10th Annual PD Trip Completed

[17cal Fan]

Just returned from our 10th trip to Area 406 and as always had a lot of fun. I burned up just over a thousand rounds in 6 days of shooting.
Calibers:
Marlin 60 22LR w/CCI Stingers
CZ 527 Varmint 17H w/Reloads-Nosler 20g BT
Marlin XS7 Custom 17 Fireball w/Reloads-Nosler 20g BT
CZ 527 Custom 22 Hornet w/Reloads-Barnes 30g VG
Marlin XS7 Custom 222 w/Reloads-Speer 50g TNT

Shot the 17 Fireball the most coming in at 430 rounds. Never cleaned it until I got home. Yesterday, before cleaning I fired 11 rounds at my 100 yard range. Wanted to finish off a 100 round box, see how it grouped filthy and see what it looked like on the chronograph.

Only got 3 shots through the chrono that were between 4000 and 4100fps which is what I expected.

Got three that were 4800 neighborhood which I know isn't correct. Muzzle blast or cloud cover, whatever. Got 4055 average for the 3 at the expected velocity.



Probably spent 50% of the time on the truck mounted ladder rack complete with 360 swivel benches and the other 50% shooting off tri-pods. We trailered a SxS Ranger with us this year and that worked out well except for driving a little slower while towing on the highway. When we took the truck into the fields we took the Ranger with us. Made some excursions with it, got back to some towns that worked for parking the Ranger and packing in tri-pods. Standing in sage brush just at the crest of a hill provided opportunity to do a number on some smaller towns. Got my barrel too hot on one small town but they were oblivious and I couldn't stop shooting.

If I could only take one rifle it would have to be the Fireball And the 222

 

[RegionRat]

Glad you got out and found some. Many areas were plagued-out this year.

What powder did you use in that load where you tested the gun dirty?

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

What weather conditions did you have, Canada wildfire smoke?

 

[RegionRat]

Canada wildfire smoke?

I'm just home from CO, WY, SD, ND and there was smoke haze the whole time. More in SD, ND than CO, but you could see the color of the sunrise and sunset was obviously different than just water haze.

 

[17cal Fan]

Glad you got out and found some. Many areas were plagued-out this year.

What powder did you use in that load where you tested the gun dirty?

One of our favorite towns had been poisoned but found plenty of other spots to work on. IMR 8208 in the Fireball shoots really well in mine.

 

[17cal Fan]

What weather conditions did you have, Canada wildfire smoke?

No smoke issues. Some rain but better ground conditions than last year.

 

[Geronimo Jim]

Where are the photos?

 

[17cal Fan]

Where are the photos?

Here's a before and after from the camcorder. Haven't downloaded them from my cell phone yet.

 

[RegionRat]

Score 10 from the American Judge!

 

[Prose]

My ND trip was plagued out badly. Maybe 1/10th the normal amount of dogs

 

[Big_Daddy]

My ND trip was plagued out badly. Maybe 1/10th the normal amount of dogs

We found the same on our ND trip.
I suspected plague but no info to confirm.

 

[JSH]

Terrible trip for me as well this spring, wet and sloppy mud, still washing Kansas, Oklahoma and Colorado mud out from under my truck.

Glad to see the 17FB worked out well for ya. I will agree the 8208 is a good powder. I switched to AA2200 just because I ran out of 8208.

I did find some H4198, had to buy a bunch of odds and ends of powder to get it though.