M24 SWS [U.S. Sniper Rifle] 🏁 Speedway [ Long Range On the Clock ] - Practical Accuracy

This video is brought to you by Slate Black Industries. For grips and accessories, visit slateblackindustries.com. Okay, ear protections on. Ready? Do it. Impact. Neutralized. Impact. Neutralized. Impact. Neutralized. Neutralized. Okay. Nice run. Nice run. Nice run. Nice run. All right. That was actually a highly technical run just because of the lack of detachable magazines. And then on top of that, the long action running short action cartridge. I think some of you saw me struggle with the feet on a few of them because a difficulty is if it sits a little bit too, I think a little bit just off spot on the first round, it's difficult for the bolt to pick up that shot. So I don't know. There's a lot to talk about, but did I miss? No. Okay. I think that is the key to it. With the M24s or any non-detachable magazines, you cannot miss fast enough to make up for reloads. I mean, you could not reload fast enough to make up for misses. There it is. That's what it is. I think I messed that quote up earlier. Yeah. But anyways, we will see you guys at the debrief. Welcome into the debrief for this run. On the Speedway runs, we break down our evaluations based on segmented categories. So we'll talk about the overall run and the shooter's performance, hitting on how the base firearm, the sighting system, the cartridge, and the environmentals all came into play during the course of the run. Now, unlike our regular practical accuracy series, the Speedway course challenges the shooter to shoot as fast as possible while also accounting for constantly changing elevation and wind holds as needed. This presents a unique challenge that shooter then has to overcome. So let's get into it. All right, we're back. It's time for the debrief on what was a perfectly clean run with the M24 on the Speedway. Now, with the size of the target and the accuracy of the rifle, we know that the rifle could hit all of those targets with first shot impacts as demonstrated. But where things get really interesting is when you introduce the speed and pushing the speed as fast as possible, not just on the shooting, but on the totality of what we are asking Henry to do on this particular run, which is managing both the magazine loads, and so far as it's not a DTS-able magazine, so he's having to hand load individual rounds, managing the working of the bolt, knowing the holdovers, knowing the wind calls, making the adjustments, and doing all of that as fast as possible and then shooting it clean. In my opinion, that is exceptionally technical in order to be able to run it in that manner in the speed that you ran it. So talk us through a little bit of what the mindset was going into this run that allowed you to, you know, basically ace the thing. So the mindset here is a right wording, and what's a term that you used when you're shooting races in competition? Oh yeah, match speed. Match speed, yes, where you're basically, you're pushing yourself going 90% fast. You don't want to go 100 or 110% fast, because then you start fumbling, you start tripping over things. In this case, you may load the incorrect amount of rounds trying to jam a sixth round in there, or in this case, the M24, one thing, one of the quirks of the M24 being a long action pushing a short action cartridge, is if you don't get that first round to seat correctly, your bolt does not. Oh, well, hello there. I didn't see you. You must have stumbled upon me enjoying the sunshine of the day as I was birdwatching with my M24 sniper weapon system. Now, I hope you're enjoying the content thus far, because content like this is made possible not only by Slate Black Industries, but by the patrons of Patreon. That's true. They are our main support financially, intellectually, and most importantly, emotionally. They make content like this possible. And I'd like to invite you to come along, become one of the patrons of Patreon, along our journey of exploration of firearms technology, and what we can do with these weapon systems. And if not, it's okay. But that's enough with this. Let's get on with the show. In this case, the M24, one thing, one of the quirks of the M24 being a long action pushing a short action cartridge, is if you don't get that first round to seat correctly, your bolt does not pick it up going in. And you may end up stuck on that forever if you are pushing yourself way too fast on, you know, in your mental state. That, or you just forget your holds, or you forget the little small things, the stupid things, the little small things that you would forget. But the mentality is just keeping yourself sort of with a cool mindset, and not fumbling, not freaking out. You know you're being timed. It's 7.62 NATO, 175 grain projectile, so I know the holds. It's not a universal hold, but it's close enough between a lot of different rifles that shoot that type of cartridge with a similar barrel length. Namely, my personal 5R. It's very similar to that one. And my personal 5R also runs a fixed 10x42 scope. So that's the biggest thing, is just making sure that your mind is thinking clearly, in my opinion. But it comes down to multitasking. When you're shooting bolt actions, what it's not like shooting the autoloaders, is that you're forcing your mind to multitask a lot more. You're not just thinking about squeezing the trigger while you breathe, and getting your reticle lined up in the right spot. Every single shot, you need to cycle the bolt. And by the way, you could cycle it right away if you're very confident that it's a hit. Or, if you don't know if it is a potential hit or not, you may want to stay on glass to make sure that it's a hit, that you can self-spot, because this is a self-guided course. And then you cycle it. But that also detracts from time. So there's a lot that you need a clear mind to really keep yourself on the task of clearing a course like this with a target rich environment. And let me just pick up on that concept of match speed, just to hammer this home as simplistically as possible. When we would shoot matches, whether it's USPSA, IPSC, 3-gun, whatever it may be, if you try to go at your absolute fastest possible capable speed, and you go 1% over, 1% too fast, something doesn't go right. And you generate a mistake, a miss, a fumble on a reload, or any of the things that Henry just described. So match speed is the idea of knowing what your absolute maxed pushed out possible speed is, while maintaining your level of accuracy. And then shooting, just slightly dialed down off of that, a couple percent slower, 5%, 7%, 10% slower than that absolute maximum possible. And in doing so, you do exactly what Henry just described, which is you afford yourself a little bit of room for error and for your brain to appropriately be processing what's going on. And then in training is where you push that 100% maximum possible speed to improve your overall capabilities. So an interesting element there, and I think the way that you bring that up is spot on with respect to running this particular system. Yeah, I mean multitasking under match speed and 90% speed is really the name of the game. Because I think I said it on the video, you cannot reload quick enough to make up for misses. That's right. It's kind of like running shotguns in matches. That reload is highly technical on when you want to shot. Let's say some of my targets, it's a five round magazine, and I need two rounds to clear each target. So could I top off the entire mag right after I shoot? Yes, of course. But then if I want to make sure that I get the same hold, my mind is still in the same mindset, I'm going to grab an emergency load, dump it in and then just plug it and then reload before I start on a fresh target. And so you do that multiple times, multiple times you to great effect. Obviously, you were able to secure that second round impact, you neutralized the position, you cleared the position, you were proceeding to the next target. And before you got settled in on that next target, you executed your full five round reload. Yeah. So in my opinion, one of the strength of the Remington systems, as opposed to some other system, let's say like the FRF2, the last round, it's got the idiot stop, it will not let you close your bolt if the magazine is empty. I do not like that, because it takes away one of the strengths of a bolt action rifle is just dumping around in and slapping it forward. I want to clarify real quick, what you're describing there was the FRF2 has the idiot stop, but the Remington does not. Correct, correct. So the FRF2 obviously has a 10 round magazine, a short throw, that's a lot faster to cycle. Yes, that is a clear advantage to it. I'm not saying, you know, that's not an advantage. What I'm saying is, I don't like it when bolts stop, and you cannot ghost load rounds. Because that is a technique like if I ran dry, actually on the last, was it on the last round for this one? One of the rifles, when you know you're dope, and you're already keyed in, you just want to grab one, dump it in, and pull it before you forget it. It was not this one. It was another one. I know which one it was, but we won't tell people which one it was. But it was very slick. Yeah. But that's a very, being able to emergency load rounds to clear targets when you know that you're dope, it's sort of like in Call of Duty. You remember when you're going through the SAS training, he's like, switching to your pistol is always faster than reloading. Sort of that concept. It's faster to emergency load than it is to reload the magazine. It's the same reason that PRS nowadays have a side saddle, with one or two emergency load rounds pinned onto the side of the rifle, so that they don't have to perform a full mag change. They can just right in. Yep. Yep. It's a very, very useful, it's a very useful item for sure. And something that you definitely maximized in terms of utilizing that technique on the course. I'd say you have no choice with a system like this. So before we get into the rest of our discussion, I actually talked to Rob, a U.S. Army sniper, and you may recognize him from the Vintage Rifle Shooters Club, or the AKOU. That's right, Rob Skea is a U.S. Army sniper, someone who's gone through sniper qualification. And I wanted to ask him for his feedback on this run that we just saw, and a few extra questions. So, Rob, take it away. I think Henry, the run was fantastic. This is just the testament to the M24, and what this rifle can do. Of course, as a sniper, you don't want to be in that situation when you have to keep going quickly and start shooting a lot of targets on the fly, because every time when you start dropping the bodies, you bring the attention to your positions. But as far as the performance, this was a really good performance. Very well done, my friend. Now, do the snipers use holdovers? Of course, we do use holdovers for the wind. Nobody's dialing the wind, or at least I don't know any snipers dialing the wind. You're always using the holdovers for the wind, but also for the distances. I would say within the 600 meters, they would rather execute the holdovers for the targets. Past 600, and it depends on the comfort zone of the person behind the rifle. But for me, past 600 meters, I start dialing to the scope, because then I still can pull out and have more picture in that scope, instead of just looking at the bottom of the grid. But it totally depends on the comfort zone of each shooter behind the rifle. But yes, the snipers do use the holdovers, execute the holdovers, and also depends on the situation. If I don't have anything dialed on the elevation turret, and I'm just using grid, I could keep cycling through the grid much faster. I don't have to remember, oh, okay, I got some value on it. So it depends on the situation, depends what's happening. But I would say, if I just have to make the one shot, and the one shot only, because I can get compromised when I will shoot twice from that same position, and I'm required to have that outstanding precision on that first shot, I'll definitely probably dial on elevation and go from there. Another question from Henry. Do you guys experience short strokes with a long action or a zero running 7.62 NATO cartridges? What is the best practice when dealing with that? So of course, Henry is asking about the long action on the M24. And now we have a long action on the M2010. But with the M2010, this is not so much of the issue, because the cartridges are longer in that magazine, but you still have to pull that bolt all the way back. So the basic thing is, and I know it's going to sound cliche, you have to stay calm behind the rifle. And you don't want to have, I call that train freight like movements, train like movements, behind the bolt, cycling the bolt. First of all, because you don't want to disrupt the environment against you. And every time when you start doing and massacring the bolt, you're creating a lot of unwanted attention around your position. But also going back to the M24, like with that long stroke, or long action, you have to really make sure that you are at the end of the cycle of the bolt, and go back forward and then close the bolt. And you're actually picking up the round from the magazine. Now, I understand the speed sometimes is necessary. But I also always preach, when you cycling the bolt, what is more important for you, how the speed of putting that next round to the chamber, or maybe be a little bit slower, but you're staying steady on the position, you're observing the target, and you can really see what's happening. Because when you're going like that freight train, and everything starts moving, you're disrupting your position, then you got to rebuild it, right? So that you may be faster on operating the bolt, but you're spending or wasting more time you're not efficient with, because then you have to So two things to consider, but as always, make sure you're actually picking up the round. So it didn't matter that you were fast, and extremely fast, lightning fast, if you skip on picking up the round from the magazine, because you short stroke, because it is kind of misleading. Like you feel okay, I'm here, and nope, there's still that stroke, which you have to complete to the end. And the final question, in the world where the M110 is in our inventory, what do snipers think of bolt action 308 rifles now? So I'll tell you right now, we are getting the enhanced M110s, which are trickling down from the supply, and those rifles, and of course M110 is in 7.62x51. Out of the box, those enhanced offers, they produced sub half MOA rifle. I'm not joking, sub half MOA rifle. When we have, when we receive them in the sniper section, that enhanced offer M110 for the first time, I open a box, and I look at the targets from Knights Armament, and they provide the four different targets, and I look at the scores, and I like, okay, and we took it, and we replicated this in the field with M118LR. So that's really jaw dropping. But it doesn't matter how, I mean, it does matter how accurate your 7.62x51 rifle is, but it is still going to be limited by what the 7.62x51 cartridge can do. And that's why we are receiving now, we are in the stage where we'll be receiving the new MK22, and they offer the different caliber choices by putting different barrels on the same receiver. That being said, the 7.62x51 barrel is still included in the kit, but we're completely moving away to the different calibers, because if you need to range and touch something out, you need something more powerful than the 7.62x51, which is limited. And that's, I mean, I love, I love 7.62x51, but you have to recognize the limitations coming with that cartridge. So it's nothing personal against the bolt-action rifles or anything, but it is more geared towards what the cartridge can offer to you. But as I said, with the new MK22, that question is being answered, because we'll have choice of putting different barrels on the system. All right, that's it. Going back to Henry. So there are a couple other points. You've already talked about the long action, which is something I wanted to ask about. I think you only got hung up on that one time at about the .450, if I recall correctly. It was like you tried two or three times, and then you clicked in and went, nope, fixed it, boom, and you were on. And it seemed pretty clean as far as I'm concerned. But for the base rifle, talk us through one of the other things I thought was very interesting, and that is the cheek pad, or the lack of a cheek pad. How was the 100 mile per hour tape? It was actually not bad. It was actually set up very, very perfectly, I might add. So whichever sniper ran this rifle before, good job on the setup. It's a long action bolt. So if you don't set it up correctly, your bolt handle is going to hit that cheek pad because it's a long action. And so with long actions, you need to just make sure you're clearing that bolt if you're doing any type of jimmy rig setup like that. But as far as a cheek pad goes, yeah, it looks ugly, but it works, right? Awesome. How was the trigger on this particular rifle? Was it tuned and super clean, like basically like a match drop in match trigger in a current chassis based 700 action? I wouldn't say it's a current type of drop in match trigger. There's a little bit more play than there is, let's say like on my Remington. But it's a sniper rifle trigger at the very least. I mean, it's better than the FR-F2. It's better than a military trigger, that's for sure. I'd say honestly, one of the other limitations of this system for running at speed like this would have also been the 10x scope with the mill dot reticles. More so the mill dot reticle than the magnification itself. The magnification 10x is perfectly fine, but with the scope, I had to be on my game. Again, you know, keeping sure that I had a clear mind. So if you are to run holdovers, right, you have to be on the game, especially if you're running a classic mill dot with no numbers on the side, and you're trying to run for speed. That's also why sometimes when you see me shooting the more vintage system, you hear me counting out loud, because that's how I remind myself. I'm saying it out loud, so I remember it. It's not because I'm trying to talk to Josh and ask for clarification. It's my way of making sure that I'm hitting the right mills when I'm holding over. So why did you choose to dial on the final target when you had basically cleared out with holdovers to that point? What made you choose to dial on the bonus? I mean, clearly it worked, but walk us through the decision. So the farther you go, the more effect wind has on your projectile. That's one thing, and the second thing is it's a classic mill dot system with no grids going down. So the combination of those two, I wanted to make sure that I had taken one of those elements out of it. So first of all, you can't hold over past the fifth mill mark, because that's the solid bar coming down at that point. So there's no real holdover at that point. So taking the question of the elevation out, I then had a horizontal bar to play with wind however I wanted to. And so I was able to observe how wind was. I think I held like maybe 0.7 mils off, and then it was a hit. So that gave me a much more precise shot than it would have been. Well, it would not have been possible, because I would not be holding the elevation correctly, and it would be very difficult to correlate the 0.7, the fraction of a mil going all the way down underneath the bar itself. This rifle, so it has the correct loophole scope from its era. And this, from that mid-2000s era, a lot of those loophole scopes is, you've seen on my Mark 12 with the M3 turrets, or the Mark 4 on the Mark 12 with the M3 turrets, this is very confusing, this is all marks, but it's marked on the yardage going up for that one. For this one, it's in meters, but still it gives you a very precise cam, which by the way, we're shooting genuine M118LR, so it matches exactly what those turrets are cammed for. So as long as I'm able to do the meters to yards conversion, which is not difficult at this point for us, we just zip it up to the correct meters to yards conversion, and you have your elevations already figured out for you. And again, that comes down to, again, trying to figure out how to not take tasks off of your mind, so you don't have to multitask nearly as much. So why did you choose not to dial on the targets inside of the bonus? Because it was faster. So you were able to balance the overall speed of holding as opposed to dialing with the required amount of precision you needed within the reticle at those varying distances to, as you say, take the most off your mind or allow you to push the speed as required based on the distance as you went out. Yeah, well, I needed the extra time to reload, so the more time I stacked onto it, the longer it would take to clear those close targets. So if I dialed all of them, yes, I would get a very precise hit, but the targets up close are also proportionally larger. They are the same size targets, but because they are closer, my cone of fire is also more concentrated. I have a lot more of a forgiveness as far as accuracy. But honestly, looking back at the footage, I may have been shooting a little slower than I could have because the shots were actually very extremely tight all the way out, honestly. So the last, let's see, 650, I think it struck on the right side. Both of them struck on the right side, but they were all within, I'd say like a baseball size or maybe like a size about this big going all the way out. So the rifle is extremely precise, and maybe that's an indication that I could have pushed faster, but then if I did push faster, my worry would be then towards the operations of the weapon system itself and not on the accuracy itself. All the other stuff we talked about regarding the technical elements that you were trying to juggle. Got it. So as a final point here, you already mentioned the ammunition choice. The M118LR is one that we tend to gravitate towards for most of the .308 shooting that we're going to be doing simply because it has a very solid and strong ballistic coefficient for the projectile and a good standard load for us to be able to replicate. It also coincides with all of the, or the majority of the military firearms that we're going to be shooting, and as Henry mentioned, things like optics that are specifically cammed to that round. So a fairly obvious choice for us there. The environmentals on the day, Henry, there was, I mean, there was a good bit of back and forth crosswind that we had throughout that day. How were you managing that? I know that part of it was that for this particular run, the wind did end up being relatively consistent for us, which was good for you to demonstrate the performance capabilities, but how and what were you doing to try to perceive what the wind was doing as you went out? Just going slower and observing. That's it. You'll see, I mean, the slower action forces you to take a little bit more time. And I tried, as I was pushing out the Remington system, you can actually run it without slamming the bolt into your face. So spending as much time ensuring that your eyeballs are actually on downrange and observing and doing something useful rather than just looking at what your hands are doing, which you don't need to. That was a part of the multitasking aspect of it. And being able to identify that, hey, you know, this is what the wind is looking like. This is how we're, you know, I'm going to adjust to it. That was the other part to it. I mean, I think the slower action kind of forced me to do a little bit more observation on that end. And let me ask you one follow-up then. Between each of your shots, are you specifically going through a firing sequence in your own head that says, I'm on, you know, I'm on target, bolt is closed. Let me check for wind indicators. Let me check my elevation or rather probably the opposite. Let me check my elevation, make sure the call is right. Let me check my wind indicators. Okay, cleared to fire. Or are you pushing it a little bit faster than that? Faster than that. Right. Got it. You have to push it faster than that. I mean, if you're checking wind indicators before you pull the trigger every single time, I mean, you should, but it doesn't have to be at that point. At that point, I'm more focused. Right before I pull the trigger, I'm more focused on elevation and windage corrections. Just making sure that it is where it needs to be based on a call that you've already made. Yep. I'm also trying to observe the effect of the projectile on target on the previous shots because that is also a wind indicator as well. Right. Because you know where you were holding for the shot before. And if you can see where the round's impacting, you can potentially make corrections, especially with a rifle that is this accurate. Now, comparing the M24 in this configuration with the McCann rail on it, comparing that to my 5R, this was way easier to self-spot because it is a much heavier rifle. So the weight element then affords you the ability to correct the recoil impulse a little bit faster, getting your glass back onto the target to observe the impact. Correct. Yes. Perfect. Got it. Yep. So the heavier rifle actually was a huge advantage. I mean, we've spoken of this in the past in a sense of, you know, if this is a defensive or offensive type of scenario, you know, target-rich environment, you're in a stationary position. This is highly a very, very, very defensive type of scenario. So, you know, if we were putting that into, let's say, from a military perspective, a defensive scenario, and weight at that point is less of an issue for walking around, a lightweight rifle in this scenario is then a detractor to your performance, rather than the heavier. And I would say, if you look at PRS rifles, that's a good indication on what the race guys are doing, because they're identifying that having a heavier rifle helps you spot, helps you on the operations a lot more than the lightweight rifle. Of course, they don't have to hike in around mountains, so the heavyweight rifle, of course, makes sense for fast follow-up shots. So one final question then from me. For the PA run of the M24, you shot it off a bag, and on this run, you opted to shoot it off of the Harris bipod. What was the decision-making that went into the decision to switch from the bag to the bipod for this course of fire? Okay, so typically with mag-fed rifles, which this is not a detachable magazine, I prefer using a bipod if I have a lot of traverse or a lot of movement in the field of fire. That's just, it's easier to move around, but I typically, if time and that type of pressure is not on, or if you're looking at, you know, a singular target or targets that are within a very narrow field of fire, a lot of times I consider using a bag, because a bag gives me multiple points of contact. To me, the stability is there, I can conform the bag to what the bottom of the rifle is like, but then I think the biggest part of it is also familiarity. I've shot off a bag for a long time. That's not to say that I'm unfamiliar with bipods per se, it's just different applications. I mean, for this application, I think the bipod is a lot more advantageous than shooting off of a bag, if you could help it. Well, perfect. Well, overall, again, I said it at the beginning, this was a clean run with what was, admittedly, a very accurate rifle, one that absolutely could perform clean on these distances, but also under time constraints that were exceptionally challenging. So, kudos for showing off a really fun run for us. Thanks, man. The rifle made it. I mean, if anything, it lives up to its hype and its legend, but highly technical to run. And honestly, that was one of the most fun runs I've done with any of the rifles, just sheerly because of the increased movement and increased technical challenges that you put on yourself as a shooter. It was good stuff, man. Well, perfect. Well, guys, until next time, we'll see you on the range.