Great Article by Frank Beckman

[chuckw2]

Interesting gun of the month article written by Frank Beckman.
I was working in the pits when Frank shot his record at the Nats. He is a real gentleman. I would have never thought to use a barrel tuner.
It looks as if every top shooter sorts bullets, guess I am going to have to give it a try.

Congratulation Frank!!!!


Chuck Wetherington

 

[cycbb486]

The biggest thing that I got out of the article is to not count myself out. As inexperienced as I may be it is great to see that there is hope for the rookies.:thumb::thumb::thumb:


Calvin

 

[Forum Boss]

Spoke to Frank today. People should note his comments about primers. After reading about Jackie's initial test results, he went out and did some head to head accuracy tests with the CCI BR4s vs. the Fed 205s. He said he saw about a 20% reduction in group size with the CCIs.

It will be interesting to get other shooters' input on this topic. For the primer tests Jackie did we weren't really going for max accuracy because I instructed Jackie to shoot relatively quickly so we could get all the 5 primers cycled through in the same ambient temps.

Jackie accomplished that pretty well. And it's interesting to see the average velocities for five different primers were all within about 8 fps.

 

[shcal]

I also thoroughly enjoyed the article, it really goes to show that if you do your homework and stay focused you can do many things you would not have thought possible. I'm curious about the tuner Frank used. Could we see if Frank could give us a little better picture of the tuner and maybe a discussion on how he uses it in combination with his loads and seating depths to attain the optimum accuracy?

Thanks, shcal.

 

[Forum Boss]

Frank gave this answer in another thread,unfortunately, I don't have the ability to merge threads):

1. How exactly is it adjusted? Maybe I missed something but do you have index marks or something?

2. Does the Delrin washer hold steady pressure over time, or do you have to tweak it now and then?

3. By "a little pressure", what are we talking about--just touching or a few lbs of pre-load?


Riverine, once the "tuner" is made and in place, it is necessary to index one end of one of cross slots in the bolt head to a reference point on the underneath of the stock. I did this by first bolting the barreled action back into the stock. I then placed a piece of the thinnest, but strong, paper I could find in the house...about .0015"...between the delrin washer and the barrel and turned the tuner bolt so as to bear the delrin washer against the paper enough so that it causes reasonable,paper just barely slides) resistance when I try to pull the paper out. I then "assume" that the washer would be just touching the barrel without the paper. I then looked at the bottom of the stock and picked the end of one slot and called it 12 o'clock and marked it and the corresonding location on the stock with a liquid white-out pen. With additional white marks on the stock at 3, 6 and 9 o'clock I figured my eye could interpolate the remaining points of the clock.

Note that using a phillips head bolt and a phillips screwdriver like I did is crude but effective. Use an allen head bolt if you can accept a somewhat larger hole in your stock. Then a turn of the bolt with the allen wrench will yield you a finer discernment of how much you move the bolt in relation to a clock face.

I don't know how long the "tuner" will hold adjustment and didn't have to tweak it when I used it. I selected delrin plastic because it is tough and not likely to crush under slight, vibrating pressure. I elected to cast the bolt in epoxy doped into the drilled hole through the stock rather than put it in a threaded sleeve since I know that the resulting tight thread fit plus the "somewhat sticky" plastic nature of the cured epoxy would keep the bolt from turning while shooting.

By "little" pressure I mean only to the point where I can begin to sense some resistance....using a phillips driver with no handle. I used the setting I got when I indexed the tuner bolt and stock as my "little pressure" point. My groups from this point through 3-4 more slight changes until I had turned the bolt in only 1/4 turn made significant changes in vertical points of impact and group sizes.

The "tuner" build is kept fairly simple by using this method of casting the tuner bolt in JB Weld slow set,normal)epoxy. If one makes a mistake, just drill out the epoxy and re-cast the bolt.

I kept some of the targets I shot with the tuner. These show changes in vertical location of the groups and changes in group size. If they photograph well enough, Paul may show them on the site.

Frank

 

[Aussie_bob]

Just a question on the loads Match loads are quoated as 33.7gr but down further he says that he trickels kernels of varget in till it hits 37gr this may be a missprint and suposedly should read 33.7gr.
Just shows i do read carefully what is written, very interesting story and is pushing me more to the BRX than the straight BR for my next project.

 

[LongRanger]

Aussie Bob...

Whew, wouldn't 37 grains be nice?

Article should read trickle to 33.7 grains. With Varget it's about 1/3 the way down the shoulder.

Will email photo of tuner test target to any who request by PM.

Frank

 

[Forum Boss]

Fixed the typo. It now reads trickle to 33.7.

Sorry for delay, I was at Shot Show.