Long range rifles

Maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought Eley made the wolf stuff...

 

most in my area are using various SK match, and Lapua. I am running SK red and Lapua Center X. The Center X is crazy accurate, but the red out shoots me most days. I kept the Red around to practice and plink. Either way, and maybe you already know this, but you want a sub sonic match round.

 

Question for you guys,
I know my guns chamber is 0.273" neck Dia. And 0.120" free bore.
Now what can I do with this info to make better precision ammo?
Chambered in 6mmGT.

 

This is more of just a reloading question, and is not exclusive to long range shooting.

1) A bushing die at a minimum, but a mandrel die would be better to set neck tension. That said, knowing the diameter of the chamber is less important. Brass thickness will vary by load and brand. Best to just measure off that.

2) It’s good to know where your throat is but it’s more important to know where the lands and groves begin. Usually you will want a minimum of .002ths of the lands. This is for safety, so the gun headspace’s correctly and the bolt closes. From .002 off the lands (jammed), once you have the velocity you want, you can do some tuning during load development by testing seating depth. I’ve had mostly good luck with about .002 jump…not to be confused with jam.


The rest you have to figure out for THAT rifle.

 

I figure long range shooters would be the best knowledgeable resource to pose these questions. I come from a hunting background with nobody local that cares to shoot precision or they view precision as being able to hit a deer at 200yrds.
I have bushing dies, never messed around with a mandrel but I'll look further into it.
I currently set my neck tension to 0.001 and I trim match all my case necks to 0.012 +/- 0.0001. This leads to loaded cartridge neck diameter of 0.267".

I didn't/don't know if I should be doing something different with cartridge neck diameter to closer match chamber neck diameter of .273. Seems like alot of room for slop to me. Maybe not?

As for the free bore question- I have/use a hornady oal gauge to measure the lands and start my loads 0.003" off and load develop from there. Don't care to use COAL anymore due to inconsistencies compared to using ogive for my point of reference per case. Is freebore specs just a given number so when I need a new barrel I can make sure its chambered the same?

For what its worth the rifle consistently shoots 10shot 1/4moa groups but has occasional flyer that opens group to 1/2 moa. Probably 1 in 6 is a flyer. ES is 12fps. My goal is to remove flyers.

 

Mandrel dies will typically give you the most consistency in terms of run out, but with the caveat that you anneal, have a verified accurate throw and so forth.

If you have the realistic expectation of accuracy and you don’t fancy to be a placing competitor in precision shooting, you’ll probably be fine enough with a bushing dies, and doing whatever you’re doing.

What brand rifle is it and who smithed it? Most 6mm’s are .270 at the mouth of the case so .273 would allow for manufactures like Lapua that come a little thicker. At the base of the neck right before the shoulders it’s “suppose to be” around .272, so either way you measured it seems correct to me. Off the top of my head.

Free bore is place for the bullet to ease into the land and grooves. Of course, it’s not why freeborn exist, BUT we who like to use heavy for caliber and high BC secant ogives projectiles like more leade, because it allows us to load those longer projectiles.

When rebarreling you can add whatever free bore you want, within reason. Old remington 700s use to have a lot right from the factory. The chambering dimensions should already be set, by SAAMI specs, and a appropriate reamer should be available for the cartridge in questions. That’s how your gunsmith will do
it. Those standards only vary a little when we start talking about wildcat cartridges like a .338 edge or something, because it’s left to a gunsmiths interpretation and ability to build a reamer for the cartridge.

About .03ish is usually the standard set for jump, however, you’d might be surprised how factory rifle barrels can differ.


Fliers:
It’s hard to say. There’s a few reasons usually.

Probably in 90% of most cases, it’s relative to a cold shooter. There usually is no “cold barrel” deviation.

Another common reason is barrel warming up from the first 3-4 shots. A way to check ES/SD/MV cold shooter AND to eliminate barrel expansion from heat is to wait a good while between shots. Like 5-10 minutes. If that’s the case, and you lose the fliers, the remedy is going with a heavier barrel profile, or shoot 3 shot groups.

 

Impact 737r action and barrel chambered by Wade Stuteville.
Looking further in mandrels- I'll be going that route. With current bushing set up I'm seeing .003-.008 run out which isn't acceptable to me. I've tried the o-ring and a few other tricks without much improvement.
I'm gathering in order to do this properly I'll pick up a smaller bushing shooting for close to .003 tension from it, then pass the brass through the mandrel to upsize it to desired tension. Annealing will be required per firing or brass will have very short life. Burstfire gen 2 annealer ordered.
The mandrel and new bushing set up with either be through 21st century innovation or short action customs. I'm not sure you can go wrong with either choice.

 

Well, just like everyone said.
It was a perfect year to the date and I got the call this morning that my CAN paperwork finally came back.
Allmost like they wait a full year.
No more long form for me. Lol

 

Happy jailbreak day!

 

I did me one of those also, would you believe I ended up selling it for $750. I think I paid $89 for the original Mosin

 

So I finally got my canAnd and went and did my pulmonary test run not really expecting much because several years earlier when I test ran a can on this set up from another manufacturer, I really wasn’t impressed at all and at the time all it did was trim off enough decibels just to make it tolerable to shoot without air plugs. But with the Sandman L.
I couldn’t be more impressed and satisfied with the results. A night and day difference from what I had tested a couple years prior. The damn gun is just a pleasure to shoot now.

 

Breaking in the TBAC ultra 9 yesterday at my buddies range. Kinda impressed with the TBAC well not just kinda really impressed by it. Not only is it incredibly quiet on the 6.5 the POI shift was 0 horizontal and .3 mils down and a big part of that was last time I zeroed it was about 30 degrees hotter

I decided to join a private range facility right now they go out to about 1100 with plans to buy up some of the parcels surrounding the range to expand the long range platforms

 

Anyone have experience with 300PRC?
Looking at it as a bigger caliber option for over 1000 yard target shooting. Preferably factory rifle but not totally opposed to reasonably priced action and barrel options to put into a chassis.
Kinda looking at savage 110 elite precision in mdt chassis but savage....... really wish tikka had a 300prc offering in the tac a1

Not really looking for a 300wm vs 300prc debate

 

I made a .300 PRC off a remington 700 long action a few years ago. What abouts it?

 

Overall thoughts about it being a solid choice for larger caliber long range platform without needing to step up to .338LM
There's real potential my new range will be expanding beyond 1400 yards and

$99 1400b BISSELL Little Green Multi-Purpose Portable Carpet and Upholstery Cleaner, Car and Auto Detailer, with Exclusive Specialty Tools, Green, 1400B

1400b is about where the 6.5 starts to fall off(can't hear impact anymore etc?

 

….it’s as simple or complicated as you want it to be. As is everything in long range shooting.

I’ll start by correcting myself. I built this rifle actually almost 5 years ago. Between having a collection of these types of guns and being blown up too many times, it’s getting hard to remember stupid details like this.

Ballistically, it fills little void. I’m sure you already heard, or have look at this but in terms of case capacity, it exceeds the .300 wm, but is exceeded by the .300 rum.

The benefit is the PRC neck design, which allows for those longer bullets, and the fact that it’s not headspaced off 30 degree shoulders and not a belt.

That is if you compare it to “common” cartridges, on a table top. A .300 norma wipes the floor, ballistically speaking, but you would have to know, you need a LM size action for that.

In my findings, I wasn’t too difficult to see that the PRC shines in the 200-220 grain bullet length to maximize BC. 1400y isn’t shit for any of the magnums. I usually still have dial mils left over to dial on a milk jug at 1760y. You’ll be fine at less than a mile.

 

Always enjoy reading your posts. Even though a lot of it goes completely over my head, I have a basic overall idea of what you're talking about. I'm impressed by, and like to learn what I can when I'm listening to someone that has a focused understanding of a particular subject.

 

Thanks. I apply a lot of this professionally. Unfortunately, I know I’m not a good teacher on the subject, but I was fortunate enough on uncle sams dime to have phenomenal teachers over many years, especially as the subject grew over the last decade. It takes a certain personality.

 

Thank you great response. I'm definitely looking to keep it below LM action size. Plus cost per round is a little better than say .338LM and 300PRC is a little easier to find than some other specialty cartridges besides 300wm in that range.
(No handloading set up yet) so need to source factory ammo.

It's an intriguing round still debating which way to go doing something like a defiance action build is not off the table

 

Yep. I can absorb as much knowledge as possible, but at the end of the day there's really no substitute for hands-on experience, especially when it's what you're getting paid to do for a living.