On BC Day, a few buddies and I went out to Squamish to do a little long range plinking, only to find our spot closed off. It looks like the logging company decommissioned the road and dug in several deep ruts into the road to prevent entry. One jeep could make it in, but the rest of us would have to hump in our gear, so we didn't bother.
Instead, we found an alternate place to do some close range plinking, but that was short lived. The bugs. Holy crap, the bugs! There were so many of these annoying little black flies, and they would bite! WTF, I'd never seen so many without a dead animal laying around somewhere. The sun was making it's way through the haze and it was getting hot. Thermometers from the vehicles said it was about 30c or so and so did the weather report, but that didn't stop the flies from coming at us.
Everyone else was shooting off their tripods or table, but I decided to lay prone, and because I was trying to lay still, more flies decided to settle on me. I broke out a long long sleeve shirt, despite the heat, and even resorted to shooting with gloves on, but the little bastards were relentless. Basically the only exposed skin I had was my face, but the flies would find their way to my forehead, my cheeks, behind my neck (even with the collar up).
It made us appreciate some of the $hitty conditions that some guys must deal with when doing this sort of thing for a living. Hats off to them for being able to lay still, not get distracted by the relentless attacks from the critters and still be able to pull off the shot.
Anyway, after zeroing my Savage 110 in .338lm, I put it away because I just wanted to get out of there. The brake blew away some of the flies, even killed a few, but they were back for their next meal within seconds. Besides, 200m wasn't really a lot of fun with the .338.
I took the ACR out while every one else was still in denial about the swarm of flies. I borrowed my Leupold VX-3 Patrol from my Mk12 build and threw it on my ACR for this trip (it just irks me that I can't take my Mk12 out to places like this to plink). Since it wasn't going to be a permanent fixture on my ACR, I didn't bother zeroing and decided to watch the splash and to hold over. I managed to hit the small rocks I was aiming for at 100m, and also hit the small 10x10" gong at 200m.
Not great, but not all that horrible considering I was just using PMC and holding the reticle off into space somewhere. Also, I decided to get off the ground and hoped that shooting from the tripod would keep some of the bugs off me (I was wrong).
I decided however, that this scope probably would not be sufficient for my needs (bad eyes) and I would need something with a bit more magnification and a finer reticle, one with a grid pattern for wind and elevation holdovers. I would also want something in FFP. That being said however, I don't think I want to spend over $1,000 on glass for this rifle, so I'm probably going to grab one of those Primary Arms 4-14x44mm, FFP, ACSS HUD DMR reticle for 5.56.
I tried one on my buddy's XCR and I had no trouble hitting steel at 550m, so I think I'll grab one of those for my ACR. There wasn't anything wrong with the Leupold, the clarity was excellent and it drew in a lot of light, making for a nice, bright sight picture. I'm sure it would have served it's purpose had I actually taken the time and zeroed it with my rifle, but I didn't bother because it wouldn't stay on my ACR and the bugs were really testing my patience, lol!
