Started this build about a year ago when the Panda action was ordered so I was more than anxious to get started when the gunsmith texted me Friday afternoon and said the rifle was ready to be picked up. Friday night I loaded up ammo for the barrel break in.
First trip to the range on Saturday morning found me leveling the scope and breaking in the Lilja barrel. Break in went quickly and 16 rounds later, I was done in about 3 1/2 hours. Back home to drill and tap a fired case for my Hornady chamber length gauge, I always start my testing with the bullet just touching the rifling's. Then anneal, size and load a ladder test and back to the range. The wind cooperated and I managed a pretty much textbook, 15 round ladder test at 500 yards which showed two nodes. I picked the lower node, since I want to get a couple firings on this brass before I hit it hard, and annealed sized and loaded 15 test rounds for Sunday morning. I am only using 15 test cases to determine case life so I am constantly re-using the same cases. End of a long Day.
Today at dawn I was back at the range anxious to test the lower node at three seating depths. Lack of wind was good, presence of fog was not but I managed to get the test in, run home, anneal, size, get cases in tumbler and still make it to church and take my parents out to lunch for fathers day. The test by the way showed this Dasher likes the Berger 105 Hybrids jammed .005". The group was 1.543" at 500 yards but I was confident this rig could do better and my gun handling was at fault.
This afternoon I returned from lunch and headed right back out to the shop to load up for another test. Same load. This time I would use much less shoulder pressure on the gun and let it do it's thing. Difficult to adjust to your first Dasher when you have shot a WSM with 230's for years. Reward was a couple awesome groups. Five shots in .840" and four shots in .452" at 500 yards. The fifth low shot was the first shot out of a clean barrel so I am discounting that(with it 1.710"). 61 rounds through gun at this point. Will hopefully see if it holds up at 1K later on this week. Dave.
First trip to the range on Saturday morning found me leveling the scope and breaking in the Lilja barrel. Break in went quickly and 16 rounds later, I was done in about 3 1/2 hours. Back home to drill and tap a fired case for my Hornady chamber length gauge, I always start my testing with the bullet just touching the rifling's. Then anneal, size and load a ladder test and back to the range. The wind cooperated and I managed a pretty much textbook, 15 round ladder test at 500 yards which showed two nodes. I picked the lower node, since I want to get a couple firings on this brass before I hit it hard, and annealed sized and loaded 15 test rounds for Sunday morning. I am only using 15 test cases to determine case life so I am constantly re-using the same cases. End of a long Day.
Today at dawn I was back at the range anxious to test the lower node at three seating depths. Lack of wind was good, presence of fog was not but I managed to get the test in, run home, anneal, size, get cases in tumbler and still make it to church and take my parents out to lunch for fathers day. The test by the way showed this Dasher likes the Berger 105 Hybrids jammed .005". The group was 1.543" at 500 yards but I was confident this rig could do better and my gun handling was at fault.
This afternoon I returned from lunch and headed right back out to the shop to load up for another test. Same load. This time I would use much less shoulder pressure on the gun and let it do it's thing. Difficult to adjust to your first Dasher when you have shot a WSM with 230's for years. Reward was a couple awesome groups. Five shots in .840" and four shots in .452" at 500 yards. The fifth low shot was the first shot out of a clean barrel so I am discounting that(with it 1.710"). 61 rounds through gun at this point. Will hopefully see if it holds up at 1K later on this week. Dave.
Last edited:
