Haven't posted here in awhile, and well, I can't do fusor all day every day for a variety of reasons. Since I'm in "social isolation" - not actually all that different then normal for me...I thought I'd finish up some long running projects before the parts all rust...
Some time ago I'd thought I would get into class F competition (super long range stuff), I had one Swede 6.5x55 that was extremely nice, I liked the ratio between the damage at the ends (easy on me, but the target, not so much) and they are legendarily accurate. So, I collected up a few old mauser actions (from 8mm surplus) and a few barrels, a few old stocks, and....I'll get pictures of the results once they are a little more presentable - I've just finished chambering them all, maybe - I may put a couple back on the lathe and make them all exactly equal so fire-formed brass from one fits the others too...so far, that doesn't seem to matter much but I'm not testing at real ranges yet - just the checkout one in my front yard, which is only around 30 yards.
But very handy since the firing point is right next to the workshop so I can make one round or some change, test it, repeat...and so on. And no proudction or swapping virus with other people like going out would entail (not to mention lost time). I have a 200 yarder on the back 40, once I get a neighbor to brush-hog down the weed trees that grow like, well, weeds.
At any rate, I'm also doing some casting, have a decent pot of real hard alloy, around Bh 17.5 that fills nicely, using a lyman mold that's getting me 135 gr or so bullets, which I turn the bases flat (nice to have a machine shop and jigs) and gas check. Once set up, the price is really right on these.
So, on the gun with the lightest barrel and stock, which wasn't a great fit for the action ... needs bedding really bad - I discovered that just a tiny bit of extra tightness by adding a shim under the front action screw, made a huge difference in grouping - for the better of course. And in fact, compared to a very nice Cooper .223 I've set RR&R Club records with...it looks like I'm going to be out of excuses. The bench and I are both wobbly, and the wind was howling but...30 yards is more like rock throwing range than real rifle range. At any rate, educational.
I also discovered how unreal the penetration of these cast bullet is compared to jacketed ones. In this picture of the back of a thick oak burl that my hyrdralic splitter couldn't scratch... all the lead ones went right through (and some through a 2x4 after that) - and none of the jacketed ones did! Jacketed were Win corelokt 120 gr in 6.5 (around 2.7k f/s) and sierra 53 gr (around 3.3k f/s) in 223.
The cast load is right on 1600 f/s and is only 20 gr of Varget - the jacketed 6.5 load is 40 gr of Varget (and still not a max load by any means).
I had, um, put that stump there to catch the jacketed full power loads because I didn't want them to skip off the ground and maybe go over my border...turns out the lead ones were the issue if any.
This is a fairly stout piece of oak - yeah, it's not super thick, but like I said - my splitter wouldn't touch it, and it's from a huge crotch in a healthy tree.
The range I'm using - nothing special other than you should be jealous if you don't have one like this (or the big one in the back). Makes this work easy and more fun. Shown is the gun I expect the least accuracy or looks from - This is a good one to make any mistakes with. I shortened a Douglas barrel because mud wasps had made a nest in the end, and SS does rust if you leave things like that in there long enough.
The bullets I'm testing - these are roughly at the lands due to very blunt tips. Jacketed ones have to be a little off the lands to go through the magazine, or for that matter, be in the neck of the brass.
And now for the front of the targets...
Before tightening things down, the difference in aim point was ...um... dangerously extreme? The crisp holes from the jacketed load not only grouped poorly (remember, 30 yards) but .. that's not the bull I was aiming at! 6 or so inches high and right at 30 is *embarassing*.
You can see the .223 group - none of those went through - since this gun puts that load all in the same hole at 200 meters...I guess I wasn't on form, but then again, it hadn't been fired in 2 years, so this isn't bad from a really cold and old bore.
Other groups all over the place were from previous sessions where I was trying to get the load crono'd and trying to figure out why they were so terrible...
And then there's that one - from a cold clean bore - that ain't so bad, even compared to a perfect rifle (it's all my bad it would seem). Upper right of the left target, marked "shim".
Can't wait to get to the really expensive match barrels and see how these work with real bedding and tuning...I'll need the big range to even see the errors, if I'm reasonably lucky.