Triffid

Thanks Beeb, all arrived safely. Triffid

I will take this if still available. PM inbound. Triffid

I think I'm more concerned about the people who've been reloading for ages and who perhaps can get into bad habits. The only reloading incident I've seen involved one of my older club members who has been reloading for decades and who managed to over-charge (or probably double-charge a .38 spl) and the subsequent loud bang heralded a one-way trip to the gunsmith for his Marlin 1894. My Club is a small one and it's straightforward to encourage new reloaders down the right path . . . I'll even give them the components and instructions, then check progress. Thinking about it, what I'd find really, really useful is the post-mortem reports into all the accidents that have occurred, particularly identifying the cause and root-cause of the incident. Triffid

I agree too. In this instance I think the NRA is acting correctly in getting ahead of MOD concerns about reloaded ammunition. However as a Club Chairman, it looks like I'm going to be asked to sign-off on the competence of my members who reload, which gives me some concerns. But if the NRA is going to issue a code of practise, that would help. Otherwise I'll have to stipulate that members (including myself) attend a course, but I do that anyway for things that are beyond my competence to assess (eg Target Shotgun and HME). Triffid

Thanks Pops, that was £15 well spent. The great revelation so far is to use two wind flags at 90 degrees to each other from the shooter. One for wind direction and one for wind speed. This book does everything in MoA, so it might not suit those people who work in Mils. The Snipershide article does Mils. Triffid

Having successfully transferred to Reload Swiss and Vihtavuori powders, I have my remaining stock of Hodgden powders for sale.Collection from Farnham Surrey or at Bisley most weekends.H414 - 2 full tubs plus one with 225gH322 - 1 full tub plus one with 220gH380 - 1 part-full tub with 297g£40 each for the full tubs, £20 each for the part-full onesPlease PM me if interested. For sale elsewhereTriffid

A friend was using his Envoy at Bisley last weekend. With iron sights and at 300X he was comfortably holding the bull, using the NRA GGG 155gn ammo. Triffid

What a great story! My two girls (11 & 😎 have shown little interest so far, but I live in hope. In the meantime I'm teaching various youngsters to shoot, either in the Scouts or as Junior members of my Club. Incidentally the 14 years age limit at Bisley is not set in stone. The NRA may allow younger shooters is the right controls are in place. Triffid

I've been running two Sightron S3 8-32's for the last five years or more years, one on a 308 and the other on a 6.5CM. They are great mid-range scopes that didn't cost the earth. To my eye the glass is better than any of the other mid-range offerings I've looked through (mostly Vortex's), but noticeably not as good as the S&B PM2, March FX and IOR scopes when I did a back-to-back test. They have their quirks though, particularly the turret and turret stub markings, but I fixed these with 'wraps'. However the 70MoA internal adjustment isn't enough for me as I'd like to try getting out to 1-mile, even sitting on a 20MoA rail. Both mine have the LR Dot reticle, which is brilliant for know distances at Bisley, but not so useful for aiming off. So they are being upgraded, one to a Kahles 6-24 and the other to a Delta Stryker 5-50, each out-performing the Sightrons, but costing considerably more. Your Sightron 6-24 actually sounds perfect. They have 100MoA internal adjustment (as opposed to the 8-32's 70), so you should be good out to longer ranges. Personally I like to shoot at about 18x magnification anyway, easier to pick up the target and see what the wind's doing. Triffid

Watch how much elevation each scope provides. The Falcon X50 only has 50MoA, which will certainly mean you'll need a 20MoA rail or rings, and probably mean using the reticle to aim-off at longer distances. If you can get the Berger 80gr VLD up to 2700 fps, you'll need about 40MoA adjustment in the scope to get them on target 1000X, which means a scope with at least 80MoA if you're mounting it flat. The Sightron S3's have 70MoA. If it's useful, I've attached a spreadsheet I developed to compare the specs of many decent scopes I was looking at last year. Triffid Glass.xlsx

Ditto here. I went to the Target Shooting Show at Stoneleigh last autumn instead. Had a great day. Will go again. I don't like the NEC much, having been to all the BSS's since the second one at Newark. Stoneleigh is nicest for me. The price of tickets for BSS and then charging for parking on top of that made it a no-go for me. I found that the Target Shooting Show was much more focussed on what interests me, although it was alot smaller. Triffid

Gosh, that long. I seem to remember Robin field-stripping and reassembling a Bren in under 10, so a mere barrel change would be half that. Triffid

Yes, within the same batch/brand. I don't mix headstamps ever and keep batches of cases together. I spent alot of time measuring the internal volume of about 120 S&B 6.5CM cases that I bought as factory ammo. I found about 0.6gn variation in internal volume within the batch, and grouped them into 20's to minimise the effect. The Quickload model predicts that the 0.6gn change would give about 15fps variation in muzzle velocity. Not sure if it had a significant effect, but it was an interesting exercise. Triffid

I'm a very similar plinky-plonker to SMLE. I like the challenge of shooting to the best of my ability and of getting the most out of my modest rifles (RPR in 6.5CM and a Howa 308). Also to me reloading is almost a hobby on it's own right, I just love tinkering and experimenting and DATA. At one time or other I've experimented with many of the aspects in the OP, to find out what works for me and to work out where I should improve my kit. So answering the question 'Does it improve my shooting if I do xxxxxx?'. The Internet is a great source of inspiration for this, seeing what other people are doing and trying to work out whether I can/should do similar. I have learnt to only change one thing at a time though! Bullet weight/batches? No. I've learnt to use decent bullets and just use them straight out of the box. I use Lapua Scenars. Primer pocket sizing? Not yet. I clear the flash-hole on all new brass and that's it. I might experiment with primer depth this year. Case weight/batches? I've proved to myself that case weight is irrelevant. It's internal volume that counts and there is no relationship between case weight and internal volume. I've found it worthwhile batching cheap brass on internal volume, but that's a lengthy process. Following some internet testing someone else did (6.5 Guys I think), Lapua cases came out with minimal internal volume variation, so now I use them instead. Same thing with neck-turning. Case length? Yes in theory. I've never found it changes that much. Powder weight? Yes, as accurate as possible. Gradually I've moved up in technology so I've just bought a set of A&D Scales and will be investing in an auto-trickler as soon as I've sold my Targetmaster/RCBS 505 and GemPro scales to fund it. I also have lots of data on how make a powder measure throw the most consistent charges. Overall length? Yes. I've moved from Lee seating dies to Forster micrometer ones to get more consistency. And less run-out. Triffid

Reloading all those NRA GGG cases is something I've been looking at. . . particularly looking to match it ballistically as it works for me and most of my club members up to 1000X. The Sierra 155 bullet they were originally loaded with has become expensive and harder to source, so I've switched to the Lapua 155 Scenar, using N140. Basic load development just varying powder charges left me with reasonable accuracy, but nothing to get too excited about. But then I had some HPS cases primed and ready to go from a previous project so I tried them in place of the GGG ones. This seemed to significantly improve the performance of the load. I haven't quantified this yet and I want to do some more direct comparisons to remove any other variables, but it has me questioning the quality of the GGG cases. Triffid

I found the 155gn Scenars quite good at 1000X on Stix earlier this year . . . This is out of my factory Howa 24" 1:10 308. Using N140 and exiting the muzzle at about 2800fps. Triffid

Try looking here: http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm Triffid

I love my Howa Varmint, but it's in 308, so I cant speak for the .223 version. For your scope, I think that the requirement to work with a rear add-on will narrow the field considerably. I know nothing about rear add-ons other than some scopes have problems accommodating them, so in your place I'd do plenty of googling to see what works and what doesn't. Your other requirement is target shooting, so I think you should avoid low-profile hunting turrets and get either target or tactical ones. Some of the target ones can be capped as well (eg Sightron S3), which might be an advantage hunting if you want to ensure that the scope settings are unchanged. The targets at Bisley are mostly based on MoA, not Mil. You can of course shoot either, but it's easier with MoA. Finally I'd suggest scouring the second-hand market. If you are buying a quality scope, then I've found that second-hand is no problem at all. Optics Warehouse have a pre-owned section which is good, particularly their SOG scopes. Or various forums like this one or Stalking Directory. Vortex in particular are great second-hand buys because of their no quibble lifetime transferable guarantee. Triffid

I tried several of the shot timer apps, but they couldn't cope with shooting indoors in an echoy range. Probably be fine if you're outside though. Triffid

They can scowl all they like. When you book a range you need to say that you'll be using a muzzle-brake in the comments field. Then adjacent firers will be told beforehand. Triffid

Having spent some time recently getting a DIY induction annealer (Gina-Erik) working, I'm now in the same situation as the OP - how much annealing is right. Unfortunately I've found a wealth of often contradictory information available on you-tube and various internet forums on the subject. I have gleaned the following information from my searches. 1. To anneal brass cases within a few seconds, they must reach a temperature of somewhere between 750 and 950 F. 2. I can use 750 Tempilaq to show where a case hasn't been annealed, but not where it has. In reality though, if I'm heating the neck up, it will be glowing white-hot hot before the case-head gets affected. 3. Brass will start to glow red-hot (in darkness) at about 930F, but this is quite subjective and hard to see particularly if you are using a blow-torch. 4. Equally the colour of the cases after annealing is not really a good measure of how well they have been annealed. AMP have shown that there is no chemical change in the composition of the brass at these annealing temperatures. 5. What actually matters is the results on my target and chronograph. I will be annealling batches of cases to different amounts using my set-up and shooting them over the chrono. My target is to reduce my ES. I can't measure the exact temperature the cases get to nor how hard the cases are. But I can control exactly how long they are annealed for in my system and I will use that measure to say whether the cases are annealed. Triffid

The standard advice for using 223's at longer range is to get one with a fast-twist barrel - 1:8 or 1:9. Avoid the 1:12 and 1:14 twist ones (which are more common) as these may not stabilise heavier bullets. Again the standard adive for longer range 223 is to go for the heavier bullets - 69gn is a common starting point. That said, it depends what you mean by 'long distance shooting'. Many people would consider 300 to 500 (or 600) yards to be medium range, in which case any .223 would be fine. Long range starts at 800, which is where the heavier bullets have an advantage. 223 is very capable of this as Laurie Holland proved a few years ago. There's lots of choice out there within your budget. Howa & Ruger American for around £600, CZ & Brownings about £800 and Tikka starting at £900 : these are all new prices and are all excellent rifles. If you want it for range use, I suggest you get a heavy/varmint barrel, but if for foxing, that's just extra weight to lug around. For scopes, I think you need to decide what you really want it for as there's a big difference between a range scope and a foxing one. You can use them interchabably, but I think you'll soon find that there are big compromises that you have to make. If pushed, I'd suggest a second-hand Meopta R1 and fit it with ballistic turrets. Triffid

Has anyone used one or got one? And would post their thoughts on the scope. On the surface it looks a great scope - hybrid of European and Japanese glass in a very attractive package, with huge elevation adjustment. Thanks Triffid

Another vote for the Simmonds WTC 1.5-5x20. I also run a cheap Tasco red-dot on my Marlin Cowboy, which works well. Triffid

I haven't used any of the Sightron S-Tac range, but it's seen as the slightly poorer cousin of the SIII & SV scopes. I understand that the S-Tacs are assembled in the Phillipines while the SIII & SV in Japan (https://sageratsafaris.com/kenko-tokina-rifle-scope-oem/). Not that that tell you very much as ultimately the quality of the scope is more dependent on the quality of the materials (glass) that go into it, the exact specifications/accuracy required and the level of QC used. So many of the quality non-european scopes around come out of the same Light Optical Works factory in Japan (supposedly including Athlon, Cronus, Bushnell Forge, Delta Stryker, Nightforce NXS/NX8/SHV, Vortex Razor), but that doesn't mean they are all the same scope nor identical quality. As I'm looking to spend alot of money (for me) on a new scope for long-range shooting I've done quite alot of research in the matter. I've currently got an S&B PM2 12-50, a March X 5-50 and an IOR Terminator 12-52 all borrowed from one of my richer friends (no kids!) and set-up on a tripod alongside my Sightron SIII 8-32: nearly £10k worth of glass in front of me! Can I tell the difference optically - yes, but not very much. The SIII has slightly less resolution than the others (if you look REALLY closely), but the image is bright & forgiving. The March has the best resolution, but the image appears tunnelled to me, the S&B 's resolution is a close second, but the reticle doesn't stand out and the image is flat and grey. The IOR has a lovely bright image, but the illumination is rubbish, the head-box very fussy and I don't like the front-parallax system as I tend to twist the whole rifle/scope setup when I'm trying to focus. So what I'm trying to say in an over-complicated way is that what people like in scopes is a personal matter and what one person likes, another doesn't. There are lots of professional reviews out there - Utting and DLO particularly - who really know what they are talking about and give their opinion, but that won't necessarily mean that you'll agree with them and what counts is your opinion on a scope. And you might find you prefer your existing scope. My suggestion is to try the OW offer as it's such a steal. Get you hands on the scope and compare it to what you've got. The distance selling regulations are on your side here, so if it's not what you want you can send it back for a refund - just make sure it's in perfect, unmouted condition. Or go down there once things open up and do some back-to-back comparisons yourself. Sportsmans Gun Centre is in the same neck of the woods and they also do a few scopes! Triffid