milanuk

Hah! I was wondering what the buttons would look like for a case head that big What die set up do you have there in the Whidden tool head? XL powder die, I presume? What about the seater? I've been using a Forster Ultra BR seater in my Co-Ax; I had some concerns about clearance under the sleeve as far as getting a long bullet like a Berger 300 or Hornady 285 ELD-M in there...

What's the largest cartridge that you have personally reloaded on a 550 or 650? Were you happy with the results over a regular single stage like a Co-Ax?

Triggertech, Huber, Bix & Andy, CG Extreme, Timney and Jewell are all top names for the precision bolt gun game. Sometimes it depends on whether you want single stage or two stage, adjustable trigger shoe, or what you want for a pull weight range. Or if you want a safety. As I've found out recently, they aren't nearly as 'drop-in' as on say, an AR. There's a good chance that it may need some fitting and timing by a gunsmith. Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

All set up next to the 550 ready to go Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

AutoTrickler.com get the full meal deal, with the A&D FX120i, AutoTrickler & AutoThrower. then head over to Area419.com, and get all the 'bling' to upgrade it (bullet powder cup & trickler base are pretty much essential, IMHO). Fast single-kernel accuracy for about half what the *lease* on a Prometheus costs, much less purchasing one outright. Sent from my SM-T710 using Tapatalk

Seems like the Wilson case gauge is just trying to check your headspace / trim length, and leaves enough room to let differing chambers not run into problems around the case web. Which is pretty much right where your Hornady case gauge is giving you grief. What do your fired (preferably deprimed) cases measure using the LnL comparator? They are a *relative* measurement, not an absolute. My comparator would likely read slightly differently than yours even on the same case, due to +/- production tolerances, the light radius at the edge of that hole, etc. etc. What matters is your 'before' measurement vs your 'after' measurement. And before you get too caught up in only sizing the brass a certain amount because of some random numbers off the internet... here is what is currently probably considered 'best practice' for fitting the brass to your chamber: Bear in mind, this is coming from guys that do 1k BR and LR F-class, where they want top-shelf accuracy... but part of that involves not having to wrestle your gun every time you close the bolt!

Y'all do know that you can do caliber changes on these presses... they don't *have* to be dedicated to one cartridge forever and ever ? Just funnin' ya! I think he said he got an Revolution after the 1050... and never mentioned selling that one!

Another good read... https://www.usrifleteam.com/blog/rays-new-labradar One bit of particular interest (to me, at least): Not sure if I'd ever updated the firmware on my unit, so maybe that is/was part of the issue I have been fighting. But like I said, their guy pretty much leads with "you aren't setting it up correctly", which is a bit irritating ?

https://forum.snipershide.com/threads/labradar-with-suppressor.6902439/

The internal batteries have caused some issues... if they get low - and they do, surprisingly quickly - you'll still get the low battery problems even with the external power pack plugged in. But if you *remove* the internal batteries entirely, and just use the external power pack, that little issue goes away...

I'm pretty sure that they aren't really intended to trigger with a suppressed rifle as they come from the factory. There is a microphone attachment for air rifles that a lot of people use that supposedly helps. IIRC, I used mine with the trigger set to Doppler mode and it worked fine. That said... I've had a lot of issues with the acoustic trigger on mine. Like it's basically *never* worked, outside parking it right next to an extremely aggressively braked gun. I've always had to use Doppler mode for it to work right at all... as it turned out, part of that was that my normal firing position setup doesn't really let me park the unit out by the muzzle. In Doppler mode, it works (worked) fine back by the receiver of the gun, with the added bonus that I could actually reach the controls during the string without having to get up out of position or reach up with a stick to push the buttons (I've had the unit way longer than the BT phone app has been around). But even when I did have the chance to use it 'properly', with room to position the unit out by the muzzle it still didn't work in Acoustic mode ( (next to, behind, forward, didn't matter). I've used other people's units with no issue, and have other people try mine. The common factor was that mine doesn't play nice in Acoustic mode. I contacted their CS a couple times, wanting to send it back in to get checked out. Basically the discussion started and finished with the beginning assumption that I didn't know WTF I was doing, and to call them from the range (can't, poor cell service up there). I let it slide because Doppler mode *was* working and letting me use the unit the way I wanted to. Unfortunately, recently even that went to pot and started screwing up and giving me the 'acquisition error' warnings after it triggered... on no shot fired! Contacted their CS guy again... went thru the same dog-n-pony show, finally had to call him and specifically tell him I wanted to send it back in, and he emailed me an RMA form. Sent it off Saturday... so we'll see how it goes. Maybe he's right, and I don't know WTF I'm doing... but after 2+ years using it, I have my doubts

While the slot gages are interesting, I'd suggest losing the traditional case gages and go with comparators instead.

What gun? Bolt, or semi? What press? Single-stage, or progressive?

I've used a couple of their chassis so far... an LSS-XL, and a Savage factory 10 BA Stealth (made by MDT). I've also used several of their mags - both polymer and steel. The only product that I'm not really a fan of is the polymer 8(ish) round mags. The steel 12 rd mags on the other hand, are awesome. Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

Earlier this summer, a certain person asked for volunteers to submit some heavy .30 cal bullets pointed n trimmed for a Doppler radar test. Since I have the tools to trim meplats (both the Whidden setup that mounts in a Wilson trimmer, and a Giraud) and to point bullets (Whidden's die setup), I volunteered. Here is the info I got back on the results: Also note that the difference for a .30 cal bullet is going to be less than for a 6mm or .224 cal pill... the change in size of the meplat opening relative to the overall bullet diameter is a smaller percentage for the bigger bullets. For .338 it may help in accuracy, but it'll be awful hard to tell much difference in BC.... which brings up an interesting point: Hornady seems to be getting on the pointing bandwagon as well with their new AMP jacketed bullets (.30 cal 225gn and .338 cal 285gn), similar to what you see on the bigger Lapua Scenars. Not very aggressive pointing, but still it something.

1200-1500 per hour?!? How do you manage that kind of rate? Thats one every 2.5-3 seconds - non-stop. I always have fits with the dang things wanting to stick in the die, even with plenty of lube. Even so I think my eyes would glaze over if I did more than a few hundred in a row...

Mmmm... sounds like you may have came across a NRA High Power Rifle 'Prone' match. Was everybody laying down slung up in heavy coats with rifles with iron sights like this: What Red was referring to is called 'Conventional Highpower', or Across The Course or Over The Course, abbreviated as 'XTC' or 'OTC' - they shoot standing/offhand first, then sitting rapid fire, prone rapid fire, then prone slowfire. Similar rifles and targets, but Prone matches are (obviously) shot all prone. It is possible that maybe you came up on the tail end of a XTC match as they were shooting the last (Prone) stage. If it was an XTC match (with different positions) then they may or may not let you play with a tactical bolt gun - though technically there is a (relatively new) 'Any Sight Match Rifle' equipment category - you could use your gun as is, but you'd have to use a sling, but not the bipod. Honestly, for most people it can be a rude awakening - they may have a sling for their rifle but using it for 10-20 shots in a row starts to reveal some weaknesses in non-dedicated setups. An AR-15A2 'Service Rifle' is a very common choice (and equipment category) for this kind (XTC) of shooting. If it was a Prone match... F-Class is just another equipment category which shoots alongside the slingers. You shoot off a bipod with a rear bag (F/TR) or from a front rest and rear bag (F/Open) on a target with a 1/2 moa X-ring. The sling shooters shoot on a target with a (roughly) 1 moa X-ring. Everything else (time limits, course of fire, etc.) are the same as for the sling guys. The picture below shows one guy shooting F/TR in the fore ground, with an F/Open shooter set up on the next firing point over (picture is from the 800yd line on Stickledown @ Bisley during the 2009 F-Class World championships): This one is from the 2008 BCRA Int'l Rifle Championship (shooting F/TR): The wrinkle here is going to be if the range really is only 100yds, then what they were using for the Prone stage(s) is probably something like an MR-31 target. For NRA High Power matches originally designed around iron sights, the black bullseye is roughly 6 moa in diameter. At 100yds, thats about 6", @ 300yds its about 18", @ 600yds its about 36", etc. The idea is that the target 'looks' about the same thru the iron sights whether you are shooting @ 100yds or @ 600yds. For the ranges that don't have full distance (600yd) setups, they use scaled-down (reduced) targets with all the scoring rings shrunk down according to distance, and then a little bit more to account for not really having to deal with a full 600yds of wind... the problem for you is that to the best of my knowledge, there are no official versions of the F-Class centers for distances less than 300yds. So even if they are shooting Prone and not XTC, if its only @ 100yds, they aren't going to have any official targets for you to shoot F-class and turn in scores on. That said... since you're just starting out, your best bet would be to find out the name/phone number of who was the match director for that match, and talk to him. Find out what kind of match that was, and what kinds they have (some ranges alternate match types throughout the year) at other times. See if you can shoot just for fun. Find out if there are any ranges nearby that have full-distance events within reasonable driving distance. Get out there and have fun...

A portion of the USA F-class team went abroad this summer, visiting the new Midlands National Shooting Centre in Tullamore, Ireland and the Jubilee range in Blair Atholl, Scotland. This was the 'development' team, not necessarily the full team that would be fielded at a World Championships. Some shooters were previous FCWC participants, some were along for their first taste of shooting abroad with a larger team. All were top-level shooters in their own right. First stop was Ireland, where we shot as individuals in the Irish F-Class Nationals, followed by the second Europe vs USA team match (last one held @ Lodi WI in 2008), followed by the new Creedmoor Cup team match, a revival of the original Ireland-USA-only invitational started back in 1874. The next stop was in Blair Atholl, shooting on the very unusual range there. Only six firing points, but they are all on the side of a rather substantial valley which creates some interesting wind patterns. There we shot in the Scottish Long Range Championship as individuals, and another invitational team match between Scotland and American F/TR teams. For more details please visit www.usftrclass.com/firing-line and check out the blog entries and photo galleries.

1-10 thru 1-12 will stabilize most anything you're likely to shoot out of a .308; not something you really need to worry about much with this cartridge.

The 6-9" Harris with the swivel head and notched legs is what I'd recommend. The Atlas is a good 'pod, as mentioned, but the Harris ain't exactly a piece o' crap. They ruled the bipod world for a lot of years, and still hold their own. I do a different kind of bipod shooting (F/TR) and while I use something other than a Harris most days I still keep one in the side-pouch of my rifle case as a back-up...

In my experience... not well enough for my tastes. You would need to validate the settings at a KD range first, to make sure the lines/numbers actually jive with the corresponding distances - and they rarely do. Plus... it seems like most AO or SF scopes have markings for something like '50, 100, 200, 300, 500, infinity'. Out to 300... do you really need a range finder? IMO, if you have a good 200yd zero and are able to tell if the target is closer (hold a little low) or further than that (hold as much as maybe 8" high)... the answer to that is no. Beyond that... the graduations are so close together that it would be fairly difficult to be very accurate. Get a range-finding reticle or a range-finder, and learn to use it. Leave the SF for what it was intended for - reducing parallax error & focusing.

Because I've ran afoul of one gun with a really short throat before... I'd say start @ about 45gr of Varget or N150 and work your way up from there. For Lapua brass I'd expect to end up around 46.5-47.0, for Winchester between 47.0 and somewhere just past 47.5gr. I've never used the Amaxes enough to really say where to start with seating depth i.e. whether they like jumping or being jammed, but if you have a 'Palma' chamber, you may have problems jumping (i.e. short throat) without impinging on the case capacity and compressing the powder charge a lot.

I have Ballistic FTE and KAC Bullet Flight both on my iPod Touch. Ballistic hardly gets used any more. Too much 'fluff', and too much of a PITA to adjust load parameters. BulletFlight works well enough for me...

While normally 155s are pretty high on my list of bullets to try in a .308... the 20" barrel may be problematic in terms of getting enough velocity to a) stay supersonic @ 1k, or beat a 175 in the wind. A lot depends on what you actually intend to do 'regularly' with the gun. 600yds and in... what ever shoots best. If you shoot 1k more than occasionally... first off I 'd say get a longer barrel, send I'd say skip the 168s (at least the Sierra version thereof) and go to the 175s and run 'em hot.

there are general guide lines out there for what bullet weight 'theoretically' should work best in what twist... note the key word, 'theoretically'. Real world... a 10 or 12 twist is going to work just fine for most bullet weights most people are going to shoot 95+ % of the time - a 210+ bullet usually benefits from a 10 twist, and a 155 is probably going to fly a little better from a 12 or 13, but otherwise, its all gravy. If the 168 didn't shoot well from your gun, then that ammo probably just doesn't mix well with your particular gun. I'd be very surprised if the gun doesn't shoot 168s *at all*, given proper loading and all - but if you're planning on shooting any longer range stuff, I'd just skip the 168s and go straight to the 175s.