These rifles can be VERY accurate in the right hands and with the right bullet and load.
Travis don't mind me for sounding defensive BUT, Your critisizing something you obviously don't understand. When my buddy first bought his .308 we shot a box of factory cartridges and realized this was gonna get pricey fast, back in the club house we asked another guy who shot a .308 what he suggested. He said, 168 gr Sierra's, a certain amount of Varget powder, seat the bullets to the lengh in the book and used "x" brand primers, we went home did that and came back the next day. First 5 shots I made (my buddy gets me to prove his experiments) all 5 holes overlapped at 100M.
We had a KNOWN bullet, a KNOWN type and amount of powder and a KNOWN seating depth of the bullet with a Primer that never fails.
With this current project I have an UNKNOWN bullet, these are MY design I havn't just copied something I know works, I have and UNKNOWN powder I have never worked with before (no-one I know has used it before)
An UNKNOWN amount of powder , my only guide lines are safety guide lines, I can't look this up in a book where someone has writen down what worked for them and go from there like most people do with a Lymans book lying around.
And an UNKNOWN seating depth. With NO choice in primers.
To make things worse I only have regular access to 200 yds, while this might sound ok to someone building a load for a .223 it's mostly a waste of powder for a .50 cal. I have a bullet design here THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO WORK UNDER 500 YARDS.
Last weekend although I was hitting the center of the target with in a 4.5" circle from 300 yds I didn't have bullet holes I had KEYHOLES for most of them. If this doesn't make sense to you picture the bullet going in to the target at a 15-30 degree angle ,,,, try throwing a dart at a board sideways
and get results; for comarison I fired 3 shots with the Hornady 750 amax's i loaded (US 869/ 250 gr), from 300 yds. 3 V bulls; definately not the news I was looking for at the end of a long day, but I made a note that it would make a dynamite short range load for the gun.
Today I got out to 900 yds. and after some quick math and a good estimate (remember, experimental everything) I make the come up from 300 to 900 , shot 1 low in the dirt, 1 high just above the black circle , adjusted and the next dozen all were in the black of the target DURING A GUSTY/WINDY (upto 20mph) afternoon. (Ask any of the O.R.A guys from mons range today about this afternoons wind.)
I have no doubts that if I shoot at longer yardages and get a calmer day the groups will shrink drastically as even in a lousy windy day they weren't too hard to keep in the black.
Powder i'm working with is US 869 as I can no longer get my favourite one H5010. I find the recoil from H50BMG to be a little excessive and the powder being an "extreme" powder is alot more expensive. My goal is not only to get a bullet built that I can produce in quality and quantity but have a load that's so easily managable (for a 50) that I can shoot a 60 rd. F-class match by the end of summer with out needing a chiropractor or surgery.
Alder PM me and I'll see about getting you out to shoot the 50, you look like your fairly local to me.
I'm gonna post a pic below here, this was from a load that took about 6 weeks of experimenting to get. 205 gr. of H 5010 with a 647 gr. Ball , pulled bullet. There's a flyer that's my fault, I flinched just before breaking the trigger when a black powder gun beside me went off with no warning.
M.
