Ralpharama

Be good to catch up again 😃

Thanks Jeff. If the weather's OK I'm going to Rogiet with Monmouth (Guests of Muzzle Loaders) on Sunday, as tomorrows shoot was cancelled. Also going to Warminster on Saturday with Wessex.

I would like to add wind and maybe temperature via bluetooth to Strelok Pro on my phone to help me shooting longer range. The most obvious Kestrel instruments, I have seen are way out of my limited budget, but I get the impression that much of what you are paying for is the ballistic calculation which Strelok does already. I just want something to read the wind strength and maybe temperature and pass said information to my phone so I can dial it into the scope and shoot nothing but V bulls 🤣 I can make up a cradle with a vane to hold an instrument so that it actually points with the axle parallel to the wind rather that hold it up with my puddy hoping to get it more or less right. I'm bound to have some stuff kicking around the workshop for such fabrication. 😃 Any thoughts?

This is correct. which is why I so often run out of windage adjustment 😝

It was explained to me that it was as a result of the very high muzzle velocities, but 2700 is lower than I use with most of my rifles 🤔

It doesn't take massive amounts of wind to leave me needing to aim off and rely on the reticle markings.... Still it's not like it was expensive or anything ... It's German so it must be perfect 🙄 I've still not saved enough pennies to be able to quantify the wind at the shooting point, but I think it was forecast to be gusting 25+ mph

The techies suggested that I should e-mail the range orifice, but I haven't as yet. I would be inclined to call them before taking any time off work 😐

Left and right. The scope has loads of elevation and I didn’t even run out when I shot at 1400yards. Seems poor design for such an expensive scope

I’ve has an STR in .308 for five years. Stonking, accurate gun. The locking bolt on the folding stock loosens on its own during shooting which is irritating, but you just get used to giving it a tighten every few shoots. I also have a .300 Win Mag which I had put in a Form Rifle stock. Repeatable 7mm groups at 100yards with 208gr ELD-Ms. The only downside of Sabatti for me is that no one makes a ready inlet laminated stock for them. Getting my .300 Win Mag put in a nice stock cost more than the rifle. it hasn’t been an issue for me, yet, but I’m not sure what happens if you do manage to wear out an MRR barrel. They are supposed to life much longer than traditionally rifled barrels. I’m umming and arring about a 6.5 CM and it is only the cost of the stock that’s holding me back from Sabatti. That said, particularly with 6.5 CM you really want a good wearing barrel. Sabatti shoot far better than any other gun in their price bracket from my experience. My other favourite is CZ which again shoot far better than their price point, but don’t seem to have much in the heavier calibres

Do the markets not just respond to demand? I’m not sure marketing comes into it. I do think, however, fashion does. I have a friend who is massively knowledgeable, but really doesn’t like 6.5CM and as such none of his friends use 6.5CM, except maybe me, if I can find a ‘perfect’ gun fit for me ie not to much money, very beautiful and accurate. Yeah, I hate plastic stocks. His main concern seems to be barrel life, which given the cost of barrels is not unreasonable.

Given it’s a mil rad scope that seem unlikely. If it were 16MOA I wouldn’t have run out of adjustments.

I have had this for a while and enjoyed shooting it at 50m as bench rest rifle. My interest in .22 bench rest has waned and it's time to say goodbye. The trigger is astonishingly good and the rifle does deliver serious accuracy, which it should considering it weights as much as my long distance .300 Win Mag! I'm primarily selling as I originally bought it, with the diopter site. I forget to photograph it, but it does come with the mini-bipod type rest. The glove is part of the sale! None of the bags, scope or my home brewed bench-rest rest are. I extended the dovetail so that I could use a scope (properly in a milling machine). If someone wanted to use it for bench rest shooting I could negotiate for the rest, but I had intended to modify the top for use for load development for my centre fire toys. £299 seems to be a fair price - I did pay more, but that was off an RFD I have a friend who is an RFD and can send it at cost for me for £35, I presume to another RFD. TBH though, I would prefer to sell it face to face, so all the proverbial boxes are ticked

Sadly, Yes 😐 Mine is 12-50

Lots has been spoken about 6.5 Creedmore and there seem to be as many detractors as advocates of this oddly controversial calibre. I have just been through the agony of renewing my toy-ticket and asked them to add the 6.5CM to my wish list. A good and knowledgeable friend considers them evil barrel burners with overly light projectiles, but with HME being frowned upon in so many quarters I wondered if having a less restricted rifle capable of distance would be advantageous. I have no money nor commitment other than the authority to buy one if my planned bank heist is successful 🤣 Were I to manage to get funds sufficient, without risking my freedom 🤣 and did decide to go down this root what suggestions do the panel have ?(as they used to say on Gardener’s Question Time; before the days of podcasts I used to listen to radio four in my printing workshop)🤣 I have a couple of Sabatti rifles that shoot way better then their pay grade, but when one wants to stick them in a lovely laminated stock it gets expensive- getting my .300WM stuck in a FormRifle stock cost me more than the original rifle (new).

I went to Stickledown yesterday for a couple of hours. The electronic targets kept breaking. It was just me and the tech guys who spent a great deal of my session rebooting servers, tablets etc It was pretty frustrating to say the least. Ironically the6 told me that they paid a small fortune for tech support for the new system and they didn’t actually answer the phone 😳 it was very windy and my scope ran out of windage. Why such a high end scope only has 1.6mil rads of windage I can’t imagine (S&B PMII 12-50) It is otherwise a perfect scope and I wish I could afford more of them for my other rifles 🤣

My Sabatti STR is similar spec and using Hornady 178gr ELD-Ms I have had really good grouping. I haven't shot to 100yards with it as I have a .300WM for that, but according to Strelok the bullets are still supersonic at 1000yards suggesting that it should be OK at 1000. Using RS52 powder Using 208gr ELD-Ms in my .300WM it is grouping really well at 1000yards and is still supersonic at 1400yards. The 195gr TMKs I used previously went transonic at 1250ish. Using RS70 powder

I have been using RS powders for some time now. I have found them to be nice and accurate and don't stink as bad as some powders. RS52 now seems to be unobtainium. I have some stock left and have been preying that it comes online before my stock runs out. I got some Lovex D073.5 as a stopgap for my .303, rather than waste the 'good stuff' on something that's one up from a musket 😉 I made up some powder charge test loads just now and was pleased that not once did my RCBS chargemaster over-throw and I even fancy it was a tad quicker than with the RS powders. For those who haven't sought solace in Lustex powder, it is tiny little spheres, rather than the sticks I associate with RS powders. I have no idea how it performs in comparison with the RS powders and my beloved Lee Enfield is hardly the weapon of choice for judging powders 😂 Even though I have bolted on a scope for the purpose of load testing 😂 Any thoughts on Lovex powders. It seems that Vihtavuori powders are very popular, if a tad expensive? The previous owner of my No 4 was feeding it Vit 140, but my local RFD and friend doesn't stock it and Lustex is loads cheaper. I have been offered a loan of a book about how to make a Lee Enfield accurate, but it seems like a lot of work and each of myriad stages make only small improvements, but if you do them ALL you can get an one MOA rifle .... maybe one day 🤣 But not without a scope of an eye transplant in my case 😂

Many folk have got on well with Noslers. Guns seem to be very individual. I have a mate with a Sabatti.300 Win Mag of the same model as mine. After I had just bought some 208gr ELD-Ms he told me his would not group sub-MOA with them at all. After load development, mine repeatability groups 7mm at 100 yards. Odd innit!

I did some more work on the .223 yesterday at the 100yard indoor range at Monmouth. I played with the seating depths on 69gr TMKs and got a consistent 6mm grouping - happy daze 😀 The 69gr Noslers were a different story - around the 1 MOA was about the best I could get, so I think that it's fair to say my rifle really doesn't like Nosler bullets 😝 I still have a few some TMKs left, but whether they will be enough to carry me through to the TMK Oasis I really don't know. All my other rifles love ELD-Ms perhaps I'll have to try some of them in the CZ? 409off Nosler custom comps up for grabs if anyone wants any 🤣 Ideally part ex for TMKs 😉

I took my Sabatti .300 Win Mag to Stickledown yesterday, full of apprehension about the manumatic targetry, particularly after so many folk had furnished me with tales of woe about markers. I had invested quite a lot in time and money to improve my ammo and combined with the long and not especially pleasant drive from God’s own county of Somerset to Bisley and wanted a good result. All went well with HME testing in only three rounds deliberately spaced to avoid the armoury chaps not accepting one ragged hole made by three expensive projectiles. I picked up the radio, which made no noise when switched on and set up my table at the firing point; the NRA ones seem to like to add jeopardy by being extremely flexible. Mine was made by Forme Rifle Stocks as was the rifle stock and both have proved very prudent investments. When the hooter sounded for the start of play I tentatively pressed the TX button on the radio was pleasantly rewarded by a chap announcing that he was Butts . i explained that I would be kicking off with the Tomfoolery of my .303 with iron sights and he told me that was no problem. The wind was typically brisk and bringing with it smoke from the burning MOD woods, but that wasn’t stopping us. My chum is a bit less experienced than myself and struggled to get his .308 on target, but our marker was supremely helpful radioing us to inform us where each miss had gone. Once I finally got some rounds in the black with the LE I broke out the Sabatti. After a few rounds to get the measure of the wind the 208gr Hornady ELD-Ms were flying through the V bull virtually every shot. I had changed to a single stage press using the breach lock system and invested in micrometer seating dies and mandrel dies together with a comparator for my calipers and a Hornady tool for measuring the jam point. What a difference! At 100yards in Monmouth tunnel at 0.028” back from jam I was getting repeatable 7mm groups from a standard rifle, apart from the stock. I am one seriously happy punter. Clearly plenty of folk were put off by the lack of computerised scoring as we had Stickledown to ourselves😃 I did thank our marker and passed on my positive comments when I returned the radio.

Many thanks for that. That really is a full explanation. I shall make more effort to learn from it. I have always made by wind adjustments on the scope without noting anything down. With a bit or lateral thinking I may be able to edit the cards to work with mil rads. When I bought my first long range scope it was suggested that I should go mil rad so I did. If I could turn back time I would go for MOA, but as I went mil rad to start with, it makes sense for all my scopes to be one or the other. I certainly can't afford to change them all!

I'm hoping to go to Stickledown Wednesday week with my .300WM. After tuning my loads with my new micrometer bullet seating die I'm hoping for great results The NRA in it's wisdom have decided that mid summer is a good time to refurbish the electronic targets, so they are out of use until some vague time in the future - mid August ish. So my mate and myself have had to stump up for a marker for an afternoon. We prefer to have an hour before and after lunch lunch so avoiding the rush hour traffic, given we have a long drive. As we won't be able to see our group on a screen I guess it will be best to note on paper where the shots have landed. Not really being a competitive chap I have just plumped for the NRA face target as it was on the top. Would the shot record sheets you have linked to look great - is there an explanation of how to use then for those who have never used such a thing before? Any pointers much appreciated

That was a very interesting article

Praps I've just been lucky. I did not make any seating adjustment. I only started down this route after the problems with getting TMKs and having to try different projectiles. It's all good - I love learning new skills 😀

When I first got the gun I fed it RS52 as some folk said this was good. I then looked at Swiss Powders web site and they suggested RS40, so I tried it, enjoyed the small economy and found accuracy with the TMKs to be far better than I ever expected, even out to 600metres. interestingly I watched a YouTube video on bullets seating and a guy (American) said that TMKs were developed with semi-autos in mind and they like the jump. He also said that Berger, which I have never used, like to start with pretty much no gap, but are pretty much unique in this respect. I have now bought a Forster micrometer die for seating and set it up in a single stage press my friend donated to me for the purpose. I am told to start at 0.009” from the lands and go back in 0.003” increments until the node it found. should be fun 😃