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New #2231 200gr SMK for F/TR

Lines of thought like this are generally found among those who believe in so-called level playing fields for ammunition quality. GB and British Commonwealth 'Target Rifle' (our version of Fullbore sling shooting with the 308 and iron sights) long took this view, going further and banning handloads for all major competitions and competitors were issued with arsenal manufactured 7.62 ammunition. The GB NRA Journal regularly saw the pros and cons argued over - allowing more freedom would remove this fictional level playing field, those with time and money and expertise to experiment with handloads and different bullets would be given an unfair advantage etc etc.

In the end, such restrictions nearly killed the discipline. There never will be a level playing field other than in having a good set of overall regulations on things like rifle weights. Those with money who really want to buy a small advantage in a restricted discipline will have several rifles each with a slightly different spec barrel to try with different batches of issue ammo, or produce a few extra fps MV. If you're wealthy (or retired and comfortable) and don't need to go to work every weekday, you can practice on a major range like Bisley seven days per week and get to know every wind flag's displays intimately. It still won't make up for a skill shortage though if that exists.

When F-Class spun the restricted FTR sub class off, the whole argument started again with the proponents of tighter regulation claiming it was a budget 'starter' discipline and that the rapid development of FTR equipment and cartridges that has continued unabated almost from year one has been a disaster with 'pounds buying points'. Such critics want to see major restrictions on ammunition, bipod footprints, scope power, even the rifle having to be based on a factory model.

There is a reasonable argument for having such a discipline. The Scandinavian countries use a single rifle model, the SIG-Sauer STR 200 for their major internal and international prone sling competitions. It is a superb rifle and being a factory model is low priced compared to custom built F rifles. It has a quick-change barrel system allowing pre-chambered replacements to be fitted with perfect headspace in a few minutes or to switch between the two cartridges used, 308 Win and 6.5X55mm.

That isn't F-Class though which quickly became like formula motor racing, a development discipline whether in FTR or 'Open'. Ten years ago none of us saw how far and fast the 308 (or 223 for that matter) would be developed. Without FTR, there would be a lot fewer bullets and they'd have a lot lower BCs. Much as I love Sierra and its traditional 7-calbre radius tangent ogive bullets, development of both more advanced designs and improvements in QC were 'gentle' and took place over decades rather than single years. Without FTR, it's arguable if there would be nearly as many 0.308 match bullets as there are now, nothing like the weight range, nor would everybody's manufacturing quality be so good. Just compare the two 200gn Sierra MKs - the one that has been around for 30 (40?) plus years and the just announced new 200.

One can approve of this process or decry rapid if expensive development. But .... like it or not, target shooting is a technically orientated sport like many others. Here in the UK, international gold medals in the Olympics and other major competitions by British cyclists have produced a huge surge in interest in the sport and created no end of jobs in bicycle design, manufacturing and retail. Have you looked at a modern pushbike recently? The costs and high technology materials and design in what are (like firearms) relatively simple machines at a basic level are staggering. And it's not just those that compete at high level who're splashing out large sums either - even commuter bikes have gone high-tech. I don't hear anybody say that road-racing cyclists should be limited to steel frames and wheel rims with traditional wire spokes - or maybe if you're inside that sport, the same calls for restrictions apply. Like it or loathe it, if your sport relies on manufactured equipment with a potential for technical and materials development, those upgrades are going to happen and they usually don't come cheap, certainly never for free.

I agree with you. But we must not forget that there might be such thing as "too far" in certain aspects of some competitions.
I'm thinking specifically about F1 and MotoGP.
Those who had all the money always won and people got bored of watching.
MotoGP now has tighter regulations and restrictions which in turn has helped other teams/riders be in the winning circle more often. And now even challenging for the the world title !
World Superbikes is doing even worst at the moment with Kawasaki slaying everyone for the past few years and only Ducati with the odd win. Kawasaki has the most money to dish out for their WSBK team(s) since they don't have to support a MotoGP team. Most other manufacturers in WSBK don't run their own factory teams but only give support to some teams.
Mind you the WSBK rules are very strict, and that has not leveled the playing field !
To level the playing field is no easy task. It took MotoGP 5 years of experimenting with rules just to start seeing the fruits of their ongoing labor.

The biggest difference in MotoGP and F1 is that our shooting sports are not and do not benefit from the spectators as much. Nevertheless some shooting sports do rely on sponsorship more than anything and (for the most part) shooters who have major sponsors usually fair better than privateers.
 
I’m concerned that by the time you spin up some of these needle bullets the accuracy just won’t be f class level, especially at 600. just because you can make a bullet longer and higher BC doesn’t mean you should. I’m not sure if we’ve hit that limit yet but we’ve got to be close.

I personally don't think we're anywhere close to a point where accuracy/precision suffering from excessive bullet length at this point. I've tried some of the longest bullets available to F-TR shooters in both .223 and .308, and they all could be loaded with relative ease to very good precision. The only real issue I have noticed is that of the lead time involved in getting a new barrel with a sufficient twist rate that is properly throated for the newer (longer) bullet offerings, which can be pretty painful. In my hands, I find bullet weight to be much more of a factor in terms of precision. I really have to pay extremely close attention to recoil management at all times with 200 gr bullets or I'm likely to start dropping points; an issue I've never noticed with 30 cal bullets in the 185 gr weight class (or less).

My understanding from those who have used 215s or even 230s in F-TR is that the recoil management becomes even more critical with the heavier pills. The primary issue with the longer, pointier bullets is likely to be potential jacket failure with the increasingly fast twist rates necessary for their optimal use. Fortunately, as bullet weight seems to also be generally increasing as bullet length increases, this seems to be much less of a concern with 30 cal bullets. Most people aren't pushing their 30 cal bullets fast enough to be in the danger zone for jacket failure as yet. The same is not true for the 90 VLDs in .223, where a number of people have observed jacket failures when using barrels with twist rates faster than 1 in 7 at velocities of 2850 fps or higher.
 
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The other downsides, twist rate related, is that as freebores are cut ever longer and twist become ever tighter, the rifle becomes less well suited to shorter, lighter bullets. Fine if the chosen super long number works well for you, and your barrel / chamber like it, but an expensive failure if it doesn't work out satisfactorily in competition. That's expensive not only in terms of a rebarrel job or set-back and rechamber, but in terms of wasted time and potential scores / league points in a season's matches.

In the early days of 308 'heavies', I went through this process being seduced by the BCs of the emerging super-Hybrids, but wasted a season and a lot of money on bullets that I never got to shoot quite as well as I believed a good 308 should, or which worked really well in one match, then disappointed in the next in slightly different conditions.

Although I wouldn't describe myself as recoil shy, I ultimately decided that I shoot lighter bullets in 308 better than anything weighing 200gn and over. Even though I have had very good results indeed with the 185gn Juggernaut, I'll shoot yet lighter bullets as a first choice in most conditions - the 168gn Berger Hybrid at a shade under 3,000 fps is optimal for me and my shooting style. (That too is one reason why 223 even with 90s is so much fun and so easy to shoot - in an 18lb rested rifle like shooting a noisy .22 rimfire. Squeeze the trigger, the rifle kicks a little, the bipod feet barely track back on the grass and the scope reticle stays centred on the aiming mark.)
 
I definitely found the 215s to be twitchy - Juggernauts produced better scores for me by a few points. But now I've found Juggernauts, while good shooters, to be unacceptably low in BC for today's competitions. Holding the 9 ring while someone else holds the 10 is more disadvantage than I'd like to give up. The market seems to have honed in on 200 grains as "ideal", but I'm not yet convinced. I think that has a lot to do with Berger blatantly marketing the 200.20x to F class shooters. Now everyone's chasing them. Perhaps I'm wrong, but a nice, long, low drag secant ogive in the 190-200 range might be just about right. I have to assume Sierra is chasing F class shooters with this bullet, so one would hope it is capable of the needed precision.

That said, I bought a few hundred 200.20x to try out this season. We'll see if they fare better than the Jugs or 215s for me.
 
Hopefully, you will find the 200-20Xs to be just the right balance between BC and recoil management. They tuned in very nicely for me with H4895 at about 2660 fps, .009" to .012" off the lands. It's entirely possible that my observation that 200 gr bullets require even more of my attention to recoil management is due, at least in part, to my shooting style. Perhaps one day, we will be able to lure you to the dark side, shooting 90-95 gr bullets from a .223 Rem F-TR rifle. Just remember though, once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny...consume you, it will LOL.
 
It’s the inevitable path: open > tr (.308) > .223 > enlightenment. I’ve thought about it. The only thing stopping me is that I don’t have a. .223 rifle. I thought about getting a new bolt for my Barnard though...
 
I'm actually having my barrel set back with a .110 reamer so I can get away from the heavies and shoot the 180 elite hunters or 185 hybrids. I just can't shoot well with the 200's.
 
I'm actually having my barrel set back with a .110 reamer so I can get away from the heavies and shoot the 180 elite hunters or 185 hybrids. I just can't shoot well with the 200's.

Come on tell the truth with the .110 fb you’re setting up for the 200gr Sierras lol!!
 
Just chatted with a guy that spins barrels and told him about what he thought about the .110 freebore for these rounds and said that sounds about right but would like to have a couple bullets to check before making a barrel up, so I wondering if someone would be able part with 3 and mail them up to me here in Canada? Throw you a few bucks your way of course. We wont get them up here for about a month or so yet. cheers
 
Just chatted with a guy that spins barrels and told him about what he thought about the .110 freebore for these rounds and said that sounds about right but would like to have a couple bullets to check before making a barrel up, so I wondering if someone would be able part with 3 and mail them up to me here in Canada? Throw you a few bucks your way of course. We wont get them up here for about a month or so yet. cheers

I ordered a box from Powder Valley over a week ago and they still haven’t shown up. PM me your address and when they come in I’ll send you a few
 
I agree. There is a very single minded focus on BC these days, which is important, but what people fail to think about is that the added length and weight that give these bullets their amazing BC's also contributes to their temperamental nature and lesser accuracy.

I also wonder just how finicky a secant ogive really is to tune. I know the conventional wisdom says that they're responsible for all manner of difficulty but how and why?

Is it not just as likely that it's because nobody makes short secant ogive bullets, and the real culprit is that long bullets are just not as accurate as short bullets? (Or put another way, longer bullets require higher quality than shorter bullets to shoot as well - they have to be straight and concentric, or they'll be penalized by mother nature more than short bullets with the same flaws.)

The reality is that long secant ogives provide as significant reduction in drag over tangent ogives, and if we're going to continue to take hits off the BC pipe, we're going to have to learn to live with the secant - tangent ogives just can't hack it. I personally don't believe it's a problem. I think the difficulty in manufacturing long secant ogives with perfect precision is. But that's just speculation on my part. Everyone's got an anecdote, but I've never seen a good test of similar bullets that vary only by their ogive type (which is in itself difficult because tangent ogives weigh significantly more than secant ogives of the same length).

I'm not sure that modern bullets aren't good enough to shoot long secant ogive bullets accurately. I know I've seen guys clean up with VLD's in F TR. But the longer they stretch those bullets, the tougher it will be to keep them accurate. I have a feeling we'll settle in on something in the 190-200 grain range with a long, fairly aggressive secant ogive and a longer than normal boat tail as the best all around .308 bullet for F TR.

One thing I've been thinking about a lot is to come up with a design that just punts on the idea of making it through the transonic region. To focus purely on supersonic drag and optimize for mid range (maybe out to 1000, but certainly no more). I don't think the big manufacturers would make such a bullet because of the endless customer service headaches, but it'd be interesting to try.


"I have a feeling we'll settle in on something in the 190-200 grain range with a long, fairly aggressive secant ogive and a longer than normal boat tail as the best all around .308 bullet for F TR."

Berger 200 Hybrids? shoot fantastic out to a 1000 yds in my 1 in 10 twist, 30in Bartlein 5R
 
PLZ, someone who have them, measure :
small diameter of taper and length of taper(boat tail).
I wanna add them to quickload.
 
Since we are measuring them. Can you measure the diameter of it? Are they fat are they thin?

Just measured ten 200gr SMK's randomly out of the box and all of them measured .308 diameter. Also measured ten of the 230gr SMK's and they all were .308 dia too.
 

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