Hannu

Jason, because you are in Colorado, if I would be you I would contact Rick Hebert (Parker, CO) : http://rickhebert.com/ He has built several Open guns with slide racker you can turn 180 degrees. You can meet Rick in many local matches, specially at AGC. If you want, we can go to talk to Rick together too. If you call him, you can tell Hannu told you should call him

Welcome ! There sems to be pretty many active CO practical shooters using this forum. What I usually do; "I set up my own match" once a week from tuesday to thursday in shooting range near Brighton : http://www.wildlifehunters.com/ Then I usually go couple times a week to shoot some basic things (grouping, draws, reloads etc) at local indoor range, dry firing at least once a day + match (sometimes 2) in weekend. Local matches are the best practice you can get, and many matches are very nice in CO However, I feel that I need to do lots of training where I actully shoot a stage. Btw; when somebody is making him/herself a fool, nobody is usually laughing. That is because he/she may be the next one who is gonna do something funny, and he/she knows that

Anybody used Blue Dot ? Seems to be little easier to load than 4756 and gives little more gas to comp. Starline brass, Win SR primer, MG 124 gr CMJ COL 1.175" + 8,9gr of Blue dot gives PF 172 from my 5.4" gun. Add 0,2 grain for same PF for 4.3" shorty.

Feels horrible I have not yet found a good powder for 5.4" + Bedell comp, but AC is one of the least good. However, AC works super nicely in our 4.3" STI Matchmaster with T2 comp.

If you take weights off from rifle buffer, you lighten it by about 100 grams - that is alot. However, some problems might occur if you use light buffer together with full mass milspec bolt carrier. There are many rifles working just fine with this kind of setup, but if you are planning to do it you should test fire your rifle with at least 1000 rounds to see if it is reliable or not. Empty buffer + lightweight bolt carrier works usually very reliably, when you have gas system adjusted correctly. When lightening bolt carrier, you should inspect JP lomass carrier closely. There is very thin round part on back, but it gets lot thicker when you look little forwards : Never lighten more forwards than where red arrow is ! I have seen one rifle the slide of which cracked while shooting because of turning rear part of the carrier too much forwards - resulting pretty complete disaster If I remember right, broken parts included bolt, carrier, upper/lower receiver, charging handle, trigger, hammer, buffer, bolt catch and magazine. This is very true, but makes working slooow. Anyway, better safe than sorry If you want to make a real difference, bolt carrier needs to be done from other material than steel. Then you can get to a whole different moving parts weight level (around 6 oz), which makes shooting really fun with a good muzzle brake

I have never had reliability problems with properly loaded ammo for the barrel / chamber used at that time, when brass has been in good condition. Other point is, ammo loaded for Rem. chamber will not always cycle Wylde because pressure and muzzle velocity are dropping noticeably. You definitely want to develop a load for the barrel / chamber you are using... BR shooters change barrels very often compared to any other shooting sport, and for reason. How often you need to change 3-gun barrel ? I would say, my personal minimum accuracy requirement is 5x5 shot group average less than 1.0 moa / 300 meters. Better accuracy, faster shooting. In my experience, with .223 Wylde the barrel life is somewhere ~60%-65% when compared to .223 Rem barrel with similar quality. What this means, if you are active shooter you can shoot one season matches and practice rounds (15-20k) with one .223 Rem barrel. I used to use 5.56 Nato and .223 Wylde, but I do not want to use "worn as new" barrels anymore I feel alot easier to develop loads for .223 Rem than .223 Wylde. Would be interesting to hear, what is your opinion why you feel it is easier to load for Wylde and why it is difficult for Rem ? I had problems with brass expanding too much from rear with Wylde chamber. It caused very short brass life (max. 7-8 reloads) and 2x case head separation. I have experienced case separation once with .223 Rem, LC06 case loaded 32 times. There was obviously 1x too much Some bullet / powder combinations do not work very well in Wylde because of long bullet jump from case to rifling - causing uneven pressure build up. Specially with pointed plastic tip bullets like V-max and BT. I have found Rem chamber to be alot easier here too. If you want your barrel to be not switching POI when warming up or cooling down, you need to what you are doing when turning a barrel down. It is definitely not rocket science, but seems to be pretty hard thing to do. Maybe I have just seen too many turned down barrels, that have shot beautifully before turning and horribly after Only available then was IMI M855 load, which was very close to .223 Rem CIP maximum pressure. I have understood IMI is pretty hot, but all M855 ammo I have tested has had pretty poor accuracy and I have not been testing M855 ammo very much because of that. M193 ammo seems to be much better accuracy, but at the best on the same level with cheapest commercial ammo. Pressure barrel was (and still is) set up according to CIP specification. I do not remember how many millimeters piezo is located from what point, but I can certainly find that info. I remember, both CIP and SAAMI take piezo readings pretty far from case mouth but I can be wrong here. I have also understood, different sensors commonly used by CIP and SAAMI make small difference. Anyway, I think pressures measured in the same pressure barrel and with the same piezo are pretty comparable. Sorry, I did not want to put words on your keybord. I just feel that 5.56 Nato ammo quality is never even near the level of typical Krieger barrel. In my experience, best lots shoot 1.5-2.0 moa @300 meters average 5x5 shot groups and difference between really good and average barrel is only small. But when you feed both barrels really good ammo, good one will shoot 0.5-0.6 moa and average one 1.2-1.5 moa.

We did some research few years ago. At that time, not a single 5.56 Nato M193 round from several manufacturers did reach CIP-maximum pressure for .223 Remington. Please note, that CIP maximum pressure means that pressure average must be under certain limit, but single rounds can create little higher pressure than maximum average. Pressure gun barrel was (as always) CIP-minimum spec, so you can spell it "tight" One thing I do not get, if you get Krieger barrel do you really want to shoot the cheapest crap through it ? Even the best barrels can not shoot good with ammunition that is not made to shoot accurately. If someone wants to shoot 5.56 Nato ammo, I would get a cheap barrel for that and save my Krieger for good handloads or factory ammo.

Mpeltier, have you had problems with .223 Rem chamberings ? If yes, please tell what kind of problems ? Basically speaking: longer freebore, shorter barrel life, and Wylde has pretty long. There is a reason for that, but it has nothing to do with 3-gun or rifle IPSC. .223 Wylde chamber is very good in what it was designed for : load 80gr MK to 2.50", load them to the chamber one by one and shoot good score in High Power match at 600 yd slowfire. In that kind of use, stainless usually lasts longer. But, specially when you use short bullets loaded to magazine col and excessively long freebore, things get different. Why so many rifle manufacturers in US use Wylde, is because it lowers peak pressure at the same time being way better than 5.56 Nato. Comparing to BR barrels... Those barrels have chambers cut exactly for the bullet used, there is no excessive length freebore etc. The same thing happens with .223 Rem chambered barrels. I examined one barrel when it had 9.500 rounds through - that barrel still had shorter freebore than a new Wylde barrel. The barrel is still going ok, after 26.000 rounds - long range accuracy is not very good anymore, but 150m and less it shoots average 0.7 moa groups. Turning the barrel down without affecting performance, is a state of art. If you want lighter than Bull profile and you can get it from factory, by all means do it.

I like Open the best, but specially after I have been "having a break" (which is usually 3-4 weeks in October-November) I like to shoot iron sights. It remains me that I need to use the sights, improves my all-the-time-loosening grip and many other things. And it is fun to shoot different guns Many shooters, specially ones who have been shooting long time with irons, "test" Open for short time and go back to Lim/Pro/SS. I think, even if you have decent skill level with irons, you need several years and lots of practice to become a decent Open shooter. You also need to find new techniques and you will learn alot if you have never shot Open. Whatever you do, shoot what is most fun for you !

Reliable 16" rifles with RLGS has been done, but... For several reasons, I feel little uncomfortable to make gas port big enough so the rifle would cycle with all kinds of factory ammo (excluding Wolf, Barnaul and other steel cased crap). Other way is to use only slightly bigger gas port than 18" and load your own ammo. For example, H335 powder works really nicely with 50-55gr bullets in kind of setup. If you want to make really neat 16" rifle, shorten the RLGS by 1" and you will have a nice rifle. Yes, nobody makes that kind of barrels and gastubes, so you are probably gonna be your gunsmiths worst nightmare If I remember right, TommiF had that kind of setup and we even tested it years ago ?

Erik, thanks for photos ! Seems they have a real Finnish winter there, wet and muddy... Weather here in Colorado is so much nicer We do not want to manufacture rifles with milspec tolerances. Main reason is, the tolerance is huge and we could make pretty different kind of rifles inside the same spec. In Europe there is also no need for loose "liability chamberings", so we can improve magazine fed ammo accuracy a little bit and get much better barrel life. However our rifles accept most US accessories. Virtually all racegun parts can be installed like triggers, scope mounts, handguards, buttstocks, pistol grips etc. Threads, pins and holes are imperial in all main parts, differing from most European AR-15 rifles. Only metric threads and bolts we have, are located in gas block and front sight mount, for certain reasons. Our interest is to make precision rifles which are reliable and accurate, and of course easy to shoot in every way. There are several reasons why we moved to US, but unfortunately I can not discuss this matter in public. Lets say that I am in kind of "back office" doing research and developing new UP products for you guys. Right now we are developing our own trigger group + some other cool things If you would like to visit me in Pumphouse, just send a message and I will be there faster than you can say Pumpuhousehasthebestbeerintown You can also see many other members, like Sinnsyk and LeoHallak, often in Pumphouse If you want to contact me without visiting Pumphouse, that is allright too Best Regards, Hannu Uronen

With very long freebore for magazine length loaded ammo, stainless may wear out sooner. With Wylde chamber barrel life is limited anyway, so difference is not THAT big. I would pick stainless with .223 Rem chamber and 9" twist, but that is just my 2 cents

You can not, without doing major modifications to the trigger group. You need to install a screw for adjusting pre-travel and you should note that the "safety sear" will not work anymore.

...and it is 92.4901% in my classification.

Just use two adjustment screws on back of the trigger group. I do not remember which one is which, but you will probably find it out pretty fast However, please note that hammer has lots of play on hammer axle and the sear engagement has a tendency to "travel" somewhat - do not try to minimize sear engagement with light pull weight !

Shot this 30 pts in 3.18s with SS last sunday. Classifier calculator seems to tell it was 98.43% run.

I hate it, 15 grams more weight on the slide. You have to use some time with mill to take that much weight off from less than 10oz 5" slide... It also limits my grip. It is also the only part I need a tool to disassembly my Opengun (Dawson toolless guide rod). I think however, it has more pros than cons. For me 0,2 seconds faster table start with slide racker is alot. And anyway it is nice when you have several chamber empty starts in the match, like Nationals 2010.

That is Briley, w/ 8.5" PRI Picatinny-rail on the bottom. I do not know if they make it anymore... The photo on Briley´s website looks exactly like Clark, which i do not recommend for active use. STI, Bushmaster, S&W and DPMS AR-15 rifles have been readily available in Finland. Other thing is, demand is so high that at least my company has sometimes had difficulties to bring on as many rifles as we would be able to sell. So you may not be able to walk into the store and pick up your own match rifle. That is true in US too, if you want a decent quality rifle and not just a basic el cheapo one. Other thing is, why would you want US rifle when you can get a better one made in Finland

Found my new pet powder from IMR 4756. MG 124gr CMJ, Starline brass, WSR primer, OAL 1.175" and 8,1 grains of 4756 gives PF 172. Very nice to shoot, feels almost cheating Reloading is, however, painful... I have Dillon 1050 with Rick Koskela´s bulletfeeder but 8,1gr of 4756 fills the case completely so have to run the Dillon pretty slow I am not gonna use 4756 for local matches... Barrel Schuemann 5.4", with poor quality rifling. Only needs 0,1 grains more to meet PF 171 from STI 4.3" Trubor barrel. I have tested some powders with both STI 4.3" shorty and 5.4" (both without popple holes). One thing is very clear - those guns need different kind of powder to be nice to shoot. Autocomp is super for shorty, very fast cycling and easy dot tracking. 7625 makes dot tracking harder and 4756 is even worse. 4756 is super for long gun and 7625 is ok too. But, Autocomp is horrible for 5.4" gun, feels just like I am gonna break 90 degrees with it What I want to say, is that load that works in your gun very well, might feel horrible in some other gun.

Open, squad 28

I buy all my brass as new. When your good quality brass is not first fired in loooooose chambered duty pistol chamber, it seems to last 15-20 major reloads. I use new brass for matches, pick it up and use once or more fired brass for practice.

This seems to be 100.00% in my record.

You can always do like Isto and get the best one : http://www.asejaosa.fi/index.php?page=shop.browse&category_id=70&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1 Sorry, not much info in the internet yet... Working on it always when I have time. Meanwhile, you can always ask me.

3 down in 3.07 seconds HF 12.052 seems to be close to 100%. Single Stack, unclassified

I shot this today in SS. One down, 5.14 HF 6.6148 which should be around 93%-94% when calculated from earlier SS results. Probably gonna get Master as my first SS classification. I am not yet classified in SS.