This is one of those stories about a rifle that never was tuned in because it was difficult and other rifle projects took priority.
About a year and a half ago I bought a 26.5” Douglas barrel chambered in 6.5X47 from the marketplace here on Accurate Shooter. It was set up for a Remington 700 Action. I had read many times how accurate this cartridge is and was looking forward to shooting some groups in the .2s or less.
I wasn’t experienced enough at the time to ask what size recoil lug was used to set the head space but quickly found out that none of the ones I had in my box of Remington stuff worked. Additionally, this Remington action had been trued by a local gunsmith. Now that I know what truing is, I am not sure what was actually done to my action but clearly some metal was removed from the shoulder junction of the action. At the time I was a new lathe owner and did what any self respecting amateur ‘gunsmith’ would do which was to order the closest recoil lug I could find and remove a little metal off the shoulder, tenon and recess. It was less than .004” Easy enough right?
For a stock I had a Cadex Lite Competition chassis that I was no longer using. I have moved way from chassis stocks in favor or wood or laminated stocks because I like they way the look, prefer their ergonomics and they are easier to bed and doing so does not destroy their resale value like it does on a reamed-out/drilled-out aluminum chassis. I have made no modifications to the Cadex chassis at this time.
I had a great Nightforce ATACR scope that was not being used and set up the rifle with a Nightforce steel 20 MOA rail. Having upgraded several X-Mark Pro triggers with the inexpensive Jard upgrade parts, (trigger and sear) I did the same to this rifle. Having gotten used to completion triggers, I later upgraded the trigger to Bix’n Andy Tac Sport Pro set to it’s lightest safest pull weight, somewhere under 6 ounces.
At various times, I’d put together 20 rounds and shoot some 100 yard test groups. The rifle never shot anything better than a .5. This was using a JoyPod and Bigfoot rear rest. At 100 yards you can clearly see where the shot broke, the movement of the scope off target, if there was any and call any flyers. I didn’t see any bad trigger pulls.
Having competed in F-T/R for the past 2 years, I figured that finding a load and tuning it would be easy. Competition season is over and it would be fun to have a mid range open rifle to play with at club matches so, I got serious about finding a load.
In the current environment, I didn’t want to waste components and am somewhat limited to supplies on hand. I have a few hundred 140 Berger Hybrid Target bullets and reading multiple posts here that seems like a reasonable choice for a rifle such as mine. It seems like most of you shooting this round out of a similar length barrel with the same projectile are shooting in the mid to high 2800 FPS range and most of your posts indicated that you are seated 20 thousandths or less off the lands and in a few cases into the lands.
I started at .020 off the lands and worked my way in. I settled on 40.6 grains of H4350 in Lapua brass using the BR4 primer. This yields a consistent MV of about 2870 FPS. Initial testing showed an SD of just over 3 but that is not consistent as I have shot several more groups. I’ve recorded SDs as high as 15 FPS. The average SD of all groups I have shot at this charge weight is now 10 FPS.
This was the result of the first round of testing:
The far right of the graph, 2.132 represents .004 into the lands while the far left, 2.105, represents .023 off the lands. The blue line is MOA at 100 yards while the red line is SD. So as you look from left to right the seating depth is getting closer to the lands. While high .4s are nothing to crow about, this was better than the previous best .5s and it looks like a stable node. The graph seems to indicate that testing both deeper into the lands and further out than .023 off might yield better results though, I'd rather not jam unless I have to. Below is the result of further testing:
I did confirm that 2.123 which is .005 off the lands does shoot okay but, whatever is going on at 2.105 or .023 off the lands does not seem like it is in a very forgiving node. Maybe testing even further off the lands will yield better results.
I had a chance to shoot at 1000 yards just a few days ago and loaded 20 rounds at .005 off and stayed focused on the .5 MOA steel at that range. It shot about what you'd expect. The first shot was just off the target and 8 out of the next 19 were impacts. All of the misses were close but hard to tell how close exactly when looking at dirt splashes. Wind was under 5 MPH and while a factor, not a significant one.
I will keep testing and will likely adjust the powder charge to improve SD but wanted to see if you guys with much more experience with the caliber had some advice to share.
Thank you in advance for your expertise and for the long read,
Henryrifle
P.S. I just edited this post to fix muzzle velocity typo. Had originally typed 2770 but true MV is 2870.
About a year and a half ago I bought a 26.5” Douglas barrel chambered in 6.5X47 from the marketplace here on Accurate Shooter. It was set up for a Remington 700 Action. I had read many times how accurate this cartridge is and was looking forward to shooting some groups in the .2s or less.
I wasn’t experienced enough at the time to ask what size recoil lug was used to set the head space but quickly found out that none of the ones I had in my box of Remington stuff worked. Additionally, this Remington action had been trued by a local gunsmith. Now that I know what truing is, I am not sure what was actually done to my action but clearly some metal was removed from the shoulder junction of the action. At the time I was a new lathe owner and did what any self respecting amateur ‘gunsmith’ would do which was to order the closest recoil lug I could find and remove a little metal off the shoulder, tenon and recess. It was less than .004” Easy enough right?
For a stock I had a Cadex Lite Competition chassis that I was no longer using. I have moved way from chassis stocks in favor or wood or laminated stocks because I like they way the look, prefer their ergonomics and they are easier to bed and doing so does not destroy their resale value like it does on a reamed-out/drilled-out aluminum chassis. I have made no modifications to the Cadex chassis at this time.
I had a great Nightforce ATACR scope that was not being used and set up the rifle with a Nightforce steel 20 MOA rail. Having upgraded several X-Mark Pro triggers with the inexpensive Jard upgrade parts, (trigger and sear) I did the same to this rifle. Having gotten used to completion triggers, I later upgraded the trigger to Bix’n Andy Tac Sport Pro set to it’s lightest safest pull weight, somewhere under 6 ounces.
At various times, I’d put together 20 rounds and shoot some 100 yard test groups. The rifle never shot anything better than a .5. This was using a JoyPod and Bigfoot rear rest. At 100 yards you can clearly see where the shot broke, the movement of the scope off target, if there was any and call any flyers. I didn’t see any bad trigger pulls.
Having competed in F-T/R for the past 2 years, I figured that finding a load and tuning it would be easy. Competition season is over and it would be fun to have a mid range open rifle to play with at club matches so, I got serious about finding a load.
In the current environment, I didn’t want to waste components and am somewhat limited to supplies on hand. I have a few hundred 140 Berger Hybrid Target bullets and reading multiple posts here that seems like a reasonable choice for a rifle such as mine. It seems like most of you shooting this round out of a similar length barrel with the same projectile are shooting in the mid to high 2800 FPS range and most of your posts indicated that you are seated 20 thousandths or less off the lands and in a few cases into the lands.
I started at .020 off the lands and worked my way in. I settled on 40.6 grains of H4350 in Lapua brass using the BR4 primer. This yields a consistent MV of about 2870 FPS. Initial testing showed an SD of just over 3 but that is not consistent as I have shot several more groups. I’ve recorded SDs as high as 15 FPS. The average SD of all groups I have shot at this charge weight is now 10 FPS.
This was the result of the first round of testing:
The far right of the graph, 2.132 represents .004 into the lands while the far left, 2.105, represents .023 off the lands. The blue line is MOA at 100 yards while the red line is SD. So as you look from left to right the seating depth is getting closer to the lands. While high .4s are nothing to crow about, this was better than the previous best .5s and it looks like a stable node. The graph seems to indicate that testing both deeper into the lands and further out than .023 off might yield better results though, I'd rather not jam unless I have to. Below is the result of further testing:
I did confirm that 2.123 which is .005 off the lands does shoot okay but, whatever is going on at 2.105 or .023 off the lands does not seem like it is in a very forgiving node. Maybe testing even further off the lands will yield better results.
I had a chance to shoot at 1000 yards just a few days ago and loaded 20 rounds at .005 off and stayed focused on the .5 MOA steel at that range. It shot about what you'd expect. The first shot was just off the target and 8 out of the next 19 were impacts. All of the misses were close but hard to tell how close exactly when looking at dirt splashes. Wind was under 5 MPH and while a factor, not a significant one.
I will keep testing and will likely adjust the powder charge to improve SD but wanted to see if you guys with much more experience with the caliber had some advice to share.
Thank you in advance for your expertise and for the long read,
Henryrifle
P.S. I just edited this post to fix muzzle velocity typo. Had originally typed 2770 but true MV is 2870.
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