Lots of range time this summer:
Picked up an Accuracy International AT rifle with four barrels, 308, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6 Creedmoor and 22 Creedmoor. The two latter barrels run 3100+FPS. Scope is a Gen 3 Vortex 6-36x56 that was on my R700 6.5 Creedmoor.
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Looks like a very nice purchase!
Range time is always time well spent. Last week I had to take an LTC class as my concealed carry permit from Washington state expired.
The final test was ridiculously easy - from 3 to 15 yards. Even the most challenging part - 15 yards ārapid fireā didnāt cause too much of a spread. The instructor just loked at the target for a second and said āI donāt think you missed any fives. I certainly canāt count fifty hits, so they must be in.ā
I was happy. I had to use the rangeās Sig P320 with irons as they donāt allow optics for the test. For a gun I hadnāt fired before, and with a different trigger than mine, the results were āpassable.ā
The good thing was I was able to repurpose the target the other day. My wife got me another Henry, this time in .44 Magnum. Prints pretty well even with the crappy āperiod correctā sight that comes on it. Iāll get the 1895 Scope for it in stainless, as this one has the stainless receiver as opposed to the brass on my .357 Magnum Henry.
Well crap - I thought I took a photo of the group it made at 25m. Iāll post it later.
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You will need to tell us which is most accurate of the 4 rounds through your rifle.
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Thatāll be tough, against all of these hot rodded R700s, except for the US marked 22LR 40X in the foreground.
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Wow! Thatās a very nice rig.
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I read so much about the 6.5 C, the miracle round. Have you found any truth based on your experience?
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The advantages are low recoil, projectiles with good ballistic coefficients, and a loaded cartridge thatās same approximate length and diameter as a 308, so most 308 based magazines will work.
When I first had a rifle built for the 6.5 CM back in 2009, there werenāt many .264 match bullets available and it was a proprietary Hornady cartridge, so I could only get Hornady brass.
I actually had the barrel cambered for the ridiculously named Norma 130gr āGolden Targetā bullet. Barrel life was around 2500-3000 rounds depending on how hard you pushed them. I ran them at 2875FPS, but powder is temp sensitive so they often ran much faster in the hotter months, sometimes as fast as 2950FPS.
That was two barrels ago and there are many more choices for brass and bullets now. These days Iām partial to large rifle primer Lapua brass and Berger 140 and 153.5 hybrid target bullets. They run 2775 and 2710FPS, respectively.
Thatās about 28.5MOA (or 8.2 mils) of elevation to 1000 yards with bullets with lower weight (and recoil) than the standard 308 or 300WM loads that run from 175gr to 215gr.
There are even smaller and lower recoiling rounds that are accurate to 1K. Notably the 6mm (.243) and 22 (.224) Creedmoor, that are based on necked down 6.5 CM cases.
I enjoy shooting it. Itās mostly point of aim, point of impact at 1K.
On the shooting forum I frequent, the 6.5 Creedmoor is referred to as the ā6.5 Man Bunā.
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I agree that the 1 MOA for most hunting rifles is hype. I believe 4 MOA was the requirement of rifles in WW2. If you had the gun in a vice, on a dead still day, fired 10 shots, then shot a 3 round test group maybe. If you are hunting and you send a round down range, then no. You are prone at best, cold barrel, windy day, adrenalin flowing, and having to shoot before the target moves. nope. Not saying you will not hit your target. Just the factors stack up creating inaccuracies to the 1 MOA concept.
Iāve seen that video. I have to say I diasagree with parts of it, mainly dealing with cold bore shots. I believe there are several other factors involved with ācold boreā shots including cold shooter.
How is the temperature differential between the first and second shot so different between the first and third, or fifth?
Iāve been blessed to fire just about everything small arm in the Armyās arsenal since well before 1982 when I joined. BARās, Browning Hi-:Powers, Thompsonsā¦
And Iāve also been very blessed to have fired an assload of our artillery systems. And mortars. And recoilless rifles. And the list goes on.
Why is it we would register one 155mm gun with several rounds, yet when the entire battery fired their first (cold) shots you had a perfect sheaf downrange?
Same with mortars. Thos tubes get hot fast. Yet when I trained on Soviet/Chicom mortars I saw the same thing. One mortar gets dialed in, then the other three (cold) fire with it - resulting in a perfect sheaf. In both cases you have to assume all were laid identically.
So back to the rifle. My AR shoots no worse on the first shot than on any subsequent shots. If it does itās me. Am I just one of the lucky ones whose rifle does not have a āconsistant and repeatableā cold bore error? You can read all about the subject and take either side you like, backed up with plenty of anecdotal evidence to support whichever side you take.
Iāll say this:
I rarely clean my rifle. When I do itās mainly the bolt and carrier.
I rarely clean the barrels in my pistols.
And again, my cold bore shots are just as good with my AR as any other.
And this is important: I hardly ever oil my barrel, and when I do, I swab as much as I can back out. Itās chrome lined. It aināt rustng any time soon.
Now when I throw a shot Iāll joke that it must have been my cold bore shot. But we all know humans have flaws, and Iām no less human than anyone else. When Iām off, āIā am off.
I learned quite by accident about oil fouling shots. Iāve been against using a lot of oil for most of my shooting life. Simply for one reason:
It attracts dirt, right?
Yeah. Tooling through the desert at 60 mph on a three day mission, my .50 may have needed a dusting off with a brush.
But no, the reason I always advocated using as little oil as possible is because when shooting a lot of rounds, on the one or two way range, that oil heats up and begins to burn your eyes.
As a result, I began to notice I had better ācold boreā shots than my teammates. Sometimes even whole groups at first. Then I realized they were of the ālight coat of oilā school of thought, including iside the bore. So I reserached it. Turns out oil, in any amount, is going to affect your shot. Makes perfect sense. It wasnāt that I was a better shot than my teammates (I was not) or that I had a better M4. It all came down to cleaning and oiling.
Sometimes during SFAUC, where we shots hundreds if not thousands of pistol and carbine rounds every day, Iād get those looks when I took my M4 into the shower. Yup, a little hot water, a wiping down. And then clean the bolt, the bolt cam and the carrier. Seven drop rule for oil. Mobil 1 synthetic by the way. Never had a even so much as a double feed.
So as for the video, I have mixed feelings. Are there 1 MOA guns out there? Most definitely. Are there 1 MOA shooters out there? Not so much. I am not, nor have a ever tried to be. For my purposes (I do not hunt. Not game animals at any rate) Iād rather have nice little spread hitting three different organs, than putting all three rounds in one.
Fire lapping can make your rifle more accurate. It also erodes the throat more quickly.
I find the best way for me to get my rounds as close as I want them is simply wait until my target is close enough. Unless Iām on the .50. If I can see him, heās close enough.
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When zeroing the M 68 105 mm gun we would fire a warm up round. If you only just fired 3 rounds for zero, you would not get as tight of a group. I know in combat that means the first round would not be as accurate as subsequent rounds. The 120 mm had a muzzle reference device that helped with that.
Iāve related this story before, but here we go again:
After shooting semis for many years, I decided to go to a shooting competition in Tennessee. Firteen All Army shooters, fifteen All Guard shooters, me, and some chick I had met in Wisconsin a few months earlier. She shot, but was mainly there for moral support.
It was a bullseye competition. Iād never shot bullseye in my life. I brought my 1911, my Beretta 92FS and my Sig.
I got my ass handed to me in 1911. I was htitting at 50 meters, but these guys all had optics. Optics donāt neceassrily make you a better shooter, but they sure as hell help you see the target at taht range.
I also got my ass handed to me in service pistol, for which I canāt remember what I shot, either the Sig or the Beretta.
And then there was a third category in which I used the last gun. I donāt remember what it was but I know I used all three, and got beaten handily every time.
So I figured I was done.
Then one of the All Army guys asks if I want to shoot revolver. I said I didnāt own one. So he said, āHere, use this one.ā
They even gave me ammo, as they had for the other stages.
We shot 50 yards slow and rapid fire. Ten rounds each. I did not have a spotting scope so I had no idea how I was doing. When we went to score the targets, I had ONE hit near the top of the target. Son of a ā¦ The guy must have wound my rear sight all gthe way before he handed me the revolver.
We moved to 25 yards. I held at the center of the very bottom of the paper. Ten rounds slow fire put all of the rounds so near the center of the target I was able to cover them with the smaller square target youāll see in the photo.
Then we went to ten rounds rapid fire - five and five again, The results you see in the photo - a 72 2X. Both of my 25 yard scores, slow and fast, were good enough to beat exactly HALF of all the other shooter. They were amazed. (The guy who gave me the effed up gun probably more so than the rest)
So this was all done in a bullseye stance I had never used, with a gun that was not mine, with sights that had to have been altered. and with a revolver period, which up until that time I had never shot once in my entire life.
I bought a S&W 686 a month later.
It doesnāt look like much, but for this final stage, 25 yard rapid fire, it was good enough to beat half of the best shooters in the Army and the Guard from the four components.
And that is my first time shooting a revolver story.
One rifle, many barrels for the Accuracy International rifle.
All the hot rodded Remington 700s do not have quick change barrels.
Itās confusing because all the R700s are in folding Accuracy International Chassis Systems. (Stocks)
And Iād have better luck throwing a pistol at a target and hitting it than shooting a pistol at a target and hitting it. 
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Iām a lefty and I didnāt realize I was holding the target upside down in the photo.
My daughter is a twenty year old PhD candidate who already teaches at the university level. Now before anyone should let me explain. That is not to boast about her (she doesnāt even like us to mention her age or what she does to people) but rather to illustrate how even smart people can ask the absolute dumbest questions. She gets this text from her fianceās father (assistant fire department chief in our town) and sends me a copy:
I know that your dad is into reloading. Would he want a bunch of gun powders? Someone dropped off a bunch and weāre not sure what to do with it. I could drop it off today.
Now I can forgive his question - weāve only met three or four times. But my daughterās question floored me:
Dad, are you interested?
Whuh? My genius daughter who sees me reloading all the time, usually while watching something on Netflix (I highly recommend the series 6ixtynin9 - just binged it) didnāt know the answer to that? Thatās like asking my chihuahua if she wouldnāt mind tasting the Amazon delivery guyās calf.
So hereās the bounty - all full, and going by the prices on the stickers (and some of these are a little older) easily $800 worth of powder. Some is fairly caliber specific, but most can be used for pistol and even magnum loads:
Toughest thing about the zombie apocalypse? Pretending youāre not stoked about it.
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Quote of the Week - possibly the decadeā¦
Iām trying to get it put into legislation that undertakers have to tie the shoelaces of the deceased together. That way if there is a Zombie Apocalypse at least it will be funnyā¦
Cheers,
M
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He lost me at the thirty second mark.
I make an assload of ammo. Iām not going to show it to the entire planet. I donāt stockpile it though. While I do have an inordinate amount, itās so I can shoot the hell out of it before having another marathon reloading session. Iāll shoot at least three or four times per week. I donāt need tens of thousands of rounds - at some point I can just start taking mags off the bodies stacked in my driveway if it ever gets to that point.
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I think the video guy āmightā have a cache in his ammo bunker.
Should he have a house fire, what are the odds of the fire department actually showing up on your property when you tell them you have over a hundred thousand rounds in the burning building? What are the odds of your insurance company paying on the loss because the fire department was kept at bay by exploding ammunition? I do not know at what point some type of fire suppression/ containment system becomes a requirement.
We had dinner with the assistant chief tonight. He has great stories - two about fire houses that had fires due to things being left on the stove during a call out, and local one that recently burned to the ground,
The subject of foundation repair came up, because itās a huge problem during extended droughts here. I said if I noticed a problem Iād just set off the thirty pounds of powder he just gave me in the house near the crack, and blame it on that. Insurance companies wonāt cover cracked foundations, but they will cover other stupidity. My friend down the street burned the whole upper story of his house two winters ago because of a deep freeze that knocked out power for a week. He had a fire in his fireplace and of course he hadnāt cleaned the chimney in some years. When he went outside and noticed flames shooting out the side he attempted to put out the fire, but of course his outside water faucet was frozen.
The insurance company paid in full. His wife had always wanted to redo the master bath anyway.
Down side - he lost his whole gun collection. The Thompson might be salvagable with new furnitureā¦
Firefighters study what happens to ammo in a house fire.
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Iāve been aware of the low risk of ammo for years. Yet some fire departments still shy away from entering a structure with known quantities of ammuntion. Iāve posted photos of my hooch in Afghanistan - sleeping next to a huge ammo dump - linked .50 and 7.62 ammo, AT-4ās, Karl Gustav rounds. Never gave it a second thought.
The drop test is interesting as well. However, remember that is western ammmo.
We found a cache of Soviet 14.5mm and other large caliber ammo in the mountains in Afghanistan. One of our AMF dropped a Spam can of 14.5 on the rocky terrain and one of the rounds did indeed go off. Blew a nice hole in the can, but not from the projectile, just the force of the detonation.
I meant to post a little on the subject last night in fact in my above post, but t was late and I forgot to mention it. Our Fire Department wouldnāt shy away from it because I happened to specifically ask about it at dinner. I lso told him I was going to store the powder he gave me in the drawer underneath the oven, 
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