221 Fireball "Gopher Slayer"

Suputin said:
You are punching 1" groups at 200 yds and think you need to improve the accuracy? I'd say the load you have is working just fine. Keep in mind an adult gopher is roughly 2.5" wide and the 221 loses velocity so quickly that its effective splat range is not much over 300 yds. If I were you, I wouldn't change anything.
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Actually, I've got to re-shoot some groups to confirm my results; but 14.4 grns of Li'lGun gave me a 10 shot group of 0.75" and 14.8 gave me 0.91" both off the bipod.
Hart-5.jpg

It's a 28" 1:9 Krieger screwed onto a Hart action by Bill Leeper.

A bit heavier than yours, it tips the scale at 20lbs.

Yup, the muzzle device is missing. I took it off the last time I cleaned it... :redface:

With the accuracy I'm getting, I was hoping for 400m kills on gophers and marmots, I don't really care about 'splatts' just kills.


Edited to add... if you look close you can see a loaded FireBall cartridge in the port leaning against the bolt.
 
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A monster, yup, it is. And at 20 lbs, I don't need a muzzle brake to spot my shots :)
Good thing I rarely have to walk more than a km per day with it, otherwise I think I'd get wheels for it.
I got the flash eliminator more for muzzle protection and LCF than any need to eliminate flash or muzzle rise.

And the Fireball case is the same length as the Hornet, just a bit larger in diameter and with a sharper shoulder.
 
Nice job on your "gopher slayer"! Just wondering if there were any feeding issues with the shorter cases(it is set up as a repeater correct)? Trying to figure out what kind of trigger you used?
 
Just wondering if there were any feeding issues with the shorter cases(it is set up as a repeater correct)? Trying to figure out what kind of trigger you used?
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It does have a mag but that hasn't been sorted yet. It has a .308 follower in it at the moment so it doesn't exactly work. Not a huge issue cause I shoot most of my stuff single shot anyway however I will get it working at some point.

The trigger is a Timney Tactical trigger for Rem 700. It is much lighter than the normal trigger and doesn't have a safety. I think it is set at about 6 - 8 oz right now. :)
 
Spent some time with load development on the weekend.

It seems this rifle likes the 36gr Barnes Varmint Grenades. It put five of them into .43" at about 3630 fps. It is also shooting the 40gr Ballistic Tips fairly well but I think I am gonna use the BVG's for a while.

I couldn't take it anymore and had to try the rifle on something other than paper. A 40gr Ballistic Tip at about 3400 fps totally vapourized a 600 ml water bottle at 100 yds. The explosion and spray of water on impact was very impressive. I can't wait to try this thing on gophers. :)
 
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