I've been meaning to do this for some time and recently had a weekend (ok, just a Sunday afternoon) to myself.
Quite some time ago I asked Rick and Co. to throw a barrel together for me. I gave him a profile I thought would work well enough for service rifle where it was ballanced well, and light enough to hold in positional shooting. Yet, it had to be heavy enough to sink some of the heat in a rapid event, and be slightly longer than my normal 20 inchers to give me a bit more 'omph' for windy days.
What I came up with was ####z simple: .223 wilde cut, 24" long 1:7, SS with .950 under the handguard out to the gas block, standard .75" at the gas block and .720 out to the muzzle with a recesed crown.
So this last Sunday comes and I load up everything with the exception of newly loaded ammo
Lucky me I had about a hundred handloads sitting in my bag from an earlier excursion, so it wasn't a total waste.
The first thing I should note is that while I love SR, when it comes to precision and the process, I'm a bit of a hack. I don't have the proper gear to bag or bench a rifle, and mostly I lay in the dirt (as evidenced by the photos).
I also don't believe in 'barrel break in' - maybe it helps with fowling, and maybe that reduced fouling makes it shoot better faster, but for a guy like me (read lazy) I just don't have the time or patience to do it.
Anyhow on to the testing:
All shots were fired off of a bipod with a rear bag, and a hasty sling.
First 40 or so rounds were spent on the 100m mound zeroing and getting some measure of five round groups.
The smallest of the bunch was .8" with several around 1.3". Not particularly stellar, but I can attribute it to a rather poor shooting position shooting up hill into the butts, and the first tens of rounds.
From there with a setting sun, I moved it back to the 500m mound and extrapolating previous come-ups came onto a zero fairly quickly. The next several 10 round groups were fired from 500m with the smallest at 6 1/2"
Overall a happy day (what day spent shooting isn't?
), and I'm looking forward to wringing more out of this barrel with better loads. I'll keep this post updated and looking forward to my next barrel from ATRS!! 
Quite some time ago I asked Rick and Co. to throw a barrel together for me. I gave him a profile I thought would work well enough for service rifle where it was ballanced well, and light enough to hold in positional shooting. Yet, it had to be heavy enough to sink some of the heat in a rapid event, and be slightly longer than my normal 20 inchers to give me a bit more 'omph' for windy days.
What I came up with was ####z simple: .223 wilde cut, 24" long 1:7, SS with .950 under the handguard out to the gas block, standard .75" at the gas block and .720 out to the muzzle with a recesed crown.
So this last Sunday comes and I load up everything with the exception of newly loaded ammo
Lucky me I had about a hundred handloads sitting in my bag from an earlier excursion, so it wasn't a total waste.The first thing I should note is that while I love SR, when it comes to precision and the process, I'm a bit of a hack. I don't have the proper gear to bag or bench a rifle, and mostly I lay in the dirt (as evidenced by the photos).
I also don't believe in 'barrel break in' - maybe it helps with fowling, and maybe that reduced fouling makes it shoot better faster, but for a guy like me (read lazy) I just don't have the time or patience to do it.
Anyhow on to the testing:
All shots were fired off of a bipod with a rear bag, and a hasty sling.
First 40 or so rounds were spent on the 100m mound zeroing and getting some measure of five round groups.
The smallest of the bunch was .8" with several around 1.3". Not particularly stellar, but I can attribute it to a rather poor shooting position shooting up hill into the butts, and the first tens of rounds.
From there with a setting sun, I moved it back to the 500m mound and extrapolating previous come-ups came onto a zero fairly quickly. The next several 10 round groups were fired from 500m with the smallest at 6 1/2"
Overall a happy day (what day spent shooting isn't?
), and I'm looking forward to wringing more out of this barrel with better loads. I'll keep this post updated and looking forward to my next barrel from ATRS!! 
