Last June I wrote about my friends trying the 700-yard soda can challenge where we tried to hit a soda can 700 yards away with a .22LR. My friends were successful but we knew it was more luck than skill. We revisited the challenge and came to the same conclusion. So we decided to attempt it at night with a 700-yard water bottle. It was a bit “easier” but still comes down to luck.

More ELR @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: .22LR Vs. 700 Yard Soda Can
• The Rimfire Report: Is 700 Yards a Bridge Too Far for 22LR?
• Friday Night Lights: Dark ELR – 2,200 Yards At Night

Why A 700-Yard Water Bottle At Night?

In our attempts to hit a soda can 700 yards away we were constantly battling winds at the range. After our second attempt, we decided to up the difficulty by trying to do this at night. In our experience, it is less windy at night. But then a couple problems immediately arise. A soda can in the daytime can be seen with rifle and spotting scopes. But trying to see a soda can at night is more difficult even with night vision. That is when we decided to substitute the soda can for a 16oz water bottle. Sure it is 33% bigger than your standard 12 oz soda can but it makes it easier to see at night since we can insert a chemlight in the water bottle.

The 700-yard water bottle vs .22LR challenge remains the same. Try to hit this ridiculously tiny target with .22LR. There were things we were not sure about but wanted to test with a water bottle 700 yards away. By inserting an activated chem light inside the bottle, how much light will that produce downrange? Will it be bright enough to bathe the ground with enough light to potentially see our bullet impacts? Would infrared chem lights work better than visible chem lights? We planned to use our PVS-27 night vision clip ons. Kevin set up his Hensoldt spotting scope with his CNVD-LR so he could film night vision. See the screencap below. You can see the three 700-yard water bottles we set out that night. The far left bottle had the IR chem light while the two on the right had visible chem lights. So there is our answer. Bright enough to see it but not enough to see around it. There was a near-full moon that night.

Screencap from Kevin

You can see Kevin here and his spotting scope is set above and behind him. He used the IR illuminator in hopes it would help cast bullet shadow downrange. We have seen it before but on bigger bullets. We did not notice any help with the .22LR rounds.

The same guys who shot the 700-yard soda can were there that night. Kevin and Kythe both used their Vudoo Gun Works rifles. I used a Bergara B14R that I was reviewing specifically for ELR purposes.

Photo by Vic

I put the Bergara B14R barreled action in a Q Side Chick. I needed the handguard to mount my clip-on night vision.

For optics I used an Athlon Optics ARES ETR UHD they sent in for my review. My friend Kythe lent me a spare Eratac adjustable inclination mount. It starts at 25 mils of elevation and can be adjusted up to 45 mils of elevation. We used SK Long Range to try and hit the 700-yard water bottle.

Here is what my Garmin ballistic watch said I needed for elevation to lob sub sonic .22LR out to the 700-yard water bottle.

Seeing the 700-yard water bottle and aiming at it was solved. The challenge was how to see our misses, especially in the dark. The night vision we were using is some of the best but it cannot show a .22LR hitting the dirt 700+ yards away. So we used my Vectronix JIM LR. Below Vic and Ryan help spot. We ran the video of the JIM LR to Vic’s tablet so the video could be recorded along with any audio from the tablet’s microphone.

Here is the video we captured. Kythe and Kevin both hit the 700-yard water bottle. Kevin’s hit was obvious and you can see the bottle roll down the hill. We missed Kythe’s hit at first. But upon review of the footage, we noticed it fell down. I was not as lucky. I got close a number of times but the .22LR bullets just danced all around the bottle. Our first attempt of the night was a little difficult for the thermal to spot. The water bottles were not hot nor cold. So after Kevin and Kythe hit their bottles, they confirmed their hits and placed a new 700-yard water bottle that was kept cold in a cooler. Vic hit it with his .308 bolt gun.

Kythe brought back his trophy, the 700-yard water bottle. I was curious if perhaps he hit behind the water bottle and the dirt knocked the bottle over. Nope, you can see the bullet hole made by the .22LR below circled in red.

Final Thoughts On The 700-Yard Water Bottle

This challenge is not easy. It would be impossible to spot our misses without the awesome power of the JIM LR and magnifier. Even with the ability to see most of our impacts, we found that it does not make much sense to correct much. Just keep our holds the same and eventually the bullet will hit the water bottle. Next up we plan to partake in the 1-mile milk jug challenge set by Long Range Shooters Of Utah. But we will be using centerfire rifles and if we are successful, we will try it at night and possibly with a real jug filled with cold water and chem lights.