sometimes things work the way they should

[XTR]

After all the PITA I've been going through with my 45-70 today was a pleasant change.

I got my F-TR rifle back from my Predator Custom Shop on Friday. I had them replace my old 24" Rock Creek with a new 30" Krieger.

Today was the first day to go shoot and do some load workups. After all the things that haven't worked getting my 45-70 to shoot this was just wonderful.

Before:

After:

Not only is is 150FPS faster it works better. First groups for OCW at 200yds with 185 Bergers

Bob did a great job on the new barrel. With the new barrel in place all I did was torque my rings back on the Pic rail and the elevation on my 100yd zero was only off by 1/8MOA. I never expected that.

 

[Keith Glasscock]

Looks like you have your work cut out for you. She might just be pretty good at 44.1


What powder? LRBT's or Hybrids?

 

[XTR]

LRBTs and Varget. Got 2713 average for the 3 at 44.1.

Looks to me like the node is in the 43.8 to 44.1 area.

Oddly enough 44.0 was my load last yr and I know another guy who was running the same thing. I was running a 24" Remy and he was running a long barreled Savage. Loads developed independently. Seems to lend some support to the idea that some loads will work in almost anything.

 

[Longshooter70]

Good shootin!

 

[markr]

Looks like groups 2,3 and 4 have almost exactly 1 full caliber of verticle and assuming the bullet that was left in group 4 was a wind push...43.8 to 44.1 will all work fine. Have you worked much with slightly different seating depths?
looks like a good barrel to me to start off with.

 

[JohnMill]

X,
Looks good. Shoots good. What stock & how's it bedded? What scope? Rings? Lapped? Who made that Bi pod. Tell us about that other rifle in the picture.
Know what you mean about the 45-70. By the time I got mine to an accurate load it had pounded me pretty good. Still don't know if I won or if it won.

John

 

[XTR]

X,
Looks good. Shoots good. What stock & how's it bedded? What scope? Rings? Lapped? Who made that Bi pod. Tell us about that other rifle in the picture.
Know what you mean about the 45-70. By the time I got mine to an accurate load it had pounded me pretty good. Still don't know if I won or if it won.

John

This was originally built by Chris Mathews at Long Shot rifles. It was a trued up R700 in a with a 24" rock Creek #7 (very heavy) barrel with 11.25 twist threaded, Badger lug and I have a Badger brake for it. The Stock is a McM A5, Badger M4 bottom metal. It would shoot .3's as long as I did my part.

I shot it in F-TR all last year and came to the conclusion that the 24" barrel was too short for long range and to heavy to actually use for anything other than target work.

I had it rebarreled with a Kreiger 30" heavy Palma and ceracoated in black.
The Bipod is the new (ver3 I think) Sinclair adjustable F-TR
It is bedded to about an inch forward of the lug.
The Scope is a NF 8-32BR with an NP-2DD on a 30MOA rail, mounted in all Badger steel hardware. As pictured with all the scope caps on it weighs 17.25 lbs. (It weighed 17.1 with the 24" barrel, it is heavy)

The other rifle in the first picture is a Remington VLS 308 that has been dropped into a B&C A2 stock. These days it sports a SS 5-20, I've been using it for hunting but I find the 26" RV barrel to heavy and long for most all of my applications, it's unweidly in a deer stand. It will probably get rebarreled into a fluted 24" 708 in the not to distant future; esp. since Rock Creek is doing a group buy on their button rifled barrels over on SH. The price is just too tempting. They aren't cut rifled target tubes, but this is a hunting rifle, .5MOA is acceptable, and I'm betting that set up they do better than that.

 

[JohnMill]

XTR,
Wow! That should be held up as an example, for the rest of us, of how to write about our stuff.

Thanks

John