Aussie Sets Southern Hemisphere 1K Record with Borrowed Rifle
We recently wrote about a spectacular 2.6872″ ten-shot group shot at 1000 yards in Montana. Well Australian Peter Varley recently turned in another amazing group at 1000 yards — this time 2.010″ for FIVE shots. And he did it with a borrowed gun! That’s not the smallest 1K group ever shot on the planet*, but it’s still an Australian and (we believe) a Southern Hemisphere record. Varley shot the 2.010″ group with a borrowed 17-lb Light Gun at a Canberra Rifle Club match in March of this year. Congrats to Peter for his outstanding shooting. And “hats off” to fellow Queenslander John McQuire, who loaned Peter the rifle.
Shown below is Peter Varley with his target, plus a close-up. You’ll note that two of the five (5) shots go through a paster. You’ll find pasters all over these targets because the Canberra Club “recycles” these large 1K targets many times.
Peter reports: This was shot at a 1000-yard match on the Canberra Rifle Range on Sunday, March 9, 2014. I traveled 1300 kilometers (807 miles) from Nambour (Sunshine Coast) Queensland to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory.
I had left my rifle case keys at the motel and resigned myself to target butts duty or a lazy day. A friend, John McQuire from Mackay (Central Queensland Coast) said: “Get my 6.5 x 47 out, clean up, and you’re in the first detail (relay)”. So it was a borrowed gun for the shoot. The match commenced around 9:00 am. Conditions were very good — winds were very light with no mirage to speak of. Everything fell into place.”
Gun Specifications: Lawton 7500 action with Jewell trigger, PacNor barrel chambered for 6.5×47 Lapua, home-made custom stock, March 10-60x scope
6.5x47L Load: Lapua 123gr Scenars, with CCI 450 primers and Varget (ADI 2208) powder.
*The current NBRSA Light Gun 1000 Yard 5-shot group record is 1.473″ by Bill Schrader in 2002. Tom Sarver is credited with an even smaller 5-shot IBS Light Gun record.
Similar Posts:
- Amazing Rimfire Accuracy — 0.93″ 5-Shot Group at 200 Yards
- Amazing Accuracy from Australian .22 LR Rifle at 200 Yards
- Great .22 LR Rimfire Accuracy at 200 yards — Australia Fly Shoot
- Accuracy Aussie-Style — 500m Fly Shoot
- John Lewis Shoots 0.386" Group at 600 Yards with Home-built Gun
Share the post "Aussie Sets Southern Hemisphere 1K Record with Borrowed Rifle"
Tags: 1000 Yards, 6.5x47 Lapua, Australia, Canberra, NBRSA
Any idea of how much Varget he was using? Just curious.
It is a curious thing that the pasters look like 1 inch diameter and the shots appear to be more than double the distance of one paster. May be the pasters are smaller than that.
Editor: We’re not sure about the exact size of the pasters. However, using a 1″ diameter presumed paster diameter, we measured this group with On Target Software and came up with 2.024″. That’s close enough to the real measurement to validate it, considering the limitations of measuring off a photograph rather than the actual, physical target. We set the full vertical height of the black paster at 1.00″.
As the previous holder of the Australian Light Gun record for 1000 Yard Benchrest (my group was 2.067 inches or 52mm), I would like to say congratulations.
I also shot my group with a borrowed rifle, used a 6.5 x 47 Lapua and a March scope.
Looking forward to seeing a sub 2 inch group now and I think the Brisbane competition will provide the chance to do that this year.
Thought about giving it a go with a .416 Barrett?
Hello I am the builder of the rifle that Peter shot that Australian record with and I loaded the ammo with 37.3 gns of Varget for that day
I also have been involved with another Australian record – and built the stock and barrel mount for John Lavarings 54 Anschutz that shot the .934″ 200yd rim fire Fly Group in Canberra this year – I like accurate rifles john mc quire