I had decided to shoot without a bipod so issue sling and a small squeeze bag were all I had to hand without a bipod in sight. First task was confirm the zero at 200m. I twisted the elevation drum to 200 and the windage to zero and took the first shot off the sling. It went bang, always good and the frame stayed where it was. The shooter next to me had been spotting and advised me I was about right for elevation however I was off the frame to the right. This meant I was something like 3 feet right of where I needed to be. Arghhh…. When the rifle first arrived I noticed the windage was wound fully over however I had assumed the last shooter had been out on a windy day. Even winding full left still put me a foot or so to the right of the bull. This was far from what I had expected, this is the Steyr SSG renown for half MOA accuracy on factory ammunition and despite being good for elevation this was not the start I needed.
The good news is Steyr/Kahles and then later Swarovski had made allowances for this with the ZFM6x42. Each drum has a slot in the end to accept a coin as an impromptu screwdriver, slacken this off a turn and the outer knurled drum will rotate independently of the main drum. Now it is just a matter of setting your zero by dialling in or out, nip the screw back up and you have the full range of adjustment with a perfect zero. Clever chaps.
With the zero set I was able to shoot at 800 yards. A SHED fan and fellow shooter very kindly offered me a box of GGG 7,62×51 and I soon settled down to some reasonable results however the combination of service sling and wobbly MTM rest I eventually borrowed were not conducive to truly accurate shooting and I made a mental note to fit a bipod for the next outing as well as load some ammunition.
1000 yards was a bridge too far, the GGG was OK ish and is certainly normally effective to 1000 however I had run out of elevation as I only have 10mils/40 clicks to work with and I needed something closer to 11,4 mils so some 5 minutes lower than I needed, the reticle is not great for aiming off and the 6x magnification makes things even vaguer at 1000 yards however this is not a criticism, merely an observation.
This rifle was designed to 600m work with an 800m elevation drum. reticleTo put things into perspective the gap between the horizontal bar and the top of the centre post is 0,7 mil, that is 2.36 MOA or around a foot and a half at 800m which is about the same as the distance from your sternum to the top of your head. One quarter of one man and the measurement of success for the SSG is a hit, body, centre mass so I guess the magnification is more than adequate.
Now according to my math a 170 Lockbase is going to get me to around 1000 yards on a reasonable mild day so I am looking forward to the next outing, with a bipod and some heavier bullets.
The rifle was cleaned with my normal regime, I took 38 shots and a lot of carbon came out however there was very little blue which is always a good sign.
