Big Al

What exactly is your new rifle and its application going to be?

Very quickly this thread has split into two aspects, one of load development, the other of barrel life. Looking at your initial question you dont really specify which aspect interests you? You really wont find any useful data on whether or not running a barrel in increases barrel life, my own thinking is it wont, running in is part of the wear process and will reduce a barrels lifespan, depending on the caliber that can be a high or relatively low percentage of the barrels life. Bear in mind though many shooters significantly reduce their barrels accurate lifespan by simple neglect and poor maintenance. If by running in you mean to preparing your barrel ready for load development that will ensure giving you the best chance to develop a load that will maintain its accuracy and consistency going forward then thats another thing entirely to which Ive given my thoughts. Bear in mind research based around any military application doesnt really involve accuracy, kills on man sized targets even at 1000yds isnt what we consider accurate.

Instead of taking my word for it why not go out and try this from a fresh barrel and see what you find for yourself? Even if you dont have a chrono you should see the results at the target assuming your shooting is good/consistent enough.

Your going to get different answers here based on both different peoples experience and also the level of accuracy you/they are looking for. Barrels definitely speed up during the first 100-150 rounds, typically by 50-120fps and a load that was developed on a fresh barrel almost always wont be as good at 200 rounds. You really need to monitor and make small adjustments becasue the speed and in turn barrel harmonics will have changed. This isnt my opinion, its fact based on the observations of lots of high level shooters all over the world. I chrono my own guns and see it every time. In terms of speeding up Ive seen this occur with barrels of all different quality and very much including the best match grade barrels money can buy. If you were shooting 1000yd benchrest you would be daft to develop a load on a new barrel over say 40-60 rounds and then call it good for the rest of the season, on the other hand if its a 200yd fox gun you might just get away with it until the batch of bullets or powder you have has gone. Any competent reloader who is interested in achieving the best they can should monitor a load at different times including when changing to a new batch of the same bullets and/or powder. I tell customers the same thing but then tailor the real world advice to suit the type of rifle and its application. If your doing high end or competition level load development the at least fire one box of new brass before you start thinking about doing a load. If its a gun used for lower levels of accuracy then keep an eye on your groups up to the first 200 rounds after you have developed a load. Bear in mind some people dont have chronos while others cant shoot or reload well enough to see what Im telling you. My observations here are based solely on accuracy, whether or not running in your barrel will make it last longer is a whole uglier can of worms that in all honesty I doubt anyone in the UK could answer definitively.

If you are going to invest any time in this then get on thing right from the very beginning. You absolutely must make the underside of the action identical to a Rem 700 or Tikka T3 footprint otherwise you have shot yourself in the foot for available stock options, also bear in mind the magazine well so it works with AICS mags and suitable floor plates. Personally I think its a waste of time even just for yourself as you wont gain anything that isnt already out there in terms of quality but if its to make you happy then by all means go for it.

Yes, many people would but you wouldnt make any money as the price point you describe is unrealistic. Regardless of price point your going to have to put a fair few samples out there for longevity and quality testing before I or others would risk using or recommending them. As Vince has already said, there isnt enough wind in the UK for that ship to sail.

And a trigger and a tuner will cost considerably less than a match grade barrel.

Have you considered improving the T1X trigger to help with accuracy and fitting a barrel tuner to the existing barrel? A Bix & Andy comp ball bearing trigger will give you release pressures as low as 3oz, a huge difference over a factory T1X trigger. I dont think I would be looking to spend the money replacing the barrel until I had upgraded the rest of the shooting system. Barrel tuners can also make a big difference to getting the best out of the barrel and ammo.

The problem I found with the 55gr Bergers were they didnt expand on soft targets at range. After drilling holes through a few rabbits at 600yds with my 20BR it lost its appeal when you see them crawling away. My .223 with 77TMKs smashes them up properly even at 600yds.

I think stuff like this matters to some people more than others and again its all relative to accuracy requirements. If a rifle is for killing stags to say 300yds then any good load that repeats sub 1" will last all year around considering the kill zone is 8" in diameter, same applies to a fox shooter who doesnt go further than 200yds in the dark etc but it isnt just for top level competition shooters. I build a lot of rifles that people use for long range vermin and the occasional informal target shooting and many have reported better success throughout the season when they take into consideration temperature stability and mapping into the equation. Undoubtedly getting the wind call right and the distance measured correctly are the biggest factors in missing a 500yd crow but there are many guys out there who are serious about this and they can do this stuff with good consistency. After understanding and applying then temperature mapping to their loads they tell me their overall success rate has improved. Ive seen some absolutely shocking differences in energy from different batches of the same powder to never trust them to be even remotely similar. I remember one friend who was running a load on the hot side with Varget and on changing to a new bottle of a different batch it blew the first primer out really badly, he went home and fired the second over the chrono to see what was happening and he was something like 100fps over. He redeveloped the load to find the accuracy he wanted and the same speeds at something like 1.6gr lower than previously. Ive also had a chap recently who was delighted with his rifle, a 6.5x47 and sent me pictures of multiple hits on small gongs at long range as well as lots of little groups at different ranges. He rang me one day in despair as his accuracy had gone to pot. He was talking about bringing the gun over to be bore-scoped as the barrel might be shot out after something like 400 rounds, if not the barrel could it be a carbon ring or a badly coppered barrel? or something else sinister. I asked if he was still using the 1kg tub of Vhit I had sold him when he picked up the gun and he said no, Ive just started using another fresh tub I recently bought. I swear he didnt believe me when I told him it will be the powder and he should look at doing the load again or at least testing in 0.2gr increments three times each side of his old charge weight. A few days later he range back and said the gun was back to shooting great, the new load was 0.4gr less than his old load as it was now into summer temps and he developed the load on a cool spring day. Temperature mapping isn't vital for everyone, its all relative to what kind of accuracy and consistency you are looking for but to those who want accuracy all year around it matters and its a vital part of the shooting system.

Can I assume your accuracy requirements are not at the higher end of the spectrum then? When it comes to the sharp end of accuracy the top shooters and their guns will be way more consistent than their loads are over the typical temperatures they shoot in, thats why they will continually be monitoring their loads accuracy relative to the temp it was developed in and then monitoring how it drifts in either direction and adjusting charge weight for it, thats called temperature mapping. If I develop a highly accurate/repeatable load at say 12 deg centigrade I know it wont deliver the same performance at +/- 5 degrees either side of this to the same high standard I want. Ive never seen a powder that can consistently do that hence the need for temperature mapping. Its also the same with barrel tuners and even easier to see, after a 5 deg change you need a small tweak on the tuner to compensate and bring it back to optimum. It all comes down to the level of accuracy that is required but Im certain you cant maintain the same level of accuracy with one powder over the temperature ranges we shoot in the UK. Because many Americans shoot over far wider temperature differences its very common knowledge to them and they often have a morning and an afternoon load where the swing between early morning and mid afternoon could easily be 20 degrees. The top American 100yd PPC shooters will be monitoring temperatures and adjusting their barrel tuners based on their mapping data, all fairly common practice at the top level.

I hear lots of people say this, my question is always the same, how closely do you look? I speak to shooters most days and its a common theme for the to talk about highly accurate loads that have gone off. When I talk to them about powder inconsistency and also a powders intolerance to temperature changes you can often see their eyes start to glaze over.

I dont think you can very expect very good consistency between different lots of any powder, its mass produced to a tolerance. Ive seen way too many examples of differences big enough to change a load or even become dangerous to ever expect anything better between different lots of the same powder. I tend to buy powder in the same batch numbers and even then I mix it before starting the load development to ensure consistency.

Barrel harmonics are real and infinitely more sensitive in incremental terms than the weight of a moderator but its good to see you at least proving this to yourself what goes on, its not hard to explore this much more deeply with not too much effort if your interested in doing so. This is a very basic demonstration of what everyone should know but its amazing how many people dont, I think the group size and shape has changed enough to also show a change in tune. If you want to find out more conduct another test comparing no moderator, the moderator you used in this test and finally another moderator what weighs different from the first one, I expect you will see three different POI's and three different groups sizes. Any weight that that you add to a barrel changes its harmonics which in turn effects both tune and POI but when the changes are small enough the POI will remain the same but the groups sizes will open and close around this same same POI, then your into the world of barrel tuners and tuning barrels to a fixed load. Well done on proving something to yourself or anyone who didnt already know what you have shown in your test. 👍

Had you considered paying someone else to do your load development for you? It could work out cheaper and done to a higher standard than you are capable of. Im not suggesting you aren't capable but I see a really wide spectrum of people who own rifles that struggle with this sort of thing for various reasons. I could highly recommend someone who develops loads for the rifles I build for others, its a very thorough process and you dont just get to see the small groups, you see everything that leads to the final load and the reasoning behind it. I guess a lot boils down to how much time you have available versus cash your happy to spend and ultimately how good you want the load and the accuracy to be?

100% and when someone reaches that tragic state there are plenty of weapons available to them in the kitchen or in the garage. As with everything though constabularies interpret the rules differently, some with common sense and at at times it seems others with no sense. I spoke to a lad a while back who was paid a visit because his GP informed the police he was being treat for depression. Basically his marriage had broken up and as a result he was also facing financial difficulties and also a huge restriction on the time he could see his children. He needed to work longer hours to cope and it was all getting too much for him. The doctor had signed him off work for a month I think and prescribed anti-depressants. When the police said they were considering taking away his guns he put up an objection and explained that he loved pigeon and vermin shooting and could never do as much of it as he wanted due to work and family pressures. His plan during the month off work was to shoot more, he said it always made him happy to be in the countryside with his guns and that losing them would further add to his mental decline. Apparently the FLO bought into that reasoned objection and allowed him to retain them even though some might have cynically suggested he would use them to kill his wife, family and himself. One month later after having some quality time to himself he went back to work three days a week and the police were informed, a month or so later he went back to work full time and about six months later he came off the anti-depressants and the doctor agreed he was no longer depressed. All this time he held on to his shotguns and rifles. His record was clean in every respect up to that bout of depression and it was good to see some compassion and common sense being applied. Depression doesn't make most people into a raging lunatics with a blood lust, yet its one of the quickest ways to lose your entitlements. 🙁

Access to the content of FB account is set to 'Friends Only' as Im sure it is for many people, I imagine that will make it impossible for FLO's to check your FB content unless he is on your friends list?

As I said earlier, the fact your barrel is 50yrs old might have something to do with it. If you did a 100yd load development on the rifle with quality components and the barrel is on its way out then it will show the same traits as you describe at 300yds. Its a quick and easy way to establish where you are at. I recently rebarreled an FClass rifle for a competent shooter who wins a lot. He came to me with a barrel he had fitted elsewhere that would consistently throw a couple of flyers in a 20 shot string under conditions that he would normally be holding the 10 ring and he wasted a year persevering with it, he had other rifles to use as well but every time he came back to that gun it would let him down in the way you describe. In the end he gave up.

In my experience when a barrel starts to show signs of coming to the end of its accurate life it behaves as you describe. The more you continue to shoot it the higher the percentage of flyers become. If it was just generally random then you could look at the components or the shooter but from what you describe it sounds more like the barrel to me.

A barrel 50yrs old is going to raise some suspicion.

An allegation was made against him that was investigated, no charges were made and he was deemed fit to have his shotgun returned, unfortunately he clearly wasnt fit and we now have this mess and such tragic consequences. Looking at his social media history he does look a troubled individual and if the police were aware of that they maybe wouldnt have given him the gun back? The problem is, what level of private scrutiny do we want or expect the police to go to to deem we are suitable to possess our firearms? Do we really want them poking into every sore of our lives, if they did they would revoke a lot of licences that really shouldn't be revoked. Sadly five people are dead and two others injured, thats never a good thing but we need to put this into context. I always say to people look at the number of people killed every year because the aggressor was pissed, I know someone who punched a lad in a bar queue when he was a young man and pissed, the lad fell down from the blow and died - are we going to ban alcohol? How many dickheads kill people when they are driving and texting - again are we going to ban cars or mobiles? I know I dont have to convince you guys but this is what I say to those who think legally held firearms are bad for the country. There are even years when zero unlawful killings happen with legally held firearms and suicides don't count because the gun holder could have just as easily stepped off a high building or hit the tablets. My heart goes out to the victims and their families, especially some poor mother I dont know who no longer has her child and her husband. 😢

You cant change something as significant as the bullet and not have to do the load development again, unless you have a very poor accuracy requirement. Accuracy can come and go between different batches of the same bullet never mind a different bullet entirely.

Sold to Kadu.

A good clean copy with no damage, £25 posted in the UK.

Im curious to know how you establish such an exact heating time for the .308 and for what neck thickness would that be? If for example you were 0.5s either side of the 4.2 seconds are you able to measure the difference in hardness you would be left with? I like the induction process in the sense you can be very consistent with the application of heat, like so many things thought theres a but. Unless you have tested the results over different brands and batches of brass Im not sure the process would be any more consistent in its results than a mechanised gas heated system? Mind either would at least be more consistent than a plumbers blow torch and an electric drill 😁 Nice work though, just shows what can be done at home. Maybe a little trap door under the case would allow you to drop the hot one into a container easier than handling it hot or do you have an easier way of getting them out?