It was below 90° this morning, so the outdoor range was calling. Mini 14 day. I really haven’t shot it a lot, and I wanted to do 50 and 100 yards. The club has a 25/50/100 range, and a 50/200 range. The 50/200 was empty, so I decided to go there. I’ve never actually tried 200 yards, so I thought why not. How hard can it be, with iron sights? I’ve been on a kick lately of trying new things, so…

Being rusty, my 50 yard target sucked but the high left group was at least on paper and minute of bad guy. So I walked the 400 yard relay in the blazing sunshine, and set up a red sighting target. Now, can I see anything? Using my bifocals was a bit too much compromise. It was ok at 50 yards, but nothing was really in focus at 200. With regular uncorrected eye protection, the front post was sharp, and the tiny fuzzy white rectangle with the hint of a red circle was, well, visible. So, compensating for hitting high at 50 yards, I placed the top of the post low on the fuzzy white rectangle. Three rounds. My 60x spotting scope showed waves of heat, but I couldn’t see any hits.

Three more, check again. Oh, there’s one. I kept at the three shot groups and adjusted POA, and did get enough hits to be impressive considering I could barely see the target. Most of the hits were high and left, in proportion to the 50 yard hits, or 4x farther.

Dehydration was starting to get to me, so I headed home and adjusted the rear site, and now I look forward to more range time but I’ll stick to 100 yards next time. My eyes need a scope for 200 yards.

I have great vision. I am not really rusty. 200 yards is not easy unless you are dialed in on a rest. Good shooting!!

 

Thanks. It was a front Caldwell rest, nothing real solid. I figure if I was defending the neighborhood in WROL I would at least scare the bad guys away.

 

Sounds like a fun time.

 

I was shooting my Mini 30 at 200 yards regularly, a couple of winters ago. Red dot optic. Once you get it zeroed, the Mini will put all shots in the boiler room of a man sized silhouette.

Good fun. Keep at it.

Bepe

 

And that is all most of us really need. Bench rest precision is satisfying, but simplicity, practicality and versatility are my main things.

 

I put a Tech Sight Mini200 rear sight with a target aperture on my 583 Series Mini 14 and thinned the front sight blade down to .050" wide to give me a 'NM' quality sight picture. I also shortened the buttstock 1" so that the heel to aperture distance was down to 14" which is what it is on my M1s, M1 Carbines and my M1A. Factory length on my Mini was 15.5" and the Tech Sight lowered it to 15".

I'll be 77 yrs old in a couple of months and wear blended lens glasses but the target aperture up close to my eye gives me a significant boost in Depth of Field so both the front sight and the target are clearly in focus. I use a target aperture close to my eye on most of my long guns as I'm not a fan of scopes even though I have a couple of hunting rifles with them as out here in Colorado, our game shots are usually over 250 yds.

99% of my recreational and range shooting is at 200 to 300 yds and all my long guns are sighted in at 200 yds. Even my leverguns, as I shoot at bowling pins at that distance because I'm not fond of paper targets. Bowling pins only have about 2" of height where they're a 2MOA target at that range while the rest of them is significantly less so it's a challenge to score on them.

Why so long and so small? Because it's hard and that keeps me concentrating on the fundamentals.

 

@COSteve Did you have to modify the rubber shoulder pad when you shortened the mini 14 stock? If so, what was your technique? Mine is constantly getting hung up on clothing when I bring it up to shoot. TIA

 

It was below 90° this morning, so the outdoor range was calling. Mini 14 day. I really haven’t shot it a lot, and I wanted to do 50 and 100 yards. The club has a 25/50/100 range, and a 50/200 range. The 50/200 was empty, so I decided to go there. I’ve never actually tried 200 yards, so I thought why not. How hard can it be, with iron sights? I’ve been on a kick lately of trying new things, so…

Being rusty, my 50 yard target sucked but the high left group was at least on paper and minute of bad guy. So I walked the 400 yard relay in the blazing sunshine, and set up a red sighting target. Now, can I see anything? Using my bifocals was a bit too much compromise. It was ok at 50 yards, but nothing was really in focus at 200. With regular uncorrected eye protection, the front post was sharp, and the tiny fuzzy white rectangle with the hint of a red circle was, well, visible. So, compensating for hitting high at 50 yards, I placed the top of the post low on the fuzzy white rectangle. Three rounds. My 60x spotting scope showed waves of heat, but I couldn’t see any hits.

Three more, check again. Oh, there’s one. I kept at the three shot groups and adjusted POA, and did get enough hits to be impressive considering I could barely see the target. Most of the hits were high and left, in proportion to the 50 yard hits, or 4x farther.

Dehydration was starting to get to me, so I headed home and adjusted the rear site, and now I look forward to more range time but I’ll stick to 100 yards next time. My eyes need a scope for 200 yards.

A guy at my gun club routinely hits the 200 yard gong with a scoped .22.
I am the proud owner of a Mini-14 and will try the same with iron sights. (Not the factory ones, for sure!)

 

Yes, one has reshape the bottom of the pad as the stock is a flattened conical shape and shortening it will case the 'cone' to shrink. I mounted it to the stock after I shorted it 1" using the top hole and then screwing in the bottom one at a slight angle upwards.

Then I taped off the stock with a few layers about 4" all the way around and then took it to my belt sander and carefully sanded the excess pad off. Going slowly and being sure not to let the belt touch the taped area produces a nice finish in a short time.

 

BTW, I took my Mini M14 out just before we went from summer to winter with a total of 34" of snow from 2 storms in 3 days in our valley. (Normal for life in the Rockies.) Anyway, it was days before my birthday and I took some clay pigeons out with me as well.

At 200 yds, their 4.33" diameter is just a hair over 2 MOA and with my handloads, tweaks, and 'NM' like sights I didn't have any trouble popping the pigeons. In fact, one shot hit dead center and punched out a nice hole in the center of it without busting the outer ring.