My new baby girl, born 23-02-2006, 16lbs 12oz

[HPBT]

...awesome, nothing better than a good shooting iron, you'll have to join us at the range some day

 

[Kodiak99317]

For sure Mike, come on out. You should PM me your cell phone#, I always get a funny answering machine Mike... it time to get the coyote rig (22MR) shooting hot now..

So here's something to look at... from the eScore pgm, the first 20 matches (245 rounds) on one plot sheet...cool This is some short (300M-600yd) and some Palma's with good winds, all plotted on a 1000yd DCRA plot sheet. I'll have to buy the pgm now from Moonstone Systems Ltd at www.bluebarnacle.com and enter the rest

And again on a 1000 yd US Palma plot sheet...

 

[Kodiak99317]

I like 1 in 8 twists for VLD's myself and it looks like it works good enough with ity bitty 65g FB too!

I went out today and fire formed some 308 URBR brass I had made into 6-250 30 degree Imp cases using N135 under 65g Shilen FB bullets in my 1:8 twist Gaillard barrel lite with WSR primers. Make the brass for a wildcat is all part of the fun and reward once you get it right, IMO. I guess that makes me more of a wildcatter than a shooter, but I do enjoy the later greatly too! It would be too easy to use a 6br or 6.5x47 and I'd have nothing to do in the frozen north in the winter.

Here's the 5 shot ladder velocity test I did today, 45 rounds worth.

Chg ... Vel SD ES
34.1g 3347 45 116
34.5g 3402 19 50
35.1g 3428 13 38
35.5g 3470 06 16
36.0g 3490 12 38
36.5g 3525 06 18
37.0g 3573 15 43
37.5g 3615 12 35

I picked 36g as my fire forming load with these cases, went home, loaded up 48 more, went back out and fire formed them too. I was , not one single hang fire, even in this cold. I never had one sign of pressure at these velocity's/charges either so I could go up higher yet I was not after high velocity, I just wanted to fire form these cases and I have a few boxes of the 65g bullets around and many powders of N135 so I thought I would try it. I know I'm way over spinning these bullets with my 1:8 but for fire forming at point blank, who cares eh

I had a group measure approx. .150" at 100 yds

and one at 200 yds went .600" or 1/3 moa (pic below) on this second outing today. I held one of those 200 yds shoots off some since I could not see the group forming and I want to confirm I was printing were I thought I was (I guessed up 1 moa up from 100 yds, aimed and fired at this target) or she would have been at .400" center to center. I was using a 16x scope. Temp -6C or 21F. Wind was on my back, S 13 km or 8 mph.

Now all I have to do is ultrasonic clean the cases and match prep 'em (inside flash holes, uniform primer pockets depths, trim 'em all to the same length, outside neck debur and 30 degree inside chamfer, followed by another ultrasonic cleaning, weight 'em, and sort 'em by weight and do a H2O volume check of a few of them and cull any bad ones) Hoping for a 60 pk here of near perfect cases.

After this, once it warmers up (springtime) I will 1 shot powder ladder test on 10 of these fire formed URBR cases with naked 105g Lapua bullets and H4350 to see how they compare to my Lapua cases I used last year, velocity and group wise, then ladder test again with 4 different powders at 1000yds and 115g Tubbs, pick one of these powders, neck turn the high side of the necks off since they should be twice fired by this time, ultrasonic clean again, then test with 5 different primers to find the lowest ES and best SD and group, pick one of these primers and finally play with neck tension and setting depths. I figure this will take another 120-150 rounds to do these tests and I should have a good LR load worked up on the 115's and be ready for the first real LR club match in May of 2007.

My barrel has 1005 rounds down her right now and I'm hoping for +4000 rounds from her. Here is the case best I can measure.

 

[Kodiak99317]

1 Yr old Birthday present for my gal

NF 12-42x56MM BR with CH-3 and she's still under 17 lbs

Here's one thru the scope... thru a blind with 1/8" opening so the neighbours can't see, (Canada eh and thus the black at the bottom of the pic, that's the bottom blind slate), thru a picture window... the white globes are about 38 yds, the green pole is 75 yds and the rain gutter is 108 yds away.

The dot is .030 moa in size and at 22x the dot to a line is 1 moa, great for quick hold-offs of 1 moa, more or less than what you set it for, if the wind picks up or lets off more.

 

[Blackcloud]

Thats a nice rig you've got. Looks like you put some darn hard work into getting it where it is.

You'll love the NF products. I've had 2 on my tactical rifles and they are great scopes.

 

[Kodiak99317]

Went out Saturday April 7th and sighted in the new 12-42x56mm NF BR scope at 100 yds. Really nice, I'm very impressed and happy. The CH-3 crosshairs and dot are the smallest I have ever seen or used. Very nice!! Sure was nice on a BR target anyways, will have to see how she is on the big black of nothing LR targets Sunny -4C wind S 17 Km (tail from 6 pm)

5 shot 38g H4350 105g Lapua group on Savage brass - 3050 fps ( 1" circle )

2nd last test is tommorrow, I plan on picking the primer that has the best ES and SD of a 10 shots string test with 5 different primer types with a lighter load, 40g of H4831SC, just in case I find a really hot primer type and so things don't get From there a final ladder with the primer that wins and I hope to have her around 1/4 moa. She doing around 1/3 moa now and I should be happy but it just too much fun to just go out and

I figure the 115s should buy me .6 moa less wind drift at 1000 yds with a full value 10 mph cross wind and have the same come ups as the 105s, 24.6 moa from 100 yds to 1000 yds, looking forward to the new season!!! kds

 

[Mystic Precision]

Nice stuff. 2007 will have you shooting great scores again.

Good luck.

Jerry

 

[Kodiak99317]

Went out today (Easter Sunday, around noon -4 C, wind S 31 Km) and did the primer test.

All cases were loaded with 40.0g of H4831SC, 115g Tubb's

• Primer Type . . Vel.. ES . SDp SD Vel Change
• Rem 7 1/2 . . . .2919 33 09.5 10.1 +14.0 Hottest
• CCI-BR4. . . . . .2916 27 08.8 09.3 +11.5 2nd hottest, best group too.
• Fed205 . . . . . .2907 20 06.0 06.4 +2.0
• WSR . . . . . . . 2905 54 12.4 13 NONE used as std for test
• CCI 450 Mag. . 2896 64 22.4 24.2 -8.5 Slowest

I backed off my usual charge of 41.5g for this test, just in case I found a really hot primmer. I'd say the CCI-BR4's had the best group and a pretty good ES. I was surprised at how close the velocities were to each other, I was expecting more of a change... if I knew it would have been so little, I would have used my std load of 41.5g :confused-smiley-013:

It has been a great weekend. I have learned that moderate neck tension is better than really light tension, and that CCI-BR4 primers work best with 40+g of H4831SC, and I got to sight-in my new scope and set it up for prone(so I'm not crawling the stock), and I fired 110 rounds over two days.

All the test from the last two days with these 115s were all jumping .030" (Just touch is 3.142 and these were 3.112 - with a 1.000 gap on the calipers to allow for the Davidson base and ogive checker which combined are .950) so this is a base to ogive measurement. OAL of a just touch loaded round in 2.792"

 

[Kodiak99317]

Time for another update

I gave up on the 115's (until the throat goes longer ) and I used only 105g Lapua's this year in matches.

This year, I shot in the Howard match April 28th at Homestead and got a 4th place. The next match was the May 19th Victory Day match at Nokomis and I was 1st in F-O SR, 1st in F-O LR and 1st F-O overall followed by the June 9th LR Nokomis match were I got 1st Sat, 1st Sun, 1st Agg - shot 289/300 and I even shot two 4's (2 point ea) so only dropped 9 V's over two days out of 50 shots, I was happy with my results. The next match I made it to was the SPRA Annual were I got 1st in the LT Gov's in F-O, shooting 378 out of a possible 390. The first stage of the Gov's I clean, the 300 & 600, with 100-20V out of 100-20V. I was pretty happy with these scores to say the least. Following this match, a shooting buddy and I headed to Man for the MPRA Prov match were I managed a 3rd in the Lt Gov's there. This year, another shooting buddy and I put on the F Class Driller's match. Here I got a 1st in the group portion and small group of the day (a 2.945" 5 shot group at 600 yds), 2nd place in the score portion and 3rd place in the 1/2 moa Palma which we shot at 600 yds on a 300M DCRA target, and 800 and 1000 yds on a 500 yd DCRA target. These grp/score matches ran very well, so smooth, and we were done the grp/score 600 yd portion by 11 am in the morning. The 1/2 MOA (6,8,1000) Palma started at 1 pm and we were not finished until just after 6 pm. We were pulling targets for each other - next year it will be paid target markers

The final match of the year for me is coming up this weekend, the PPRA. I'm ready for it, just got my new powder and tested it last night, happy with a sub .2" group at 100 yds using my original load data with the new powder. Make's it easy when the velocity and groups are good using the old load data. The rifle now has 2,125 rounds down her after 2 years of competitions and practice sessions and she is still shooting very well.

I'm going to head out to Nokomis early (leaving Friday) so I can get together with the Treas. and do some math from the Driller's and also re-face some targets.

The year goes by too fast IMO and I'm already thinking about next years matches. Hope to see some of ya' out to either the PPRA or next years LR matches at Nokomis.

PPRA Results: I got 1st on Sat, 2nd Sunday and 2nd over-all in FO. 19 shooters were out, 7 TR and 12 FClass. Fishtailing south winds Sunday.

 

[Kodiak99317]

... happy with a sub .2" group at 100 yds using my original load data with the new powder.

I was totally wrong on this above statement, was looking at that test target again tonight and seen I had the two columns mixed up and that it needs .2g more in the Savage cases and .2g more or .2g less in the Lapua (both shoot really good in original test). Maybe that is why the vertical look twice as big as it should have be this past weekend!! Wish I would have seen this before loading up and shooting the PPRA with the old now bad loads! Very surprised to have pulled off a clean at 500 yds with a poor load!! I 've going to have to re-do this powder testing!! The powders are Higginson H4350 Lot# 4301 - old powder from 2006 and new lot, lot #4465, with a fresh battery in the chrony and with more sunshine! It was dusk last time, in a zero wind.

So how did I do? 1st in the Alberta agg - day 1 and 2nd in the Manitoba agg - day2, 2nd over-all in the Saskatchewan agg. I beat Inspector day 1 (3,5,6,9) by 2 points and he got me day 2 (5,6,9,10) by 10 points! That bigger case of his (in 7mm of 30 Cal, not sure which he used in the longer yardages) sure goes nice in the wind !

 

[TangoKilo]

Have you finally gotten that damn rifle of yours shooting?

It's neat that you were all about the short range BR then switched 80* to the very long range stuff. I guess the distance matters less than the skilled & xperianced operator behind the rifle!!

Tom

 

[Kodiak99317]

Thanks Tom.

Time for another update, I decided to try and equal out the weight that the rifle has on the front and rear bags and I have come close. I had to add rear weight (figured she was nose heavy with all that barrel up front) and so I had a smith make me a steel check piece. It adds 3.97713920648 lbs (1.804 kg on a postal scale) to the rear of the rifle and the front is now at 10 lb 14 oz and the rear is 10 lbs. The rifle's total weight is 20lb 14 oz (20.875 lbs) or 9.46874072 Kg so I still have room for the F-Open weight limit of 22.0462262 lbs or 10 Kg. If I want to shoot IBS Light Gun, I switch the check piece back to the original and she is just under 17 lbs.

I add two layers of blue colored foam over the steel to take away some of the early morning steel sting

I have took her out last weekend and fire formed some new brass for it and it shoots like a 6PPC HV now recoil wise with the added weight on the rear.

Here's a picture a 100yd 5 shot group fire forming last weekend, the 10 ring is 1/2" outside edge to edge. Mid 1's to low 2's (.410 wide edge to egde -.243 = .167"), wish I could get the 105's shooting like this at 100 & 1000, they shot approx 1/3 moa or mid 3's at these distances

My girl is growing up and getting fat eh LOL.

 

[Mystic Precision]

Very nice looking rig. Good luck with next season.

Jerry

 

[Kodiak99317]

Very nice looking rig. Good luck with next season.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry, the "next season" is upon us now and I have already fired another 689 rounds, 457 of these in comps. I have shot in Sacramento CA and three small local matches with her this year. She's at 3,132 rounds down her throat now (just about all 105g Lapua bullets over 38g H4350) and it is still very competitive.

I just hope she holds out for the end of this year, another 1,191 rounds, or at least until my main events are through, (after the APRA, SPRA, BPRA Provincials and Douglas Ridge F Class match (only 671 more to go for just these)). If she goes the "distance" to the end of the year, she will have a mere 4,270 down her. I plan on shooting her until she is no longer competitive, meaning over 1/2 moa. and since BC and DRidge use 1/2 moa targets, I should have a pretty good idea if she is still good after those matches.

I already have a new Gaillard 6mm 1:8T Max HV 30" barrel and a new PT&G reamer (with a bigger base this time, more like Lapua cases) so I'm good even if she craters. Should just be a week or so and she'd be back up and running.

 

[Mystic Precision]

Kodiak, that is fantastic mileage. Hopefully, it will keep going strong till the season is over.

My Mystics gave up the ghosts recently. Shooting great, then a few out, then "time for new pipes". Both are in the high teens so not bad compared to the 6.5-284 but nothing like what you are getting.

Good luck with the rest of the season. wish I had the time to travel to various matches.....

Jerry

 

[Kodiak99317]

2008 Year in one post

The year's matches were again pretty good. Started things out in March at Sacramento in the CanAm matches(Pairs shooting), didn't get any bling but had a great time and shot pretty well, best there were 100-8x at 300 yd, 100-5x at 500 yds, 99-4x at 600 yds, 98-5x at 800 yds, 92-2x at 900 yds and 88-0 at 1000 yds. I was my first time shooting on the US F Class targets and they are tough let me tell ya'!

Here's a picture of them (300 yd, 600 yd and the LR 8,9,10 target) with add in centers the APRA uses and the white dots we shot at in BC prov's. The coin on the 300 yds is a toonie for sizing along with a tape measure, and my bling from last US match

Next was the SPRA Vic Day, took a 2nd's each day and 1st in the Agg. Next was the SPRA LR match, but it was a rain out really, we shot some of it and Inspector and I were tied with 100-17 each out of 100-20 possible after the 600 and 800 yd ranges we did get in that day. Next was the APRA's Provincials, held at the SPRA range due to a road wiped out out west. Took Silver in each of the the 7 events I was in and Inspector took 1st in all of them. Great shooting Glen! Next was the SPRA's Prov's, took the Lt Gov's there with 192/210. Only managed to get another 2 cleans in all of these local matches and it was at our Provincial's.

Next, went to the BC Provs at Volks range with Inspector...

Inspector, myself, B. Watts and Ron Herms (also a SPRA member) joined up to make the PPRA Rifle team. Only managed middle of the pack in BC myself, then down to Douglas Ridge Rifle Club South East of Portland, near Clackmas OR following the BC Provincial match, which makes up the PNW F Class International match (also shot in pairs like here in Canada)

Fog/mist at the 800 above

AND she (the barrel) finally went "BLAH", probably around 3760 and got retired at 3799 rounds. I wanted to see a barrel go south or BLAH and it did. She shot great the first day down at Douglas Ridge, 149-9x at 800 yds for 1st, 144-5x at 900 for 2nd, 142-4x at 1000 yds for 4th (maybe she was starting here...). The next day, the first yardage at 900 yds was were I saw it. Started out pretty good, 10's or X's for the first 10 rounds and then, BLAH. An 8 followed by another 8 then a 9 and a pair of 10's, and all in different directions from center, some up and left some low and right. Ended with 145-2x at this 900 yd match. The next two yardages were also interesting. x,9,10,x,x,9,9,9,10,10,x,10,10,9,9 at 900 for a 144-3x and again, some up, some down, some left, some right and I would check the other targets and they showed a slight left since all shots were just left of center for the other shooters. The 1000 was 10,9,9,9,9,9,9,8,8,10,9,9,10,x,9 for a 137-1x. Next was the 900 yd team match, so I borrowed a rifle from a team mate (Ron Herms, a 260) to shot it in and shot a 148-8x so I knew I was shooting good, had to be my rifle. Talked to Ron and we swapped rifles for the first match of the next day Relay 1 at 1000 yds. Ron was shooting a "fill-in" on Relay 1 so another shooter (me) was NOT stringing, so Ron's score would not be counted, he was actually on Relay 2. Ron agreed, she was cooked. He told me he was having problems just staying on the black aiming mark and that is the 7 and it is 44" wide and tall and I saw it too. He actually did not fired the last round (I was on the right) and handed her back to me.

I used Ron's 260 backup rifle to complete the next and last 1000 yd match for a 140-3x plus the team 1000 yd match and that 260 shot did good, I turned in the highest score at the 1000 yd team that day, a 144-3x using Ron's 260 shown below. Ron rifle is a RPA in 260 using a McRee modular type BR stock

Our team took 2nd (Silver) in BC and first at DRidge shown here with our Gold patches.
L to R: Ron Herm, Glen Taylor, Keith Skjerdal (me), Bill Watts and Stan Pate, the DRRC Pres.

After the match at DRRC, drove back to Calgary and had a good look in the bore. Cooked out about 3-5" with zero rifling, then another 3" of it all fire cracked and the rifling starting to show as you go deeper with the borescope. Finally about the 9" mark the rifling looked good as new again so you would have to cut a good 7" off the 27 1/2" barrel, but that would not be good for velocity with only about 21 1/2" of barrel. Left her (less scope), a new Gaillard 1-8 6mm that finishes at 30", and my dies and new chamber reamer and my hard case with HR's place Sunday morning and she was back in my hands Wednesday after work with a new barrel installed, the old barrel re-chambered with the new reamer(for fireforming brass), both dies as well touched up and a Rem rear entry action wrench I asked him to make for me too. Great service, great work and at a very good affordable price I will say too. Thanks HR!

So I just pushed the rounds I did not fire at the DRRC match back (a lot so they were just touching the new barrels lands) and broke in the new barrel last Saturday and she shoot pretty good IMO for the conditions, with no flags, fire forming for the new chamber too. These rounds tured out to be on the warm side, she shoots alot better at 1/2g less then these barrel break in loads.

The new reamer is larger at the rear so I no longer have to use the small base die to size the bases way down. After the shot one and clean for 10 and a set of 2 rounds x 5 and clean at each set of 2, here is her first 5 shot.

Then her first 10 shot after cleaning again...

and 15 shot (I changed the scope down 3/4 moa of the last two rounds, I like to shot 10's eh...) after cleaning again...

And here's a 9 shot that same day...

At the Driller's match I tried different loads for the 3 groups I shot at 600 yds. The first load of 38.4g of H4350 produced a 5.629" 5 shot group. The 2nd load of 38.6g produced the winner at 2.560" and the 3rd load of 38.8g produced a 4.028" group. I won the group agg with a 4.072" average group size at 600 yds on the 300M target and the small group award, plus the next day in the mini Palma (call it that since we use the 300M at 600, the 500yd at 800 & 1000 yds, thus a 1/2 moa V bull) I won it too with a mere 201/270.

The last match, the PPRA was a hoot, with lots of guys, and the big 1 MOA V's (all but one of the PPRA Rifle team was there), strong SW to W winds Saturday and then switching to a fresh North to NE wind Sunday and then NE Monday for the team shoots. (UPDATE: The weather guy was right! ~ I was happy with the way the new barrel shot at the PPRA and managed 3 cleans, 1 at 600 and 2 at 900, 50-10's, plus alot of 50+'s at the other ranges)

Now that the PPRA is over, I have switched barrels over to the 308 barrel I had made up some 930 days ago. Have to work up some LR loads from her. My plan is to save the 6mm for the bigger matches, like Provincials, the PPRA and any I travel to next year, like maybe even Ottawa and use this 308 for the smaller local matches and shot FF for a while, probably with 154 FB for the 300M and 5(since I have about 2000 left from Hunter BR days, may even try some 135 Chism's), and 154 Scenar for the 600 and out or even some 175g 30 Cal Berger's in a VLD.

Here's the new/old 308 barrel's break-in using 247c or 39.7g of N135 and 154g FB Dalgetty bullets at 2718 fps - this is not a tuned load yet... just to break her in, but it does show some promise and it looks to be a good barrel. Note: shot 3 thru 5 thru this barrel (on the line between T1 and the Sighter) There is 52 rounds on this target... again at 100 yds without flags

Went out again after removing the barrel bedding in front of the action the following weekend, Sept 13th. This eliminated some of the verticle. Wind was a head wind from 7-12 mph. Load development for the 308, all shots at 100 yds without flags.

42.0g N135 with 154g FB at 2812 es10 sd5.5 - 3 shots

42.5g N135 with 154g FB at 2860 es14 sd7.8 - 3 shots

44.0g N135 with 154g FB at 2946 es12 sd6 - 3 shots

The last two loads (43.5 and 44g N135) should slight pressure so I'm going with the 42.5g load, even though the 44g load had the first 2 thru the same hole.

Shot the 308 first, then switched barrels to confirm the 6-250 still shots too.

9 shots thru the 6-250 - winds stronger, around 10-14 mph

I'm happy, both barrels shot as well as can be expected without any wind flags.

Went to again Sept 20th to test how far off the POI and the scope crosshairs are after removing and replacing the scope, and to re-test the 6-250 for the best load with the 105's again now that it is free floated (without changing barrels for this test but when I do change I have to R&R the scope so the action wrench does not take out the scope!) and found that you can be anywhere's from 1.25 moa to 3 moa out after R&R'g the scope! Ouch eh. But it was a great day, temp was cool at 6C or 42F, wind was SE from 7.3 to 13.2 mph, RH about 70%. I was really happy with the load I found at 100 yds using 2 wind flags and the wind meter at the bench, here's the best 3 shot group of the day. I know, 3 is not a group, 5 is, but this is just for load developement, not records The white area is 2.500" in diameter and the 10 ring is 0.5". T5 is at 38g pf H4350 with 105 Lapua Scenars and goes 3021 fps, good, i.e., Sonic till just past 1400 yds!

T3 is were the R&R of the scope happened and T3 and T4 are the same load. I increased the load .5g per target, except T3 & T4. and shot them in S, T5, T4, T3, and T2 order like I do in HBR class.

Went out again for practice and load work (bullets just touching the lands) on Oct 1st, Oct 19th (fire forming new brass at Nokomis), and finally Nov 22, 2008. All of these trips were with the 308 barrel on again. She likes total free recoil, 45.5g Varget, 154g Scenar, 210M, 329 bushing, 12 thou thick case necks. It was really windy today, started out SW 31 k then switched to W 54 k. Not the best day for testing, but the temps were good. 6c to 8c, not bad for the end of Nov in Saskatchewan! Still have one final test and that's touching to 80 thou jump in 20 thou moves. Want to see if I can get my ES tighter See ya's next year.