I have long been a parasite feeding off of the collective knowledge of the CGN community and using the Equipment Exchange, but I have never posted anything other than equipment exchange ads. I figured I would share my most recent gun saga in an effort to contribute to the community.
Here we go...
About 2 years ago I bought myself a lightly used Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather in 270 win. I had been wanting to try out one of the new FN Winchester Model 70's for sometime, but they seem to be few and far between and not that cheap; as such, it was a bit of adventure finding a used one that I could afford. I found one for sale on the Alberta Outdoorsmen forum, posted by a lovely older gentlemen with a vastly more expansive knowledge of the firearms world then myself. He had bought it used as well with the intention of turning it into a project gun and never shot it. It looked good, felt good and appeared to be everything I wanted and more. We came to an accord on price, he talked my hear off, I double my knowledge about reloading and I bought it. I was pleased as punch. However, this is where the tale takes a turn for the worst.
I bought a Minox scope for it based on the fact that I already had Minox scope which I thought was simply amazing because of how well it worked on a 30-06 of mine. It was slick, high power unit with parallax adjustment with all manner of niceties. I attached to the gun with a set of Talley rings. Excited, I bought a few different boxes of Federal, Winchester, and Hornady Superformance Ammunition (I was fairly taken with the impressive velocities and I couldn't help myself). I head to the range to see how she would shoot.
At this juncture I should preface the introduction of the range results with the fact that my 30-06 (a Voere HDF Titan II) had been, and still is, my benchmark for rifle accuracy. If anyone reading this is not familiar with Voere HDF, it is a now defunct German sporting arms manufacturer that produced some foolishly excellent firearms, but has since been bought out by Mauser. Voere HDF should not to be confused with the more ubiquitous Austrian Voere Kufstein (also a good rifle manufacturer that still in operation). My Voere HDF 30-06 is a genuine factory sub-moa gun (not even bedded) that will put 5 shots into an inch seemly pretty well every time I shoot it in spite of my generally poor shooting skills. The result of using this gun as my measuring stick for accuracy was that I had a pretty skewed idea of what a regular old off-the-shelf gun can do. I was spoiled. Real spoiled.
I took my new Model 70 to the range and I shot it. The trigger and comfort of the stock were immediately noticed and appreciated. I sighted-in and got down to the business of figuring out how she would shoot. I shot Federal Sierra Game Kings (a previously reliably accurate round for a different 270 win I have). The results on the paper a 100 m away left me a little limp. It was group something in the range of 3 inches. Okay, it could be the ammo, the scope, the rings, me, or god forbid the gun. I shot and I shot. Changed out rings/bases, changed out scopes, and proceeded to shoot through what I believe to be ~700 rounds (both handloads thanks to my reloader friend and factory loads) of every brand and grain over a year and half. Plotting erratic and large triangles on paper the whole way. Mid-way through the process I had the gun checked out by a gun smith and new scope properly installed. The gun smith determined that the gun was fine. It was nicely glass bedded by the previous owner (the one before the guy I bought it from) and the barrel had no obvious flaws. It just wouldn't shoot better then 1.5" consistently. I was a little miffed at the considerable amount of money that had been thrown at this gun, it was already the most expensive setup I owned and it was a marginal shooter at best. I had shot everything under the sun available to me ammunition wise, the gun was fine, the rings/bases were new and professionally install, the scope was a nice, new Leupold VX3 3.5-10 x 40, and by this time I was become a much better shooter through all the practice (periodic check-in's with my 30-06 seemed confirmed it wasn't me). It just wouldn't shoot to my satisfaction.
After returning from another poor showing at the range and feeling sorry for myself I was mindless surfing through the internet hoping for some sort of solution to my gun problem to appear. I was watching a YouTube video of UK guys shooting target .22s with things on the barrel that were previously unfamiliar to me. In the video it was explained that these funny things on the barrels were "barrel tuners". Upon further research, I discovered that there were a variety of different kinds of barrel tuners ranging from the FN/Browning BOSS system, to movable weights, to screw-in barrel tensioning mechanisms. It was explained that these more or less accomplish the same thing that reloaders do through optimizing the barrel harmonics for a particular load. The guys shooting .22 had to do this because reloading isn't an option for rimfire. Being pot-committed to this gun with nothing to lose, I looked-up what my options were as far as barrel tuners were concerned. Cabela's had a funny little rubber grommet thing known as a "LimbSaver Sharpshooter X-Ring Barrel De-resonator" for sale and to my pleasant surprise it was about 15 dollars. I picked one up from Cabela's, thinking to myself that this thing is super gimmicky and it is destine to fail. As the package explained you stick it on your barrel and move it up or down the barrel as required to "tune" the barrel to your specific load. I greased it up and slid in onto the barrel and set it to the Limbsaver suggested starting point an inch or so from the end of the barrel. Back out to the range with my most accurate load for the Model 70, the Hornady 130 grain interlock SP "Custom" factory ammunition. The first group was a surprising improvement from the standard 1.5 to 2 inch range to about a 1.25 group. However, at this point I was good and skeptical about the occasional good group. I followed up many a good group with a long line of bad groups more then a few times. Group number 2 was extremely similar. Trying not to get excited, I started shooting groups and adjusting the tuner in an incremental fashion. Hallelujah! That damn gun shot better then ever and the groups responded in a logical, progressive manner to the tuner adjustments. I shot a ton that day and at the end I was consistently grouping the Hornady 130 grain Customs at right on an inch. I should mention at this point that I also did my utmost to always shoot a cold barrel and to learn and practice reasonable gun cleaning practices. An older competition shooter at my range was of considerable help advising me on my barrel cleaning practices.
As many of you are probably experienced, I was becoming addicted to the whole process of making a gun shoot. I took my other so-so grouping ammunition brands and started to try and make them shoot as well. Every ammunition showed improvements with the barrel tuner installed with the exception of the Superformance ammo. By this point in the process I had acquired a chronograph for the purpose of shooting my friends handloads and I had incorporated trying to figure out what kind of velocities I was capable of getting. The Superformance ammunition did exactly what it was advertised to do, achieving average velocities of 3200 fps with 130 grain SSTs, 3050 with 140 grain SSTs, and 3185 fps with 130 grain GMXs. Unfortunately, accuracy was horrendous. Eventually I also included 200 meter grouping tests as part of my ever-evolving Model 70 experiment.
Everything was looking up with my Hornady 130 grain Customs, shooting very consistently into an inch at 100 m and into about 2.5 at 200 m and averaging advertised velocities for 24 inch barrels in my 22 inch barrel (Extreme Weather and Featherweight models have 22 inch barrels in standard length cartridges...not my favourite feature of the gun). Gravy, right? Well no, now that I had caught the tinkering bug and I was still comparing the Model 70 to the Voere HDF 30-06. I was unsatisfied with the down range energy relative to what I was able to achieve in my 30-06 with it's preferred diet. I should mention that all this stuff (down range energy, velocities, ballistic coefficients, sectional densities, trajectories, bullet construction, etc.) had never even entered into my head back when I was blissfully blasting holes in my targets or hunting quarry with my 30-06, even though I probably should have thought about it. There is something perfectly wonderful and wildly scary about complete ignorance supported by many years of unquestionable success hunting and recreational target shooting. My 30-06 and I did very well for ourselves for many a year probably only because I lacked any impetus to understand or test my shooting equipment and my hunting pursuits just so happen to luckily stay within my equipment's and my own abilities.
Last fall I got to the point were I was comfortable taking the Model 70 deer hunting with my Hornady 130 grain Customs and I managed, thanks mostly to a very cooperative whitetail buck, to fill my tag with the Model 70. However, I remained skeptical about the performance I would receive from the 130 grain interlock bullet at a muzzle velocity of ~3050 fps when I imagined using it for shots on moose and elk that I had made with my 30-06. This is kind of where the OCD insanity of this whole process starts to really show itself. It is one thing to want a gun you can trust to hit where you aimed and it is quite another to start imagining that there is going to be a vast difference between the performance of 130 grain Hornady interlock SP at 3050 fps and , now get this, 30-06 Horandy 165 grain interlock BTSP at 2850 fps. Especially when I never ever shoot beyond 300 meters and 99% of my actual hunting shots are all within 200 m.
At this point I am likely losing some of you who are thinking to yourselves, "what a moron", but I was hooked bad (perhaps you might say I was a "gun nut"...but not me. No, Sir. Completely rationale.) and it turns out, despite all my trials and tribulations with the Extreme Weather Model 70, it turned into a real dream to shoot (trigger, stock, scope, and moderate recoiling cartridge making it so). Back to the drawing board. I knew I had good potential with Barnes TSX Vor-tx ammunition since the one box I bought back pre-barrel tuner wasn't the worst grouping round, but it wasn't cheap either, therefore I only ever bought one box. Upon my second 50 dollar box of 130 grain Barnes TSXs I was pleased to discover that the gun now shot this ammunition about as well as the Hornady 130 grain interlocks when temperatures were between -10 degree C and -20 degrees C (~1 inch at 100 m). Further testing of the TSXs showed that is shot better than anything else when temperatures were above +10 degree C, averaging 0.75 inch groups (the temperature might have been a coincidence). This was a major change from the 2.5 inch groups it use to do and, believe it or not, I didn't have to change the barrel tuners location despite it being a different round. Where everything falls a part is in the velocities. The Barnes were found to be significantly slower than advertised under a variety of temperatures. They advertized 3060 fps and my average was 2950 fps which once again is probably more than suitable for my purpose, but from the perspective of maniac driven mad by the infinite potential to shoot better this was inadequate. Onward and upward.
With all this shooting came a lot more reading and, as I am sure others have noticed, long range hunting and long range hunting bullets are all the rage. The news that Hornady would be coming out with a "heavy for the caliber" high BC, 145 grain SST like bullet got me excited once again (Oh imagine the energy retention! What monster I had become). The hunt for the actual ELD-X factory ammunition in 270 win was a little difficult, but eventually I found a source. Upon inspection of the rounds, they certainly are considerably longer then most factory ammunition. I think I might have a 0.5 of a millimeter of room in my magazine, but they fed into the chamber reliably so no complaints there. Off to the range.
The range results came in for the 145 grain ELD-X. They consistently grouped just below an inch at 100 m (0.89) and just under 2 inches at 200 m (1.88) with slight adjustments to the tuner. They were advertised to move out of the muzzle of a 24 inch barrel at 2975 fps and according to my chronograph, the 5 round sub-sample average was 2974 fps in my 22 inch barrel at approximately 0 degrees C. Conveniently, they even had roughly the same point of impact at 100 m and 200 m as the Barnes TSX. After going home and working my numbers through a ballistic calculator I found that downrange energy of the ELD-X 145 grain after 200 m surpassed the 165 grain interlock BTSP. It was a hardly fair comparison for the 30-06 using the aged low BC SP interlock bullet against the latest hyper aerodynamic fly forever invention, but it seemed to allow me to mentally close the folder on this one. It is funny how theoretical numbers make us so happy, but that is what I was. I was happy, so happy that I believe I can proclaim that I am finally satisfied with the Model 70 Extreme Weather.
The lessons:
If your gun won't shoot become a reloader then start trying to figure it out.
If you you're not a reloader, buy a barrel tuner. They really do work.
Leupold scopes are really quite refreshingly nice (I know this isn't news to most, but I previously didn't own one and therefore didn't know that).
Minox scopes are also nice despite the shadow of doubt that was cast by the Model 70's initial performance.
Rings/Base that allow the scope to be mounted further back are nice. Craning your head forward to try and get a good sight picture while rolling your shoulder back to allow the scope to be closer to your eye is a terrible way to shoot.
Chronograph factory loads if you can. Velocities vary a surprising large amount particularly so under temperature extremes.
Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather editions are really nice guns. They are even likable when they don't shoot very well.
One can really get better at the act of shooting if the find themselves faced with a poor shooting gun.
...and finally, go buy an old world quality made 30-06 and never look back.
Here we go...
About 2 years ago I bought myself a lightly used Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather in 270 win. I had been wanting to try out one of the new FN Winchester Model 70's for sometime, but they seem to be few and far between and not that cheap; as such, it was a bit of adventure finding a used one that I could afford. I found one for sale on the Alberta Outdoorsmen forum, posted by a lovely older gentlemen with a vastly more expansive knowledge of the firearms world then myself. He had bought it used as well with the intention of turning it into a project gun and never shot it. It looked good, felt good and appeared to be everything I wanted and more. We came to an accord on price, he talked my hear off, I double my knowledge about reloading and I bought it. I was pleased as punch. However, this is where the tale takes a turn for the worst.
I bought a Minox scope for it based on the fact that I already had Minox scope which I thought was simply amazing because of how well it worked on a 30-06 of mine. It was slick, high power unit with parallax adjustment with all manner of niceties. I attached to the gun with a set of Talley rings. Excited, I bought a few different boxes of Federal, Winchester, and Hornady Superformance Ammunition (I was fairly taken with the impressive velocities and I couldn't help myself). I head to the range to see how she would shoot.
At this juncture I should preface the introduction of the range results with the fact that my 30-06 (a Voere HDF Titan II) had been, and still is, my benchmark for rifle accuracy. If anyone reading this is not familiar with Voere HDF, it is a now defunct German sporting arms manufacturer that produced some foolishly excellent firearms, but has since been bought out by Mauser. Voere HDF should not to be confused with the more ubiquitous Austrian Voere Kufstein (also a good rifle manufacturer that still in operation). My Voere HDF 30-06 is a genuine factory sub-moa gun (not even bedded) that will put 5 shots into an inch seemly pretty well every time I shoot it in spite of my generally poor shooting skills. The result of using this gun as my measuring stick for accuracy was that I had a pretty skewed idea of what a regular old off-the-shelf gun can do. I was spoiled. Real spoiled.
I took my new Model 70 to the range and I shot it. The trigger and comfort of the stock were immediately noticed and appreciated. I sighted-in and got down to the business of figuring out how she would shoot. I shot Federal Sierra Game Kings (a previously reliably accurate round for a different 270 win I have). The results on the paper a 100 m away left me a little limp. It was group something in the range of 3 inches. Okay, it could be the ammo, the scope, the rings, me, or god forbid the gun. I shot and I shot. Changed out rings/bases, changed out scopes, and proceeded to shoot through what I believe to be ~700 rounds (both handloads thanks to my reloader friend and factory loads) of every brand and grain over a year and half. Plotting erratic and large triangles on paper the whole way. Mid-way through the process I had the gun checked out by a gun smith and new scope properly installed. The gun smith determined that the gun was fine. It was nicely glass bedded by the previous owner (the one before the guy I bought it from) and the barrel had no obvious flaws. It just wouldn't shoot better then 1.5" consistently. I was a little miffed at the considerable amount of money that had been thrown at this gun, it was already the most expensive setup I owned and it was a marginal shooter at best. I had shot everything under the sun available to me ammunition wise, the gun was fine, the rings/bases were new and professionally install, the scope was a nice, new Leupold VX3 3.5-10 x 40, and by this time I was become a much better shooter through all the practice (periodic check-in's with my 30-06 seemed confirmed it wasn't me). It just wouldn't shoot to my satisfaction.
After returning from another poor showing at the range and feeling sorry for myself I was mindless surfing through the internet hoping for some sort of solution to my gun problem to appear. I was watching a YouTube video of UK guys shooting target .22s with things on the barrel that were previously unfamiliar to me. In the video it was explained that these funny things on the barrels were "barrel tuners". Upon further research, I discovered that there were a variety of different kinds of barrel tuners ranging from the FN/Browning BOSS system, to movable weights, to screw-in barrel tensioning mechanisms. It was explained that these more or less accomplish the same thing that reloaders do through optimizing the barrel harmonics for a particular load. The guys shooting .22 had to do this because reloading isn't an option for rimfire. Being pot-committed to this gun with nothing to lose, I looked-up what my options were as far as barrel tuners were concerned. Cabela's had a funny little rubber grommet thing known as a "LimbSaver Sharpshooter X-Ring Barrel De-resonator" for sale and to my pleasant surprise it was about 15 dollars. I picked one up from Cabela's, thinking to myself that this thing is super gimmicky and it is destine to fail. As the package explained you stick it on your barrel and move it up or down the barrel as required to "tune" the barrel to your specific load. I greased it up and slid in onto the barrel and set it to the Limbsaver suggested starting point an inch or so from the end of the barrel. Back out to the range with my most accurate load for the Model 70, the Hornady 130 grain interlock SP "Custom" factory ammunition. The first group was a surprising improvement from the standard 1.5 to 2 inch range to about a 1.25 group. However, at this point I was good and skeptical about the occasional good group. I followed up many a good group with a long line of bad groups more then a few times. Group number 2 was extremely similar. Trying not to get excited, I started shooting groups and adjusting the tuner in an incremental fashion. Hallelujah! That damn gun shot better then ever and the groups responded in a logical, progressive manner to the tuner adjustments. I shot a ton that day and at the end I was consistently grouping the Hornady 130 grain Customs at right on an inch. I should mention at this point that I also did my utmost to always shoot a cold barrel and to learn and practice reasonable gun cleaning practices. An older competition shooter at my range was of considerable help advising me on my barrel cleaning practices.
As many of you are probably experienced, I was becoming addicted to the whole process of making a gun shoot. I took my other so-so grouping ammunition brands and started to try and make them shoot as well. Every ammunition showed improvements with the barrel tuner installed with the exception of the Superformance ammo. By this point in the process I had acquired a chronograph for the purpose of shooting my friends handloads and I had incorporated trying to figure out what kind of velocities I was capable of getting. The Superformance ammunition did exactly what it was advertised to do, achieving average velocities of 3200 fps with 130 grain SSTs, 3050 with 140 grain SSTs, and 3185 fps with 130 grain GMXs. Unfortunately, accuracy was horrendous. Eventually I also included 200 meter grouping tests as part of my ever-evolving Model 70 experiment.
Everything was looking up with my Hornady 130 grain Customs, shooting very consistently into an inch at 100 m and into about 2.5 at 200 m and averaging advertised velocities for 24 inch barrels in my 22 inch barrel (Extreme Weather and Featherweight models have 22 inch barrels in standard length cartridges...not my favourite feature of the gun). Gravy, right? Well no, now that I had caught the tinkering bug and I was still comparing the Model 70 to the Voere HDF 30-06. I was unsatisfied with the down range energy relative to what I was able to achieve in my 30-06 with it's preferred diet. I should mention that all this stuff (down range energy, velocities, ballistic coefficients, sectional densities, trajectories, bullet construction, etc.) had never even entered into my head back when I was blissfully blasting holes in my targets or hunting quarry with my 30-06, even though I probably should have thought about it. There is something perfectly wonderful and wildly scary about complete ignorance supported by many years of unquestionable success hunting and recreational target shooting. My 30-06 and I did very well for ourselves for many a year probably only because I lacked any impetus to understand or test my shooting equipment and my hunting pursuits just so happen to luckily stay within my equipment's and my own abilities.
Last fall I got to the point were I was comfortable taking the Model 70 deer hunting with my Hornady 130 grain Customs and I managed, thanks mostly to a very cooperative whitetail buck, to fill my tag with the Model 70. However, I remained skeptical about the performance I would receive from the 130 grain interlock bullet at a muzzle velocity of ~3050 fps when I imagined using it for shots on moose and elk that I had made with my 30-06. This is kind of where the OCD insanity of this whole process starts to really show itself. It is one thing to want a gun you can trust to hit where you aimed and it is quite another to start imagining that there is going to be a vast difference between the performance of 130 grain Hornady interlock SP at 3050 fps and , now get this, 30-06 Horandy 165 grain interlock BTSP at 2850 fps. Especially when I never ever shoot beyond 300 meters and 99% of my actual hunting shots are all within 200 m.
At this point I am likely losing some of you who are thinking to yourselves, "what a moron", but I was hooked bad (perhaps you might say I was a "gun nut"...but not me. No, Sir. Completely rationale.) and it turns out, despite all my trials and tribulations with the Extreme Weather Model 70, it turned into a real dream to shoot (trigger, stock, scope, and moderate recoiling cartridge making it so). Back to the drawing board. I knew I had good potential with Barnes TSX Vor-tx ammunition since the one box I bought back pre-barrel tuner wasn't the worst grouping round, but it wasn't cheap either, therefore I only ever bought one box. Upon my second 50 dollar box of 130 grain Barnes TSXs I was pleased to discover that the gun now shot this ammunition about as well as the Hornady 130 grain interlocks when temperatures were between -10 degree C and -20 degrees C (~1 inch at 100 m). Further testing of the TSXs showed that is shot better than anything else when temperatures were above +10 degree C, averaging 0.75 inch groups (the temperature might have been a coincidence). This was a major change from the 2.5 inch groups it use to do and, believe it or not, I didn't have to change the barrel tuners location despite it being a different round. Where everything falls a part is in the velocities. The Barnes were found to be significantly slower than advertised under a variety of temperatures. They advertized 3060 fps and my average was 2950 fps which once again is probably more than suitable for my purpose, but from the perspective of maniac driven mad by the infinite potential to shoot better this was inadequate. Onward and upward.
With all this shooting came a lot more reading and, as I am sure others have noticed, long range hunting and long range hunting bullets are all the rage. The news that Hornady would be coming out with a "heavy for the caliber" high BC, 145 grain SST like bullet got me excited once again (Oh imagine the energy retention! What monster I had become). The hunt for the actual ELD-X factory ammunition in 270 win was a little difficult, but eventually I found a source. Upon inspection of the rounds, they certainly are considerably longer then most factory ammunition. I think I might have a 0.5 of a millimeter of room in my magazine, but they fed into the chamber reliably so no complaints there. Off to the range.
The range results came in for the 145 grain ELD-X. They consistently grouped just below an inch at 100 m (0.89) and just under 2 inches at 200 m (1.88) with slight adjustments to the tuner. They were advertised to move out of the muzzle of a 24 inch barrel at 2975 fps and according to my chronograph, the 5 round sub-sample average was 2974 fps in my 22 inch barrel at approximately 0 degrees C. Conveniently, they even had roughly the same point of impact at 100 m and 200 m as the Barnes TSX. After going home and working my numbers through a ballistic calculator I found that downrange energy of the ELD-X 145 grain after 200 m surpassed the 165 grain interlock BTSP. It was a hardly fair comparison for the 30-06 using the aged low BC SP interlock bullet against the latest hyper aerodynamic fly forever invention, but it seemed to allow me to mentally close the folder on this one. It is funny how theoretical numbers make us so happy, but that is what I was. I was happy, so happy that I believe I can proclaim that I am finally satisfied with the Model 70 Extreme Weather.
The lessons:
If your gun won't shoot become a reloader then start trying to figure it out.
If you you're not a reloader, buy a barrel tuner. They really do work.
Leupold scopes are really quite refreshingly nice (I know this isn't news to most, but I previously didn't own one and therefore didn't know that).
Minox scopes are also nice despite the shadow of doubt that was cast by the Model 70's initial performance.
Rings/Base that allow the scope to be mounted further back are nice. Craning your head forward to try and get a good sight picture while rolling your shoulder back to allow the scope to be closer to your eye is a terrible way to shoot.
Chronograph factory loads if you can. Velocities vary a surprising large amount particularly so under temperature extremes.
Winchester Model 70 Extreme Weather editions are really nice guns. They are even likable when they don't shoot very well.
One can really get better at the act of shooting if the find themselves faced with a poor shooting gun.
...and finally, go buy an old world quality made 30-06 and never look back.
