John Feamster was one of the people that did early development work that helped to bring the AR15 into NRA High Power Rifle competition. This was in the early 1990s when the M14 was still “The” service rifle in this type of competition. There is a great story that was documented in Precision Shooting Magazine (January 1997) where John was challenged by Dave Brennan, editor and publisher, to take his AR to a benchrest match to demonstrate what he claimed it would do. John took the challenge and shot an amazing five shot group with his AR and 52 SMK bullets that measured 0.231 inches at 200 yards and won the match. John knew that it was a lucky group so he packed up and left and did not try this again but the story helped him to show the accuracy the AR15 was capable of.
This story got me to thinking about using the lighter SMK bullets in my AR match rifle with scope in our 100 yard NRA Reduced Course High Power Rifle matches. I chose the 53 SMK over the 52 SMK that John used since the 53 SMK was a favorite for many benchrest shooters for many years. The 52 SMK is a boat tail bullet and the 53 SMK is a flat base bullet; boat tails are for improvement of ballistic coefficient and do nothing for accuracy. I was not sure how the 53 SMK would shoot in a 20 inch, 1 in 8 barrel since they are normally shot in a longer and slower twist barrel so I shot them at 100 yards bench rest and they shot ten shot groups the size of the X ring on the NRA High Power reduced course 100 yard prone slow fire target with the Sierra Manual accuracy load of 23.5 grains of N133 and CCI 400 primers (Sierra used Remington 7 ½ primers and I have since changed to them also). The barrel was at 3600 rounds at this point so I did not do further load development testing.
I shot four 100 yard reduced course matches with the 53 SMK load and shot good prone slow fire stage scores (200-10X, 196-6X, 196-5X and 199-13X). However I was getting an occasional 9 that I did not call. It was a lot like shooting small bore prone at 50 yards with a scope and you can usually tell when the 9 is you or the gun and ammo. So, with 4200 rounds thru the barrel I decided to change the barrel and see if that would eliminate the uncalled 9s.
In the first matches with the new barrel I shot a 200-15X, 199-11X prone slow fire score so it looks like all is well but I will need a few more scores to be sure.
This story got me to thinking about using the lighter SMK bullets in my AR match rifle with scope in our 100 yard NRA Reduced Course High Power Rifle matches. I chose the 53 SMK over the 52 SMK that John used since the 53 SMK was a favorite for many benchrest shooters for many years. The 52 SMK is a boat tail bullet and the 53 SMK is a flat base bullet; boat tails are for improvement of ballistic coefficient and do nothing for accuracy. I was not sure how the 53 SMK would shoot in a 20 inch, 1 in 8 barrel since they are normally shot in a longer and slower twist barrel so I shot them at 100 yards bench rest and they shot ten shot groups the size of the X ring on the NRA High Power reduced course 100 yard prone slow fire target with the Sierra Manual accuracy load of 23.5 grains of N133 and CCI 400 primers (Sierra used Remington 7 ½ primers and I have since changed to them also). The barrel was at 3600 rounds at this point so I did not do further load development testing.
I shot four 100 yard reduced course matches with the 53 SMK load and shot good prone slow fire stage scores (200-10X, 196-6X, 196-5X and 199-13X). However I was getting an occasional 9 that I did not call. It was a lot like shooting small bore prone at 50 yards with a scope and you can usually tell when the 9 is you or the gun and ammo. So, with 4200 rounds thru the barrel I decided to change the barrel and see if that would eliminate the uncalled 9s.
In the first matches with the new barrel I shot a 200-15X, 199-11X prone slow fire score so it looks like all is well but I will need a few more scores to be sure.
