15.12.2025 • In the Field

Tight Grouping

The 8.5x55 Blaser, designed for short-barreled rifles, can be used for almost anything, finds Jens Kaer Knudsen, renowned big-game hunter and rifle enthusiast.

On a cold morning I bring my Blaser R8 to a meeting with shooting instructor, long-range enthusiast, and firearms expert Jesper Lindgaard at the Ulfborg Shooting Center in West Jutland. The aim of today's meeting is to test the precision performance of the Blaser 8.5x55 caliber at distances from 100 to 600 meters and to hone my long-range shooting skills. When developing the 8.5x55 Blaser caliber, the focus was on creating a caliber ideally suited for rifles with short barrels, as this type of rifle has become increasingly popular with the growing interest in silencers. Even with barrel lengths of less than 50 cm, the caliber achieves ideal ballistic values that are normally only possible with longer barrels in high-performance calibers. However, the caliber also performs excellently in longer barrels. The 8.5x55 Blaser is offered with the following five bullet types: CDX, SAX, Barnes TTSX, Norma Oryx and Norma Softpoint,. However, when you see the Blaser 8.5 mm cartridge for the first time (a powerful bullet in a short case), you might think it is not suitable for long-range shooting.

Meticulous Preparation
Jesper is a Major in the Danish Army and a trainer at the Blaser Shooting Academy. He has more than 30 years of experience as a shooting instructor and, since 2010, has specialized in courses on the optimal use of scopes with ballistic turrets and long-range shooting in general. Over the past 15–20 years, he has organized a large number of courses in this field. On the 100-meter course, I sit down and adjust the rifle scope so that the reticle is sharp before finding the shooting position and performing the first two checkpoints of the shooter’s self-check:

Breathe in and out deeply and make sure the reticle is straight up and down. If the reticle is askew, you have muscle tension. Align your arms, shoulders, and body so that the reticle goes straight up and down through your aiming point.
Breathe in and out deeply. Find your target point. Close your eyes for 2–5 seconds and open them. The target point must not have moved significantly. If it has, you still have a little muscle tension that you need to release.

Success Factor Magnification
If you are interested in shooting at long distances, Jesper recommends shooting at 100 meters with as little magnification as possible, as you will need more magnification at longer distances. Successful long-range shooting is largely based on the right attitude and mental energy, which is why it can be mentally helpful not to use all the “tools in the toolbox” at the 100-meter range. If you have been shooting at 4–8x magnification at short distances, you will feel the extra energy when you turn up to 20x magnification at 300 meters. After each of the first shots, I perform the third checkpoint of shooter self-control: the follow-through. It could be described as “tasting” the shot after firing it. It is important not to rush, and Jesper adjusts my shooting position slightly, allowing me to further optimize the overall grouping.

I shoot with a trigger pull weight of 750 grams, a trigger pull weight to which all my rifles are set. From my point of view, the relatively low trigger weight is optimal for long-range shooting, driven hunts, and other types of hunting, and the fact that all my rifles have the same trigger weight is an advantage for the muscle memory of the trigger finger. For this shooting, I load the gun with the detachable magazine, but I also use the ability to load individual cartridges from the top – one of the many features of the Blaser R8 that are advantageous.

Test: Riflescope Switch
When shooting at 100 meters, I also test the results of the scope change between shots. First, the scope is mounted on my R8, then it is mounted on Jesper's Blaser rifle in the same caliber. Jesper has tested this before and knows the results, but for me it is a surprise that the accuracy of a scope mounted on another Blaser rifle makes it possible to shoot a piece of game at 200 meters without adjusting anything. It is remarkable how high the quality of Blaser rifles and mounts is. Despite the results of this small test, it is important to emphasize that one should always check and zero the rifle before hunting when changing a scope from one rifle to another.

After that, Jesper and I shot at 300 meters and then at 600 meters, and at both distances we could place all the shots so close together that all would have been fatal. Generally, such long shot distances are not relevant for hunting, but training makes it easier to shoot at shorter distances, and it is good to be able to shoot at long distances when you need to follow up a first shot. It's also an advantage to have this ability when you need to take a long shot on a mountain hunt after a multi-day hike, for example. With the experience of that training day, I know I will be at ease during my next hunt, with the setup of my R8, the ammunition as well as my shooting abilities. That, in turn, will make it more likely that the hunt will be successful. I keep you posted!

Text: Jens Kjær Knudsen, Photos: Thomas Lindy Nissen