Shynloco
You can lead a horse to water, but ........
Ok Guys,
As some of you might know, for the past year or so after getting more serious about my reloading and following what some refer to as the "Precision Reloading Method," I just ran into something that frankly kind of surprised me with my 6.5 X 55 rebuild. For some who don't know, earlier this year, I took a relatively young Ruger M77 22-250 Target Grey model and converted it to a 6.5X55 as the previous caliber may be great for PD or hunting purposes, but wasn't cutting the mustard for me in target shooting/benchrest style in terms of constant grouping and something that would warm the coddles of my little black heart. I had my Gunsmith do the work and he changed the barrel with a new Hart MG barrel (PTG Reamer) for best accuracy purposes. Hart just happened to be what was available at the time even though my first two choices were Shilen and Kreiger, but they told me it would 24- 26 weeks before they could make me one.
Anyway to the reloading discovery, this morning I went to the range to do some more testing trying to get the best groups using both the 123 Lapua Scenars bullet and Sierra 142 VLD bullet being pushed respectively by VVN150 and IMR 4350, the two powders that have proven to provide the best groups at 100 yds in this particular rifle. So a few hours after getting home, as always, I pulled out my RCBS Precision Mic to check and see if the shoulders had been pushed as in the past, .003 - .004. The brass was sorted as usual and had been fired in groups, some on their 4th firing and others on their 10th firing. And again as before, the shoulders on the just fired brass measured .003 - .004. So as always in the past, I expected to have to "bump" the shoulders back to .000 on the mic reading using my Redding FL Die.
But then I got this idea (yes some of my ideas are weird, but they've been called worse considering my moniker) and I thought to myself, what if I bumped them to +.002 and would the bolt still close easily and without noticeable resistance? Now keep in mind, new Lapua brass comes with a shoulder measurement on my mic of .000. So here comes the punch line...I thought I'd check and see how difficult it would be to close the bolt on a piece of fired Lapua brass with a shoulder reading of .003. So in goes the casing, I close the bolt without noticable resistance which I anticipated. I thought to myself, hmmm, maybe this shoulder setting of .002 might work and make things a little tighter and it might actually help in consistency and accuracy. SO just to be sure, I again measure the casing AND GUESS WHAT READING I NOW GOT......000! And that happened without even getting out the FL Die. I thought to myself, that must be a fluke so I did it again with a another piece of just fired brass that measured .004 and again no wild resistance in closing the bolt and then I again measured the shoulders which read .000.
Besides having an obviously consistent chamber, anyone care to comment or have thought on this finding? And "NO" I don't plan on resizing my brass using this method. They'll all go through the Precision Mic and get bumped using my FL Die. But I found it completely interesting that by merely closing the bolt, the chamber of my rifle confirmed and vaildated the shoulder setting of what I'd been using and resizing my brass to. I just thought this was an interesting and an unexpected find that also validates the theories of resizing brass and bumping the shoulders for better and more consistent accuracy. BTW, I need to work on bullet depth setting as the 123 Scenar 5 shot groups are consistently the size of a nickel but the Sierra 142 5-shot groups can easily be covered with a dime at 100 yds. Any thoughts guys?
Alex
As some of you might know, for the past year or so after getting more serious about my reloading and following what some refer to as the "Precision Reloading Method," I just ran into something that frankly kind of surprised me with my 6.5 X 55 rebuild. For some who don't know, earlier this year, I took a relatively young Ruger M77 22-250 Target Grey model and converted it to a 6.5X55 as the previous caliber may be great for PD or hunting purposes, but wasn't cutting the mustard for me in target shooting/benchrest style in terms of constant grouping and something that would warm the coddles of my little black heart. I had my Gunsmith do the work and he changed the barrel with a new Hart MG barrel (PTG Reamer) for best accuracy purposes. Hart just happened to be what was available at the time even though my first two choices were Shilen and Kreiger, but they told me it would 24- 26 weeks before they could make me one.
Anyway to the reloading discovery, this morning I went to the range to do some more testing trying to get the best groups using both the 123 Lapua Scenars bullet and Sierra 142 VLD bullet being pushed respectively by VVN150 and IMR 4350, the two powders that have proven to provide the best groups at 100 yds in this particular rifle. So a few hours after getting home, as always, I pulled out my RCBS Precision Mic to check and see if the shoulders had been pushed as in the past, .003 - .004. The brass was sorted as usual and had been fired in groups, some on their 4th firing and others on their 10th firing. And again as before, the shoulders on the just fired brass measured .003 - .004. So as always in the past, I expected to have to "bump" the shoulders back to .000 on the mic reading using my Redding FL Die.
But then I got this idea (yes some of my ideas are weird, but they've been called worse considering my moniker) and I thought to myself, what if I bumped them to +.002 and would the bolt still close easily and without noticeable resistance? Now keep in mind, new Lapua brass comes with a shoulder measurement on my mic of .000. So here comes the punch line...I thought I'd check and see how difficult it would be to close the bolt on a piece of fired Lapua brass with a shoulder reading of .003. So in goes the casing, I close the bolt without noticable resistance which I anticipated. I thought to myself, hmmm, maybe this shoulder setting of .002 might work and make things a little tighter and it might actually help in consistency and accuracy. SO just to be sure, I again measure the casing AND GUESS WHAT READING I NOW GOT......000! And that happened without even getting out the FL Die. I thought to myself, that must be a fluke so I did it again with a another piece of just fired brass that measured .004 and again no wild resistance in closing the bolt and then I again measured the shoulders which read .000.
Besides having an obviously consistent chamber, anyone care to comment or have thought on this finding? And "NO" I don't plan on resizing my brass using this method. They'll all go through the Precision Mic and get bumped using my FL Die. But I found it completely interesting that by merely closing the bolt, the chamber of my rifle confirmed and vaildated the shoulder setting of what I'd been using and resizing my brass to. I just thought this was an interesting and an unexpected find that also validates the theories of resizing brass and bumping the shoulders for better and more consistent accuracy. BTW, I need to work on bullet depth setting as the 123 Scenar 5 shot groups are consistently the size of a nickel but the Sierra 142 5-shot groups can easily be covered with a dime at 100 yds. Any thoughts guys?
Alex
