meles meles

So, plenty of food for thought, much of which can be boiled down to: Safe option: Remain with the 7mm Rem Mag. It's a known quantity, already have good loads worked out and the reloading kit for it. Mainstream Calibre: .300 WSM. A proven cartridge, components easily available, dies available at a fair price. Similar or slightly better in performance to the 7mm Rem Mag. Something different: 7mm RSAUM. An unknown quantity to us, but recommended by Big Al and Baldie which has to be worth something in itself. Uses known bullets, initial studies put it on a par, at least, with 7mm Rem Mag, possibly better in terms of accuracy. Not sure if it will feed in a long action but that can be looked into. Brass availability might be an issue at times. The 7mm RSAUM is looking worthy of further investigation....

So, a civilian who has in a former incarnation completed the 'sniper progression of training' is good to go then?

The 300 WSM sounds worthy of further investigation ! An alternative thought might also be to get a standard bolt and look at going in the other direction towards a smaller calibre and leaving the heavy lifting to our 338 Lapua. We don't have a .223 rifle, and we've also heard good things about the .224 Valkyrie, both from Baldie's posts here and also from others who have seen him shoot with it. That could fill a niche...

Yes, the rifle will be for perforating paper and clanging steel. We like the 7mm Rem Mag cartridge, but are now just wondering what other options might be worth considering for the future.

Hmmm, so if we were to turn up with a less dangerous rifle, chambered in, say, 8.58 x 69mm ?

Not on that particular range, at the moment, but we think there are things afoot for the future.

Thinking ahead, oomans, what might make a good , alternative calibre when the time comes to re-barrel our Remington 700 ? It's currently in 7mm Rem Mag and has served us well in that form but following our acquisition of a .338 Lapua Magnum it's now no longer our primary long ranger artillery piece. It's in an AICS stock and obviously has a magnum bolt face. We can either have it re-barrelled in 7mm Rem Mag again and carry on using it as our 600 to 1,000 mard gun, or go for something different. Wh at would you suggest, and why ?

Yes, a superb range and run by a great guy. There are ten positions in the firing point, with windows that can be opened selectively for either bench rested or prone shooting. Observation ports for spotters too.

Why the prohibition on .338" ?

You wasn't the one on about shooting Brer Fox by the dozen was you? And us badgers too ? We may have chewed through the brake pipes of your van: careful when you goes downhill, ooman

Oh but they do provide early brekkers at the Eskdale Hotel, ooman, if you ask 'em nicely. We had a yoghurt, a bowl of porridge, followed by bacon, eggs, sausages, a "tatty cake" *, fried egg, black pudding, baked beans, a couple of slices of toast and an apple. All washed down with plenty of fruit juice and tea. We were up there on Monday and a great day was had by all. Marc even laid on a bit of nature watching for us too with red kites and golden eagles performing aerobatics during the lunch break to keep us entertained. We rather liked the hit indicators on the targets that flash bright red, and felt doubly impressed when, after a string of nine hits, the tenth flashed a golden yellow. Thinking Marc had programme it to award us a gold medal for a string of ten successive hits we were brought down to earth with a bump when Marc explained a flashing 'gold' was actually indicating a near miss. * Scottish equivalent of a hash brown we thinks...

Why all the fascination with getting your brass washed a dozen times and making it bright and shiny ? Dull brass is far more tacticool...

Pah ! Unless you've been stung by the nettles growing in the window seals of a Series Rover you're not a real Roverphiliac

For those of you who don't want to stray far from your pootahs, you can do it all in software too with a Software Defined Radio https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QzklSyKqQM

Dear Santa...

Is there a particular reason why some rifles use a barrel extension ? I'm assuming that it could be for one of two reasons: To have a larger diameter available to work with at the receiver end without needing the barrel to be of the same diameter To use a different (tougher ?) grade of steel at the breech end whereas the barrel may be optimised for wear resistance

Nice stylish rifle, refreshing to see !

We use them in several calibres and find them to be very bit as good as the Bergers we used to use, and at a lower cost.

Is it a case of "First they came for the sneezers?"

We used to be a member there, glad to see that it has been resurrected. Just tried to re-join and encountered the same issue with their verification system.

Starts totting up fees and preparing invoice for 'metallurgical and manufacturing consultancy service...' Easy, yes, cheaper, not so much...

Maybe Baldie could be persuaded to do a run of "Board Specials". I don't know how they'd compare on price with high end Lantacs and so forth but the quality would be superb...

The K31 sight mount is offset to starboard so using it with your left eye would be awkward. It has the benefit that iron sights can be used too, so we tend to have the irons zeroed for 300 yards and the scope for 600. Another mount exists that puts the scope over the rifle centreline but that is quite high to allow cases to eject well and obscures the iron sights. The fiendishly cunning Swiss developed another system for their sniper version of the K31, the Zielfernrohr Karabiner 55 (ZfK55). In this, the action was canted 15 degrees within a slightly widened stock to allow the cases to be ejected cleanly whilst placing the scope on the rifle centreline using a mount offset to port. It had an integral bipod too, along with a muzzle brake and a dinky little case to carry the scope in.

We have a scope (6x42 Pecar) mounted on a Swiss K31. As the rifle loads from a clip, the scope mount is offset to the side, about 1.5" from the bore axis. We set it up for the sight axis to remain parallel to the bore axis rather than seeking a convergence at some set distance. As Pops said above, being 1.5 " to one side from the point of aim may seem a lot at 100 yards but as the range increases it starts to disappear into the general noise. If you wish, you can always aim off by the horizontal separation, in our case 1.5". We frequently use the K31 for 300 and 600 yards shoots and have no problems keeping all shots within the bull. Well, the rifle doesn't anyway...

Oh, we figures some other people must live such hum-drum lives, eh Pops ? * Pops Pedantry badge in the synchrotron to make it sparkle *