a little bigger than a quarter, a Hornady 240 grain XTP jacketed hollow point, pushed by 19.0 grains AA #9 powder. Loading manual says it will give 1300 FPS from a revolver, should be going 1600 FPS from a rifle:
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It shoots cast lead "OK", not as accurate as full speed jacketed ammo, but enough accuracy for plinking and hunting small game. Load is a 240 grain lead semi wadcutter, cast from a Lee mold and lubed with Alox, loaded with 6.5 grains Trail Boss powder. 850 FPS from a revolver, 1150 FPS from a rifle:
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Finished up the outing by doing a bit of offhand (standing position) shooting, 10 rounds at an 8" swinging steel at 50 yards. Ten for ten, very satisfying:
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I really like the Ruger 77/44, it will fit in nicely around here as a hunting tool. I think I will get a compact Leupold Vari-X I shotgun scope for it for serious hunting, as I'm sure it would be hard to see the issue sights in low light.