Canadian Full Bore Rifle Team travels to Guyana

It was crazy hot 45 - 48 with humidex and very little breeze, I've never felt so hot in my life.
The ammo was Hornady factory but 3 different loads to deal with and one in particular had all kinds of blown primers with shots going all over the place.
With my handloads, never had an issue at home or anywhere else with it.
The wind flags would blow in one direction and the mirage in another it was crazy but the Rum and beer was excellent so that helped to forget the issues on the range.
 
It was definitely a fun learning experience being it was my first international trip ever with a team. I have already got the x-mas wish list redone with more gear to help with the heat.

I had a blast, ammo issues aside.

I think a shout out is needed to say thanks to a couple guys for helping out a new shooter on the trip so in no specific order

Thank you to
-Gary Cassidy
-Paul Archer
-Gian Garro
-Tom Maynard
- the sergeant major

To anyone who is a newer shooter tr shooter I would definitely inquire about travelling with the West Indies team in the future. It's a great group of guys, and you will learn a ton spending the week shooting with them.

I'll try and get some pics of the trip loaded up soon.
 
One of the highlights of the trip was keegs shooting his first ever possible, 50.4 at 300 yards. This placed him in second for the match and winning a nice silver medal.
Some of the ammo was good (not as good as handloads) some of the ammo was ####E. Blown primers, leaky primers all over the range. I believe jimmyjazz had one of a possible 2 blown primers on the team. Other shooters had many more blown primers and I think one of the Falkland Islanders had 5 blown primers in one string of 12 shots.

Another positive note was Gary Cassidy shooting a 50.6 at 300, 50.4 at 500 and a 48.5 at 600 in the short range team match, with yours truly coaching. I will take full credit for the one missed wind call at 600 for a 4, the other 4 was just an unexplained out of the group shot.
 
Maynard,
Glad to hear you all had a good time and no one "drank the koolaid!"
Sucks about blowin primers...
Did you fellas autopsy a live one or two to findout causes?
Tight bore /fat bullet /high deviation in powder charge??
Was this the Guyanese 1967 surplus lot manufactured in Pakistan? :)
See ya in the spring
Winter well
Gord
 
big boar, the next West Indies Championship is in May in Barbados.

Gord, We could not take any ammo off the range but I did manage to get 76 pieces of brass. 20 had blown primers, 20 leaky primers, 25 that I fired from my rifle during the long range team match. 5 Pieces from a teammates rifle from the batch of Hornady Amax and 6 from the rifle of one of Guyana's top shooters.

The Amax rounds were not a problem except the GNRA seemed to think that they were not supersonic at 1000 yards. The problem ammo was the new Hornady Match ammo with the ELD Bullets.
 
Ongoing blown or leaky primers suggest that pressures were way beyond safe. Does measurement of case head diameter indicate marked case head expansion?
 
The base diameter of the cases with the blown primer measure between .475"-.476". The primer pockets on these case measured .212"-.219".
The cases with the leaky primers base measured .468"-.473" with the primer pockets measuring between .205"-.209". 3 out of the 20 cases from the leaky primers will not fit into any shell holder to allow depriming.
Measurements from Lapua cases fired several times from my rifle measure .470" at the base with a .206" primer pocket.

All fired cases were measured with an RCBS precision mic suggest all chambers were between -.001/+.001 on the headspace. I would think that this measurement would be consistent with any fired case from a fullbore event regardless of issued or handloaded ammo.
 
maynard said:
Another positive note was Gary Cassidy shooting a 50.6 at 300, 50.4 at 500 and a 48.5 at 600 in the short range team match, with yours truly coaching. I will take full credit for the one missed wind call at 600 for a 4, the other 4 was just an unexplained out of the group shot.
Click to expand...

At least Gary didn't turn his windage knob the wrong way and have the plotter to tell you about it later:p good thing you got your call right away.
 
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