First attempt at precision rifle

J

jon1985

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Location
Carleton Place, Ontario
To start, I am very new to this type of shooting. I have done a little bit of shooting from a bench, but very little, and never with a rifle I was happy with the setup or feel, and certainly never with loads developed for this rifle.

Rifle: using my rem 700 SPS Varmint in .223, 24" barrel, 1:12 twist rate
load: projectile-will be testing loads with 35/40/45 grain projectiles, not sure of exact projectiles yet but Im open to suggestions.
powder- I will be using BLC-2 to start

Stock-magpul hunter 700 with magpul bottom metal, will be using MDT AI polymer mags. This stock should allow me to adjust the check height aswell as LOP. Obviously not the same quality as an AI or Cadex stock, but I have read lots of good things about these stocks.

Scope: Vortex Viper 6.5-20x50

Future upgrades: I will likely swap out the factory trigger sooner or later.


Expectations: I figure with these light loads I should be able to push them pretty fast. Factory Winchester 40 grain are running about 3800 fps. I wont be shooting further then 200 yards on a regular basis so the light projectile shouldn't be to much of an issue. Once I can shoot sub MOA reliably and need more range I will look at moving to something in the .308/6.5CM range.

Im open to suggestions of any type, but for now the equipment is more or less set.
 
I started with almost the same gun, and after shooting it a bit I got the accuracy bug and the stock barrel no longer did it for me.

I would slap a timney 510 on it and just shoot like crazy. Anything searra will shoot good. Try a few different bullet and powder combos.

Mine really liked 55gr smks with benchmark powder.
 
jon1985 said:
Rifle: using my rem 700 SPS Varmint in .223, 24" barrel, 1:12 twist rate
load: projectile-will be testing loads with 35/40/45 grain projectiles, not sure of exact projectiles yet but Im open to suggestions.
powder- I will be using BLC-2 to start

Stock-magpul hunter 700 with magpul bottom metal, will be using MDT AI polymer mags. This stock should allow me to adjust the check height aswell as LOP. Obviously not the same quality as an AI or Cadex stock, but I have read lots of good things about these stocks.

Scope: Vortex Viper 6.5-20x50

Future upgrades: I will likely swap out the factory trigger sooner or later.
Click to expand...

I have the same rifle topped with a sightron, thwacked many hundred gophers. I had accuracy issues pushing the little pills, found the 52gn a-max with 24gns of N133 behind gave 3150ish fps and had very satisfying terminal ballistics šŸ˜Š

Great place to start for sure!
 
Not necessarily, my 1-12 loved Sierra 60gr varminter, but 62gr bullets would tumble and hit the target sideways
 
I've got a 22-250 with a 1-14" twist barrel that really likes Nosler 55gr Ballistic tips. They are running about 3800 fps too so your gun may like a little heavier bullet. Try 50's and see how it goes. I've never had good luck with accuracy shooting light bullets really fast.
 
Lighter bullets, while moving faster initially, lose their speed and get tossed around by the wind. Have you found a ballistic calculator? You can run the numbers and see. The wind drift on a 77gr smk at, say, 500 yards, will be much better than the wind drift on a 55gr. The wind will blow your shots around and will cause misses. The farther you go, the more pronounced the effect is. Also, the farther you go, there can be different winds. My first time shooting at 900m i started to get the hang of reading left to right winds, then there was a wind blowing towards me from the target butts. Blew my round up vertically. Shooting f-class is a good way to start. That way you start reading the wind, and can see what guys are shooting. But, if your goal is to shoot PRS matches, don't focus too much on getting an f-class rig together, as it won't be the right configuration for PRS shooting.

Also, match bullets are pretty much where it's at, for precision rifle shooting. Berger's usually are the best. Hornady and Sierra coming close in after. For a .223, and if you want to shoot long, you'll need a 1:8 or 1:7 twist match barrel. Krieger, Bartlein, and others are good. If you rebarrel, you'll want a good smith to put it together and true your action. You do not need to true your action unless you rebarrel to a match barrel. And yes, get a good trigger. Timney's are my personal favourite.

Good luck, and damn, you have more shooting to do. lol
 
Horse96 said:
Lighter bullets, while moving faster initially, lose their speed and get tossed around by the wind. Have you found a ballistic calculator? You can run the numbers and see. The wind drift on a 77gr smk at, say, 500 yards, will be much better than the wind drift on a 55gr. The wind will blow your shots around and will cause misses. The farther you go, the more pronounced the effect is. Also, the farther you go, there can be different winds. My first time shooting at 900m i started to get the hang of reading left to right winds, then there was a wind blowing towards me from the target butts. Blew my round up vertically. Shooting f-class is a good way to start. That way you start reading the wind, and can see what guys are shooting. But, if your goal is to shoot PRS matches, don't focus too much on getting an f-class rig together, as it won't be the right configuration for PRS shooting.

Also, match bullets are pretty much where it's at, for precision rifle shooting. Berger's usually are the best. Hornady and Sierra coming close in after. For a .223, and if you want to shoot long, you'll need a 1:8 or 1:7 twist match barrel. Krieger, Bartlein, and others are good. If you rebarrel, you'll want a good smith to put it together and true your action. You do not need to true your action unless you rebarrel to a match barrel. And yes, get a good trigger. Timney's are my personal favourite.

Good luck, and damn, you have more shooting to do. lol
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. For now I am going to stick with the facotry barrel (1:12) and accept Im probably limited to 3-400 yards, my range only goes to 200, but I have some private property I can get to about 350, and a friends range I can get to 1000. Once Im bored at my .223 ranges I will look at going bigger, 308 or 6.5CM maybe.
 
Got out this weekend with the new stock and what a difference. I went from 2-3" groups down to 1" groups @ 100. I suspect alot of that is simply being more comfortable behind the rifle, but I suspect some is because its now bedded.

Time to start working up loads for it. Going to pick up bullets ranging from 40-62g and load it with BLC-2 and see how it goes.
 
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