Basic Tactical Assembly - .223 Rem 700 in a TAC-21

Victor, I'm more than happy to be out of the black rifles for the time being. As Mr. Whelen put it so well..."Only accurate rifles are interesting". Nothing wrong with the semi autos for what they are, but they simply couldn't hold my interest when I couldn't always hit what I wanted to.

My setup as it sits now is right around 15(!) pounds. Definitely not going to walking around the gopher patch with it, but then with the way it shoots I shouldn't need to move for a half a day anyways. :) I'll have to get a new pic up with all of the extra weight adding bits attached.

Greg, I ended up going with the Sightron 8-32x50 LRMOA. I started with the 6-24x, but found I wanted just a bit more magnification than 24x at the top end. I haven't used the reticle at all yet so can't give an opinion, but am hoping to start working with it once load development is complete.
 
Ahhhh, I love global warming. :) After spending a couple of weeks actually working (bah), I woke up to nice temps, clear skies and no wind, and wasted no time in getting everything out to the bench. I had picked up a Chrony finally, and after firing a nice .4" group at 100 to get velocities and find my drop at longer ranges, I fired a couple of groups to see if there was much accuracy difference with seating depths...

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And as I know I wasn't as solid and consistent as possible, the results are inconclusive. And blurry. I need to use a better camera, and drink less coffee. Anyhoo, as they weren't horrible groups I figured today would be a good day to try 300 yards finally, and tried to settle in a bit better...

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Wow. This is somewhat tougher than 200. Every little twitch, quiver and heartbeat really moves the crosshairs around, and it took twice as long to fire 10 as any other time. And of course a crosswind was starting to pick up by now, but all (crappy) excuses aside I was able to keep them all within a MOA, which made for a happy shooter. :)

Now to reach out even further, and probably see the crosshairs move around even more. I can see this is where the emphasis will move from the rifle and load onto the shooter and technique. Should be fun. And educational all over again.

As an aside, seeing the bullet holes at 300 was no problem at all through the Sightron. Makes my spotting scope redundant under these conditions.
 
I plan on bedding my 260 into the tac 21

??? for you Harv but why is your mount backwards?
 
With the PEPR mounted this way, there is maximum clearance around the bolt handle when in operation. Not a big deal probably, but with all the rail available on the chassis I figured minimizing knuckle busting or glove snagging was better than mounting it the traditional AR way.

I'm sure you'll like the chassis with your 260. My only gripe is with the texture of the finish, but otherwise it's a great, solid system. Plus they look to be significantly cheaper now too. :)
 
Farmer Harv:

A wonderful write up and description! Thanks for the super story. It's inspiring because you did not always select the most expensive :eek: route for the project components and I'm sure I speak for many newbies... you are very encouraging! Thanks! :D

:cheers:

Barney
 
Victor, I'm more than happy to be out of the black rifles for the time being. As Mr. Whelen put it so well..."Only accurate rifles are interesting". Nothing wrong with the semi autos for what they are, but they simply couldn't hold my interest when I couldn't always hit what I wanted to.

Well the AR Tranny is based off the looks and function of the AR10. Which like the accurized AR15 can shoot sub .5 moa. They're the exception to the semi rule. But of course in Canada they are restricted.

That cat seems a bit small for a rug . :p
 
Thanks Hungry! What started off as a relatively simple question has morphed into a blog like thread about my trip towards long range precision shooting. I'm definitely glad the factory action/barrel has worked out so well, as otherwise this would have taken a turn towards just watching me throw hundred dollar bills at the problem. :eek:

LOL Epoxy! :D
 
Haven't had much chance to shoot lately, so made a point of going out today to plink a bit with some different types of brass to see if there would be any accuracy issues between them.

Also, between each group I removed and remounted the scope, as I was curious as to whether the QD PEPR would hold zero if I had to take it off for some reason.

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So it looks like the PEPR is a winner for the zero test, with very little variance between 100 yard group locations. It would also appear that PMC, S&B and Winchester once fired brass is pretty much equal, and either Remington brass sucks, or I was losing concentration on the last group.

In order to be sure, I more shooting in my future. :)
 
Wow, it's been two months since I posted an unverifiable picture of a target that may or may not have been shot by me or my rifle at (multiples of) one hundred somethings.

However, even though spring has sprung, seeding plans must be made, machinery needs to be checked over and there are a thousand other things to do right away (if not sooner)...

...my new brass catcher showed up, so I went shooting. :D Nothing much has changed, except I now know that taking a picture of a black rifle while pointed into the sun just makes it look like a black vaguely rifle shaped object.

Oh, and Hornady Z-Max ammo isn't as accurate as my handloads. Be better on the zombies though I hope.

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Yeah, I bought it on a whim with some other stuff I was ordering, and it works very well as long as the bolt is operated quickly on ejection. Just a bag, some wire and a velcro wrap to hold it on, but for less than 20 bucks it serves the purpose quite nicely.

Because there's nothing worse than trying to find your brass when the gophers (zombies?) are charging and you need to relocate quickly. :)
 
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