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You have to love the recent records and record attempts to shoot and hit further out, from all around the Globe. I hope this continues in 2017 an onward.
TFB recently reported from Finland and France and now it’s time for some long range shooting from down under, Australia.
Wonderful “shooting range” in Australia
In all cases, it seems either the .375 CheyTac or the .408 CheyTac is the cartridge to accomplish the mission.
This time it’s a “new” caliber .375 GIBBS, more details below.
TFB reached out to Mark and Sam to congratulate and to get some more details and background, and here is their story:
“We are husband and wife and have the pastime of ELR Shooting. We work very well together. Sam also shoots but is at home behind the spotting scope. My job of shooting is greatly enhanced by my mechanical understanding and ability to modify my rifles to shoot as I want them too.
We do a lot of extreme shots with all different calibres, the longest shot we had previously made was at 2 miles / 3561 yards with our SAKO TRG 42 in 338LM. This was achieved as our 2 man team, spotting from the shooting position onto a 24” x 24” steel target (600mm x 600mm). This brought on the urge to go further, what seemed like the next step was then 4000 metres. With that goal in mind we chose the .375 Cheytac as a good choice. This actually turned into a .375 Cheytac Improved, something we have dubbed the .375 GIBBS, referring to the original case from the Cheytac.
The distance and the calibre/rifle took a bit to work out with bullet style, load etc. As did finding the right condition to spot the shot in. We had all this sorted ready to do this shot at the beginning of the year (2016).
But as fate would have it, it rained. And, unusual to our area, it kept on raining, so we had to wait. Winter came, crops came, then Spring, then Summer and approximately 8 weeks ago harvest came, so……. Then we are on!
First attempt on target we reconfirmed all our data, but found vision very difficult shooting in the morning sun, just very hard to see.
So we changed plans, we shot in the evening, using the sun behind the target to highlight the impacts. The day of the shoot, we really felt we had things where it was going to be “doable” that is 4000 metres onto a 24” plate.
The shot went well, very close to target right off the bat, wind was changing a little, so had a bit of working that out with over 10 seconds of flight time. We had it all under control, ready to hit, wind was steady, two shots in a row verified shot placement, squeezed the trigger, waited for impact, “no see”, but it was a HIT!!
We just could not see, because we were looking at the dark side (shadow) of the target. I had not considered that we would not be able to see the “hit”. Anyway when we got to the target, we had hoped (but did not know) we had a hit until we got to the target.
We had just achieved a hit at 4384 yards (verified with GPS, Google Maps and iPhone measuring app) with only a 2 man team, spotting from the shooting position, using a 24” x 24” steel target.”
It must be a great help to have an understanding wife when purchasing a new rifle, mount or optic…
My question was how many shots they needed before the first hit, and the reply was: “from memory we had 14 shots in total before hit. Took us a few to get on to the wind conditions.”
In the latest article, I begged for some uniformity so that it’s easier for a third party to understand the facts behind the shot(s). How do you measure the distance, how many bullets fired etc.? Here you can see the distance being measured, and the text above gives more background.
Below: The target from some distance
The hit on 600 x 600 mm steel.
Details of the Rifle:
The 375 GIBBS (Custom Built Extreme ELR Rifle), which is their own name for the cartridge.
They rifle is a 375 CheyTac with an improved chamber. The chamber has been taken out a little bit, but it’s using the 375 Cheytac bullet.
In detail, it’s a 350 grains solid copper bullet.
According to the interview at the end, they need to get down to shooting a 1/3 MOA group to “get this thing“.
375 GIBBS (Cheytac improved)
Action: Barnard p-chey
Barrel: Bartlein 33″ gain twist 1 in 12 to 1 in 7.5
Stock: Modified Mcmilian
Trigger: Barnard target
Scope: Night Force ATACR 5 – 25 x 56 moar
Rings: Nightforce 34mm
Rail: 60 moa Barnard custom
ScopE Base: Modified Coldshot 300
Bipod: Custom made
Break: T5 Terminator
Cant Level: Custom
More information and pictures of the rifle here.
Below: You can see the hit top right. Must be interesting to shoot into the sunlight.
Below: HIT! (top right corner)
Below: Not sure what material this 24″ plate is made of, but after 4 kilometers the bullet still made a substantial impact, but without penetrating.
Below: Base camp. The target is over 4000 meters away. That’s almost 2,5 miles away.
Finally, the video:
You can find their webpage here for more information: http://4aw.com.au/
Some other recent records from France and Finland.
