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All the 1000 yard IBS Heavy gun Benchrest agg. records fall!

Alex Wheeler

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8 in total. I have thought about how to write this in a way to make people understand the significance if you don't really follow long range Benchrest. 1000 yard IBS agg. records are a little different. There's 20 10 shot targets shot in the year. You have a 6, 10, 12, and 20 target agg for group and score. So 8 in total. The 10 is the first target from your first 10 matches. The 6 is the best of those. The 20 is all 20 and the 12 is the best of those. So you have to keep a gun in tune for half a year. And for the 10 and 20 you cant throw out the bad ones. Everyone counts. These are THE records to look at when your talking real 1000 yard raw accuracy. The 6 and 10 are the original long standing records from day one. So to break them all in one year, and the first year of a new rifle can't be understated. It is hands down the biggest accomplishment I have seen or know of in long range BR, at least in my opinion. On to the good stuff....

Tom Mousel from Montana set out to build a serious heavy gun a couple years ago. He had Roy Hunter build a one off stock of their own design with ziricote wood. I don't know if its the wood or the lead that's in the stock that makes this thing so good. Having been around enough "good" guns I can tell when we have a special one and this is one. Its 8" wide up front and 2" in the rear with a wood rudder. The stock weights around 65-70 pounds. Roy did all the finish work and the pictures really don't do it justice. I know you hear that all the time but the contrast this wood has is like nothing I have ever seen.

I glued and screwed a Bat M into it and went through the action as usual. I set this ignition up with a spacer and spring that I have made for the short action Bats, like the B. A tuned up Bix n Andy made the cut. I used my custom shroud and did the rest of the lug and timing work. We went through a couple tweaks on the ignition and triggers. That was the final setup. The free floated gain twist 32" 1.450" Bartlein Barrel is chambered in 300 WSM. Its a no turn neck as well. Tom makes his own bullet on a Jeff Peinhardt die. He runs H4350, Lapua brass, and a March Majesta scope, and he chases the lands. I will let him tell any more about the load that he wants. I'm sure he will be on this post and he has always been very open. A true ambassador of the sport.

I have attached the groups and scores. Keep in mind this is 1000 yards, 10 shots, and over 5 months. Which is probably 70 degrees in temp change. The best 6 agged 3.7600" and the first 10 agged 4.5514". the 12 agged 3.879" and the 20 was 4.8197". 20 10 shot groups that averaged 4.8"!

I hate facebook too, but its easy to post video and there will be one there of the gun. thumbnail.jpgthumbnail (1).jpgthumbnail (4).jpgthumbnail (5).jpgIMG_20250719_130718.jpg8
 
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Sure would like to see a close-up picture of that cantilever scope mount system.

Forum Boss: Here is a enlarged crop from above:

1752954051576.png
 
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Very impressive!! Probably a dumb question but here goes. Why does the scope sit so high? Gotta be around 4" or so? How do you get a good head/cheek/eye alignment to shoot?
 
That rifle is gorgeous! And, the level of consistent performance over half a year is astounding!

My congratulations to all the craftsmen involved.

I am struggling to wrap my mind around the performance, but it is tremendous.

Wow!, just wow!

Rich
 
That is very impressive Tom! Well done this year! You have put the time and effort in and deserve those records!
I am curious what diameter that M action is to hang that 1.450 straight barrel on. I know BAT quit special orders of 2.0 dia Model M’s or B’s a while back.
Samuel Hall
 
There truly is nobody that puts in more effort than Tom, i witnessed it for a couple winters before I moved over to the Prairie. Congrats Tom well done!!!
 
Hi all, and thanks for the kind words. I'll try and address the handful of questions i see so far.

The cantilever mount is 2 different things. It is one of Travis' @X-Caveman 0 moa pic to pic rails. We used his 50 and 100 moa versions for the long stuff when using high power optics without enough travel. I use it just to raise the optic up where I can sit. With that, I wanted it back further and use the JP mount that @Dave Way turned me onto.

Related to that subject is the cheek weld thing, and that it's not really a thing with optics that have parallax adjustments. I like to sit up, comfortable as possible.

Sam it's a normal octagon I think, and is glued and screwed. We haven't had any negatives on a few, and they seem to tune better....or at least how I tune for compensation. I've come full circle about 3 times back to 30 cals. I've done glued in blocks, clamp blocks and then this way just "normal". This is by far my best 30 I've had, and my recently retired lighter version was damn good also, and the same glue/screw. Evan recently bought that and will likely kick my butt with it!

Tom
 
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Hi all, and thanks for the kind words. I'll try and address the handful of questions i see so far.

The cantilever mount is 2 different things. It is one of Travis' @X-Caveman 0 moa pic to pic rails. We used his 50 and 100 moa versions for the long stuff when using high power optics without enough travel. I use it just to raise the optic up where I can sit. With that, I wanted it back further and use the JP mount that @Dave Way turned me onto.

Related to that subject is the cheek weld thing, and that it's not really a thing with optics that have parallax adjustments. I like to sit up, comfortable as possible.

Sam it's a normal octagon I think, and is glued and screwed. We haven't had any negatives on a few, and they seem to tune better....or at least how I tune for compensation. I've come full circle about 3 times back to 30 cals. I've done glued in blocks, clamp blocks and then this way just "normal". This is by far my best 30 I've had, and my recently retired lighter version was damn good also, and the same glue/screw. Evan recently bought that and will likely kick my butt with it!

Tom
Congratulations Tom.
Exemplary in every way!!!!
CW
 
8 in total. I have thought about how to write this in a way to make people understand the significance if you don't really follow long range Benchrest. 1000 yard IBS agg. records are a little different. There's 20 10 shot targets shot in the year. You have a 6, 10, 12, and 20 target agg for group and score. So 8 in total. The 10 is the first target from your first 10 matches. The 6 is the best of those. The 20 is all 20 and the 12 is the best of those. So you have to keep a gun in tune for half a year. And for the 10 and 20 you cant throw out the bad ones. Everyone counts. These are THE records to look at when your talking real 1000 yard raw accuracy. The 6 and 10 are the original long standing records from day one. So to break them all in one year, and the first year of a new rifle can't be understated. It is hands down the biggest accomplishment I have seen or know of in long range BR, at least in my opinion. On to the good stuff....

Tom Mousel from Montana set out to build a serious heavy gun a couple years ago. He had Roy Hunter build a one off stock of their own design with ziricote wood. I don't know if its the wood or the lead that's in the stock that makes this thing so good. Having been around enough "good" guns I can tell when we have a special one and this is one. Its 8" wide up front and 2" in the rear with a wood rudder. The stock weights around 65-70 pounds. Roy did all the finish work and the pictures really don't do it justice. I know you hear that all the time but the contrast this wood has is like nothing I have ever seen.

I glued and screwed a Bat M into it and went through the action as usual. I set this ignition up with a spacer and spring that I have made for the short action Bats, like the B. A tuned up Bix n Andy made the cut. I used my custom shroud and did the rest of the lug and timing work. We went through a couple tweaks on the ignition and triggers. That was the final setup. The free floated gain twist 32" 1.450" Bartlein Barrel is chambered in 300 WSM. Its a no turn neck as well. Tom makes his own bullet on a Jeff Peinhardt die. He runs H4350, Lapua brass, and a March Majesta scope, and he chases the lands. I will let him tell any more about the load that he wants. I'm sure he will be on this post and he has always been very open. A true ambassador of the sport.

I have attached the groups and scores. Keep in mind this is 1000 yards, 10 shots, and over 5 months. Which is probably 70 degrees in temp change. The best 6 agged 3.7600" and the first 10 agged 4.5514". the 12 agged 3.879" and the 20 was 4.8197". 20 10 shot groups that averaged 4.8"!

I hate facebook too, but its easy to post video and there will be one there of the gun. View attachment 1678797View attachment 1678798View attachment 1678799View attachment 1678800View attachment 16788018
That’s my kinda country.

Congrats!
 
Remarkable rifle building, load dev, preparation and shooting!

Huge congratulations Tom! Quite a mind blowing acheivement.
 
Congratulations to both of you!!! A beautiful accurate rifle and a shooter that can make it all work for a whole season.
 
Absolutely amazing. Congratulations to everyone involved in the “process” but especially to @tom. Keeping a rifle tuned that good, for that long is amazing. You definitely put in the time, money and effort, and it paid off. Congratulations brother.
 

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