If I could I would check more than one box, but I just went with the most common purpose for the gun in my house. I shoot offhand or bench for practice to get good - really good - at hitting what I am aiming at at any distance and for any purpose.

.223 is much cheaper than my 300 Win-mag or the 7mm mag to practice with, yet allows me to play with 200+ meter range grouping. the .22LR or .17 wouldn't really be very viable for that where I live, the wind is usually 15+.

Most of my shooting is at a close by spot that allows me 100 yards max. I shoot offhand standing, prone, sitting, kneeling, and moving. Bench or rest shooting I do sitting or prone. I just got my Harris 9-13inch, and am excited about seeing my prone groups with it.

I practice with my .270 at 250 yards, and on my portable bench (a white plastic folding table from W-Mrt. and my popcorn filled pillow cases, my best groups were under an inch on a no wind day. Usually I'm running 2-3 inches. I don't reload - yet - so I'm pretty happy with that. I am excited about getting out and doing the same thing with my M&P 15 PSX and see what kind of groups I can throw at those distances.

All of my distance shooting up until I got my AR's has been with magnified optics, 4-16x50 Leupold duplex, 3-9x40 Bushnell (made in USA I believe in 1960)standard X, and both on an imported .270 Interarms Mauser. (I don't think I've felt a better bolt action) I've set up one of my ARs to have both a 3-9x40 Nikon and the MBUS pro Offsets, and another with a (future) red dot and open Mbus Poly MBUS to allow me to plink at my 250 yard location with open sights and see how many hits I can put in a xxxx can on a stick... I can't wait to run over there soon.

I will hunt some white-tail this year, as well as some hogs on a buddies farm south of me. I am supremely confident in the weapons ability to humanely harvest game with a decent shooter at the controls.

Maybe one of these days I'll have enough extra cash to go buy 500 rds of .300Wmag or 7MMmag and see just how good they are. Until then, I'll get to play with my ARs and run through a few thousand rounds for that kind of money; And have enough left over my 12 year old son can show me up... but that's another story.

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Here, a grain of salt.