Good morning everyone,
I've been spending the past few days prowling around the forums gathering as much information as I could. Sure wish I had thought to make some notes.
I am in the process of having my 600 yard benchrest rifle re barreled to 6Dasher. It is a trued Rem 700, Jewell trigger, Gre-Tan pin, spring and shroud, Lone Wolf Ultimate Thumbhole stock with adjustable cheekpiece and 3 inch forearm, sporting a Broughton 5C, 28 1/2 inch 8 twist tight neck 6.5x284 barrel. Whew, that was a mouthful.
The Pacific no turn reamer will be here next week. The new Broughton 30 inch, 5C, 8 twist barrel, 200 hundred new Lapua 6 BR Blue Box cases, Redding full length bushing style die and Forster micrometer bullet seating die have all came in the past week or so. Just waiting for the reamer so I can take the rifle over to my gunsmith and do the switch.
Now for the questions part.
I plan on doing the "load and shoot" fireforming and having the gunsmith re chamber a shot out throat 6BR 14 twist barrel I own, to handle the FF chore. There seems to be several powder/bullet recommendations for the FF'ing. I am leaning towards using 135 for the powder, 205M primers and some old Berger 95 VLD's laying around that I won't ever be using in my 243 Ackley anymore. Will probably jam them .015 to .025. How much powder would you recommend?
There seems to be plenty of positive comments on the new Berger 105 Hybrids and I would like to give them a go. But in checking online this morning with Berger, Sinclair and Midway; it doesn't seem that they have any in stock. I looked at Bruno's online yesterday but it didn't give availability status. Any other sources I should try?
I remember reading about metplat uniforming in Precision Shooting a few years ago but never gave it much serious thought, after reading the part that it would lower your BC by about 2% or so. The other day, I was speaking to one of the Sinclair techs and he said it is useful. But that I would also need to buy dies to uniform both the hollowpoint and the outside of the point itself. Oh, and that I need to buy a VLD seating stem for my new Forster seating die. Sure wish they had made mention of that when I ordered the dies. No giant issue there, as it will probably be at least a week or two before we can do the new barrel. Is metplat uniforming worth the effort?
As to powder. I use VV 135 and 68 Berger's in the 13 twist, 6 BR no turn, 24 inch Broughton barrel that I have on my original 600 yard gun now. A Savage short action model 12. This 6 BR barrel is just for paper punching and varmints. I put it together back when I attempted to shoot 600 yard prone. Attempt being the key word there. I had that barreled with a 243 tight neck Ackley 3 groove Lilja; hence all the left over 95 Berger VLD's. They didn't do as well as either the heavier Sierra or Berger's. I hope that wasn't too confusing. It started out with the 243 and is now wearing the 6 BR.
Back to the 135 powder. A typical day at the range with my 6 BR is about 30 rounds. Three patches of Slip 2000 Carbon Killer will remove all of the carbon, the 4th patch always comes out clean. I use Montana Xtreme 50 BMG Copper Killer after that and no amount of it will produce any trace of blue at all, no matter how long I let it soak. That barrel never has shown any blue on a patch with any copper remover, not even after the very first shot when breaking the barrel in. So, I would like to stay with the VV powders because they burn so clean. In reading here it seems that 140 and maybe N540 (if I remember the 500 series posts correctly) would be better choices than 135 with 105 grain bullets. I will cross my fingers that the Berger Hybrids shoot good and yield no copper fouling.
Well, I suppose I have gone on here long enough and appreciate your patience in reading. Please feel free to comment and offer any guidance, your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
I've been spending the past few days prowling around the forums gathering as much information as I could. Sure wish I had thought to make some notes.
I am in the process of having my 600 yard benchrest rifle re barreled to 6Dasher. It is a trued Rem 700, Jewell trigger, Gre-Tan pin, spring and shroud, Lone Wolf Ultimate Thumbhole stock with adjustable cheekpiece and 3 inch forearm, sporting a Broughton 5C, 28 1/2 inch 8 twist tight neck 6.5x284 barrel. Whew, that was a mouthful.
The Pacific no turn reamer will be here next week. The new Broughton 30 inch, 5C, 8 twist barrel, 200 hundred new Lapua 6 BR Blue Box cases, Redding full length bushing style die and Forster micrometer bullet seating die have all came in the past week or so. Just waiting for the reamer so I can take the rifle over to my gunsmith and do the switch.
Now for the questions part.
I plan on doing the "load and shoot" fireforming and having the gunsmith re chamber a shot out throat 6BR 14 twist barrel I own, to handle the FF chore. There seems to be several powder/bullet recommendations for the FF'ing. I am leaning towards using 135 for the powder, 205M primers and some old Berger 95 VLD's laying around that I won't ever be using in my 243 Ackley anymore. Will probably jam them .015 to .025. How much powder would you recommend?
There seems to be plenty of positive comments on the new Berger 105 Hybrids and I would like to give them a go. But in checking online this morning with Berger, Sinclair and Midway; it doesn't seem that they have any in stock. I looked at Bruno's online yesterday but it didn't give availability status. Any other sources I should try?
I remember reading about metplat uniforming in Precision Shooting a few years ago but never gave it much serious thought, after reading the part that it would lower your BC by about 2% or so. The other day, I was speaking to one of the Sinclair techs and he said it is useful. But that I would also need to buy dies to uniform both the hollowpoint and the outside of the point itself. Oh, and that I need to buy a VLD seating stem for my new Forster seating die. Sure wish they had made mention of that when I ordered the dies. No giant issue there, as it will probably be at least a week or two before we can do the new barrel. Is metplat uniforming worth the effort?
As to powder. I use VV 135 and 68 Berger's in the 13 twist, 6 BR no turn, 24 inch Broughton barrel that I have on my original 600 yard gun now. A Savage short action model 12. This 6 BR barrel is just for paper punching and varmints. I put it together back when I attempted to shoot 600 yard prone. Attempt being the key word there. I had that barreled with a 243 tight neck Ackley 3 groove Lilja; hence all the left over 95 Berger VLD's. They didn't do as well as either the heavier Sierra or Berger's. I hope that wasn't too confusing. It started out with the 243 and is now wearing the 6 BR.
Back to the 135 powder. A typical day at the range with my 6 BR is about 30 rounds. Three patches of Slip 2000 Carbon Killer will remove all of the carbon, the 4th patch always comes out clean. I use Montana Xtreme 50 BMG Copper Killer after that and no amount of it will produce any trace of blue at all, no matter how long I let it soak. That barrel never has shown any blue on a patch with any copper remover, not even after the very first shot when breaking the barrel in. So, I would like to stay with the VV powders because they burn so clean. In reading here it seems that 140 and maybe N540 (if I remember the 500 series posts correctly) would be better choices than 135 with 105 grain bullets. I will cross my fingers that the Berger Hybrids shoot good and yield no copper fouling.
Well, I suppose I have gone on here long enough and appreciate your patience in reading. Please feel free to comment and offer any guidance, your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,
