What You Get When You Do Everything "wrong"

[EricW]

Here's what you get when you do everything "wrong" according to the gurus with your .308 MOR rifle.

- Ammo loaded on the blasphemous, progressive Dillon 550

- Case prep via chamfering the case mouths with a utility knife blade (only to prevent the bullet jackets from shaving).

- Powder charges metered automatically by the stock, Dillon powder measure (the powder measure of the Western Infidel Heretic Pigdog)

- Powder: Plain Jane Hodgdon 4895. The sin of it all!

- Primers: Plain Vanilla Winchester Blue Box, non-match, garbage primers

- Bullets: Sierra 168 gr. HPBT (OK, so the Infidel chickened out and splurged on the good stuff. If the White Elephant sold Nosler J4s - that's what I would have used).

- Cases: Off-the-shelf Remington cases. Absolutely no prep work done other than hacking the case mouths down with the utility knife. Primer pockets left in their imperfect, unclean, almost pornographic state.

- Rifle: POS, out-of-the-box Remmy 700 PSS/Varmit with the factory barrel. Barrel lapped with the sinister, demonic, barrel-destroying JB Bore paste.

- Scope: Sh*tbox Redfield Police Scope that has no central crosshairs. All you can do is bracket the bull with the center circle.

- "Benchrest": prone on the bottom of the local sandpit off a Harris bipod and with an old sock filled with rice to rest the butt of the rifle on. Gasp!

Put it all together, and here's what you get. 100 yds, plus a brief respite from the constant wind gusts, equals three shots, one hole.

Lest anyone think I can't zero a rifle, here's the first shot out of the gun (my cold-bore zero):

Will my scope hold up to the constant wheel-turning needed to compete in MOR? Probably not. A Super-Sniper and some 20MOA cant mounts (under $500 delivered) will solve that in a jiffy. When my barrel burns out, will I be replacing it with a fluted Krieger? Probably.

But, you don't need a $5000 euro-trash rifle to have some success with precision rifle. Simple, careful reloading processes will do more for accuracy than any benchrest Feng Shui will do for you. I can hardly wait to build up a DPMS 308 and REALLY offend the high-zoot rifle pundits.

Oh, and by the way, I got this group without cleaning my rifle from the last time I shot it.

[ErikW]

Well at least you didn't moly coat the bullets and then crimp them.

[Clay1]

Sweet! I'm a big 700 action fan. I spent $1300 on a fancy Weatherby with a stock that has a full length aluminum bedding block, flutted barrel and a 1 1/2" group Guarantee in 7mm/08. My 700 ADL shoots better. Had to send it back to the factory because it just wouldn't shoot less than 2" with Fed Prem and half a doz other rounds tried. I've shot rimfire BR50 stuff in the past and I think I get how to pull the trigger off of that Hart rest that I have. $350 rifle shoots better, WTF????

Glad things are working out for you. Have fun with that thing!

Rick

[George]

Crimping, if done properly can actually increase accuracy by uniforming neck release tension ;-)

Eric, it just shows to go ya that attention to the small things can make as much difference as lotsa' bux can ;-)

I like the case mouth prep procedure, Lotek fer' sure!

BTW, the big test will be holding it's POI with a red hot barrel. After 15 fast rounds will the next 5 go to the same place (or close enough anyway).

BTW, the cold bore performance is very nice.

[Dan Sierpina]

What happened to the rest of the rounds. The photo show #'s 5,6,7. Shoot and count 5 or more shots.

[XRe]

Well, apparently due to your bullet choice, you didn't do *everything* wrong... Nice work by the shooter, too....

[EricW]

What happened to the rest of the rounds. The photo show #'s 5,6,7. Shoot and count 5 or more shots.

Shots 2-4 were weather reports. I had no idea what I'd done until I walked up to the target. By the time I got back to the line, it was blowing like a banshee again. It's very gusty where I shoot and all I could get was a horizontal line after that. (I forgot to bring flags...again.) However, if my vertical dispersion, which was very little was the same as my horizontal dispersion, a very similar group would have been the result. The gravel pit where I shoot has VERY difficult wind. It swirls around - making doping tough for me.

So, yeah, I know that 3 shots isn't definitive and 10 shots is more like it, but as long as I live where I do, this is about as good as it gets until the WX settles down.

==========

Geo,

Yes, I'm sure the barrel will walk from cold to hot. I have no intentions of ever shooting my bolt gun cherry hot in peacetime, however. Replacement barrels are not cheap. It's almost cheaper to replace the entire rifle. This gets back to the realistic combat scenario that we're not supposed to talk about on the competitive shooting forum.

If I'm going to go play Carlos Hathcock fer real and try and wipe out half the NVA single-handedly, I'm going to bring a spotter with an M14 for backup. I'll probably have a 12 ga. shotgun with me too, just because I know a bunch of people on here will get their panties in a bunch over it.

[tewlman]

if that's the best you can do then you might as well just give up.

[Dan Sierpina]

Eric,

Thanks for the explanation. Different ranges have some really weird wind conditions. I've seen the wind flags going in two different directions over the distance of a couple hundred meters.

By the way, that 3 shot group would be something if you shot it in a tunnel, let alone a sandpit off a Harris bipod. Funny how some of those Remingtons will shoot better than they have a right to.

[HiCapMag]

ROFL!!!!

Heratic....Blasphemer!!

I use the evil 650 to load on.. David Tubb uses a 550, so I figure its ok.

Now your case neck procedure I gotta see. I tried the Dillon powder measure and got wacky results with Varget...up to three grains off, so that was a no-go.

If it works, roll with it.

Nice shooting.

By the way, shot the Tac-Pro Sniper match last (Zak did a report on it) and one event was shooting 20 flies (pictures of flies actually) at 75 yards. You had (I think) 90 seconds. Hot barrel to say the least, so you never know what your going to encounter in the play-rifle-world.

[EricW]

Hi Cap,

I have a solution for poor Varget metering: don't use it.

For MOR, I'll take the accuracy over the stunning, whoopass, count 'em 31 fps advantage of Varget. 4895 meters like a dream. I'll get the occasional "tick" from shearing a grain on the downstroke, but it's 100X easier to meter than Varget.

I've got a pound of Varget sitting in my cabinet that I never plan to use again if someone local wants to do some horsetrading.

The only reasons I've spent all this time learning my MOR rifle are (1) I want to shoot a match with Pat and (2) it's a project that's a decade over due. Besides, it's hunting season.

[HiCapMag]

Good point on the Varget -- I have actually never tried anything else. Gunsmith said try 45gr Varget under a 175 SMK and it shoots too good to make me try anything else......but what the heck, I might try your load just to see how it works in the Dillon powder measure.

What is your load?

Bolt guns are just plain fun. ..... sorta like pistols.......and shotguns.......and AR's........

[ccur]

When I first started this, I shot an out of the box .243....It would give me 1/2 min accuracy at 600yds.....Go figure! I still use Remy's but now I have Kreiger barrels...they also give me 1/2 min at 600...IF I can hold it!!

Cheryl

[diehli]

- Case prep via chamfering the case mouths with a utility knife blade (only to prevent the bullet jackets from shaving).

Now your case neck procedure I gotta see.

Damn, dude... ya can't even invest in one of these?

[George]

I'm gonna' hafta' get you one of these for Christmas: VLD Reamer

[EricW]

Damn, dude... ya can't even invest in one of these?

I have a couple. They were dull. The knife blade worked better.