EDIT: 17 May 2021. Go to Post #95 for results. Conclusion is that Form's stuff is legit and bang on. Tikka with SWFA is the Easy Button if you don't want to dick around with voodoo and witchcraft and moon phases to get your rifle to shoot right. Get Tikka. Get SWFA. Fire 10rds into 1.5".
This is a post for no one in particular. Maybe it will blow up in my face. Maybe it will work out to be a stroke of genius. Who knows. But I'm recording it here for future reference. Will add updates as they occur.
TLDR: Bought a Tikka 223 and SWFA 10x scope per @Formidilosus. Am hoping to learn to shoot competently to 600m on that platform.
The Background.
I'm CJ. I live in Western Canada. I used to be cool and do cool shit in the woods. Then I became an office weenie, started a business, got married, and have young babies to deal with now. I don't have free time to pontificate or wax poetic on the hunting forums for hours a week like I used to (this post is the exception). My hunting wants/needs get put last these days, because, well, life. So the precious little time I do get to spend on shooting and stomping around the woods, needs to deliver.
I've always been a "I'd never shoot past 300m on a hunt anyway, so why bother to learn to shoot past 300" guy. However, Rokslide has opened my eyes to this flawed way of thinking. Which lead to some friction, as I'm a believer in the "Competent Human". In other words, I feel I should be generally competent (though not an expert) at certain things.
After some thinking, I conceded to myself that a Competent Human who backpack hunts Rokslide-style should probably be able to shoot competently to 600m. He/She should also be able to generally ring a gong at 1000m. After some self-reflection, I had to acknowledge that I am not presently able to meet this standard.
So I did what anybody these days does to solve a problem: Off to The Internet!
The Research.
The important thing to know here is I have a terrible track record with The Internet. The Internet, in my experience, has led to many, many, errors in life. Too many times I have found myself looking at some random forum print-out in one hand that says "`X` is possible". I then attempt "X", and turns out that "X" is actually not possible. (Pro-tip. Car forums are excellent at producing these failed results.) When this is mentioned to the original OP, OP discloses they've never actually attempted it in real life...
This track record has made me skeptical of a lot of things that The Internet says is possible.
This skepticism, combined with my lack of time to screw around with hunting/shooting research (babies don't care about the ballistic coefficients of a 6.5 ogive), led me to attempt what every MBA grad learns about: The 80/20 rule.
The 80/20 rule says you can accomplish 80% of what you need using 20% effort. Or something like that - I don't have an MBA. But the point here is I don't have time to screw around and figure out the various nuances of stuff. I wanted a simple, straightforward solution to my problem of not being a Competent Shooter. I didn't want to review the full 80% of info out there on The Internet. I figured if I cherry-picked the relevant 20%, I could resolve this with little headache.
The 80/20 Result
I won't bore you with the details here. The short version is that shooting to 600+m requires an optic. And any optic thread I came across mentioned SWFA scopes. Researching SWFA lead to some dude named @Formidilosus posting in some forum threads. This guy posted a lot of stuff. And some cool pictures.
I had no idea who this guy was, or what he did, or if he was legit. But he did say that if you want to get good at something, you need trigger time. And trigger time is more easily attainable if it's (1) cheap, and (2) the rifle is fun to shoot. I'm inherently lazy, so I try to set my environment up to enable success with the least amount of effort. Cheap + Fun always produces good results, so I decided to read more.
This guy also occasionally detailed a "system" on various forums, and this same system was mentioned over and over (the only thing that appeared to change over the years was the ring recommendations):
- Tikka T3X Lite 223in stainless, 1/8 twist;
- SWFA SS 6x (or 10x) scope (quad mils);
- SportsMatch T084 rings;
Bam! 80/20 rule. My brain liked this. I decided I would try it. (Did I mention he also had a bunch of cool go-fast pictures?)
The Kool-Aid
So Rokslide, I am here to confess I drank the @Formidilosus kool-aid. I have ordered a Tikka T3x in 223, some SWFA scopes (these are a bitch to get in Canada, FYI) and some rings. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, but I will report the results here. (I can't promise it'll be decent reading.)
My hope in all of this is to provide an 80/20 solution to becoming a Competent Human in the backpack hunting/shooting field that Rokslide users are known to be interested in.
Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. Stay tuned.
This is a post for no one in particular. Maybe it will blow up in my face. Maybe it will work out to be a stroke of genius. Who knows. But I'm recording it here for future reference. Will add updates as they occur.
TLDR: Bought a Tikka 223 and SWFA 10x scope per @Formidilosus. Am hoping to learn to shoot competently to 600m on that platform.
The Background.
I'm CJ. I live in Western Canada. I used to be cool and do cool shit in the woods. Then I became an office weenie, started a business, got married, and have young babies to deal with now. I don't have free time to pontificate or wax poetic on the hunting forums for hours a week like I used to (this post is the exception). My hunting wants/needs get put last these days, because, well, life. So the precious little time I do get to spend on shooting and stomping around the woods, needs to deliver.
I've always been a "I'd never shoot past 300m on a hunt anyway, so why bother to learn to shoot past 300" guy. However, Rokslide has opened my eyes to this flawed way of thinking. Which lead to some friction, as I'm a believer in the "Competent Human". In other words, I feel I should be generally competent (though not an expert) at certain things.
After some thinking, I conceded to myself that a Competent Human who backpack hunts Rokslide-style should probably be able to shoot competently to 600m. He/She should also be able to generally ring a gong at 1000m. After some self-reflection, I had to acknowledge that I am not presently able to meet this standard.
So I did what anybody these days does to solve a problem: Off to The Internet!
The Research.
The important thing to know here is I have a terrible track record with The Internet. The Internet, in my experience, has led to many, many, errors in life. Too many times I have found myself looking at some random forum print-out in one hand that says "`X` is possible". I then attempt "X", and turns out that "X" is actually not possible. (Pro-tip. Car forums are excellent at producing these failed results.) When this is mentioned to the original OP, OP discloses they've never actually attempted it in real life...
This track record has made me skeptical of a lot of things that The Internet says is possible.
This skepticism, combined with my lack of time to screw around with hunting/shooting research (babies don't care about the ballistic coefficients of a 6.5 ogive), led me to attempt what every MBA grad learns about: The 80/20 rule.
The 80/20 rule says you can accomplish 80% of what you need using 20% effort. Or something like that - I don't have an MBA. But the point here is I don't have time to screw around and figure out the various nuances of stuff. I wanted a simple, straightforward solution to my problem of not being a Competent Shooter. I didn't want to review the full 80% of info out there on The Internet. I figured if I cherry-picked the relevant 20%, I could resolve this with little headache.
The 80/20 Result
I won't bore you with the details here. The short version is that shooting to 600+m requires an optic. And any optic thread I came across mentioned SWFA scopes. Researching SWFA lead to some dude named @Formidilosus posting in some forum threads. This guy posted a lot of stuff. And some cool pictures.
I had no idea who this guy was, or what he did, or if he was legit. But he did say that if you want to get good at something, you need trigger time. And trigger time is more easily attainable if it's (1) cheap, and (2) the rifle is fun to shoot. I'm inherently lazy, so I try to set my environment up to enable success with the least amount of effort. Cheap + Fun always produces good results, so I decided to read more.
This guy also occasionally detailed a "system" on various forums, and this same system was mentioned over and over (the only thing that appeared to change over the years was the ring recommendations):
- Tikka T3X Lite 223in stainless, 1/8 twist;
- SWFA SS 6x (or 10x) scope (quad mils);
- SportsMatch T084 rings;
Bam! 80/20 rule. My brain liked this. I decided I would try it. (Did I mention he also had a bunch of cool go-fast pictures?)
The Kool-Aid
So Rokslide, I am here to confess I drank the @Formidilosus kool-aid. I have ordered a Tikka T3x in 223, some SWFA scopes (these are a bitch to get in Canada, FYI) and some rings. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, but I will report the results here. (I can't promise it'll be decent reading.)
My hope in all of this is to provide an 80/20 solution to becoming a Competent Human in the backpack hunting/shooting field that Rokslide users are known to be interested in.
Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. Stay tuned.
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