Popsbengo

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Hi

I have a Lee press (used but in very good condition) and a set of Lee powder scales (new, never taken out of the box)

Press  £45  plus p&p

Scales  £20  plus p&p

Pick up from N. Staffs for free.

16 minutes ago, foxyloxy said:

Hi all.

I've a query for those in the know. For those using ultrasonic cleaners, what chemical / cleaning products would you reccomend for - 

A - dirty gun parts.

B - cleaning brass.

All the related posts ive found seem to be 4 or 5 years old now, I'm guessing there's new products on the market nowadays. 

Thanks in advance. 

This is brilliant for brass in an ultrasonic.   https://www.carbusonic.co.uk/-ULTRASONIC-CLEANING-FLUID-JEWELLERY-JEWELRY-WATCHES-TATTOO-DENTAL

I drain down and let it stand for a day or so, poor off the clear and dump the crap - top up occasionally.

Their carb cleaner does steel parts well but so does dish detergent in hot water

I've just finished reading Jeff Siewart's book "Ammunition Demystified".   I came to it via listening to him on Hornady podcasts.

Very informative and not too hard going save the occasional equation or two.  Four hundred pages related to internal ballistics, bullet design and rifle design. There's plenty of food for thought regarding the root causes of shot dispersion, some quite surprising and not at all common place in the usual discussions on optimising ammo, in my experience anyway.

Highly recommended to anyone looking to understand what's happening in the rifle and how that affects bullet motion on its way down range.

7 hours ago, mactavish said:

On the OP's original point, with most long range shooting, magnification is 'mostly' your friend & if you've got it, flaunt it. I mostly like & use lots of mag too (rarely off x40 on my March FX shooting Long Range modes). I also try never to compromise available mag to fix bad positional or poor shooting form & follow through (unless push really comes to shove in timed competition).

Cheers.

Compromise available mag... bad positional or poor shooting form ? you're talking .22 rimfire !   Holding an aiming mark at 1 mile with a .338LM is a bit different I think you must agree and also more appropriate to the previous comments to Ralph's original post.

Never had a problem with rings, I use a tip (I forget where from) to use a piece of lead solder as a buffer between the set screw and die thread.  Works a treat

31 minutes ago, jcampbellsmith said:

Yes, it should get me out to 500m using the turret only. I may need to go down the reticle to get to 600 yds.

Regards

JCS

I had to think for a minute !   That'll be .22LR !  

3 hours ago, jcampbellsmith said:

I have recently got one of these - https://www.clunycountrystore.co.uk/products/zeiss-lrp-s3-425-50-scope?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=2b0581345&pr_rec_pid=7994146521301&pr_ref_pid=7994140229845&pr_seq=uniform

"The finest option for medium- to extremely long-range shooting is the ZEISS LRP S3 425-50 scope. More accurate shot placement is made possible by the combination 160 MOA or 46.5 MILs elevation turret and 4x-25x magnification."

Regards

JCS

that's pretty impressive elevation in a 34mm tube

4 minutes ago, OSOK said:

That's not true ... Plenty of scopes for under or around the 2k will do the job you require ... The S3 , Tract , Recon , NXS , NX8  etc ...... You crank the power upto 40x on anything and you won't see strike with a 338 ... You'll need a spotter every shot . If you love your S&B so much then by an Ivey mount and use that ..... I have an Ivey and they work well too and are more versatile than the Nightforce Prism but at just under a kilo their heavy ..

I bought the 40mm Ivey for my IOR but i had ring reducers made so i can use either a 34mm or 30mm scopes .... If you buy the smaller option then you can't go bigger if you change scopes !

There's something to be said in favour of an Ivey mount or similar to avoid having to use the reticule for elevation hold over.  Keeping the scope's optical axis close to centre is optimum for elimination of lens distortion.

I may treat myself ...

25 minutes ago, Ralpharama said:

After being told that 25x is plenty I have tried using my scope at 25x, but always end up cranking on more.

when you shoot, using your higher magnification, can you get back on target before your shot lands ?  If you can that's good to go.   There's around three seconds to a hit at the mile.  Having a mate as spotter is also good!

It's useful to see and measure misses (hence FFP) as there's next to no wind reading options on ELR ranges so the preceding shots are the best info on wind down range.

I'm not convinced there's much to be gained spending +£3k.  My S&B tracks perfectly (essential for ELR), is more than bright enough and has rock solid parallax adjustment.  It's sufficiently rugged to resist knocks and heavy recoil.  Not sure what's to be gained in the giddy heights of scopes at +£3k ?

I use a S&B PM2 at 25x for one mile.  As OSOK says, good to have plenty of visibility and to get back onto the target for spotting.   Mine is FFP in mils.  One mile is 18.2 mils for 300gr Lapua Scenar.  I have about 30moa rail (mix of moa rail and mil mount) and that's got enough elevation to dial 2000yds.  I do have to zero at 200yds though.

1 hour ago, SMLE said:

I’d like to volunteer to be Corporal Jones….

Naturally !

Mrs Fox ??

Could this offer a glimmer of respite re ever more controls?   😁

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68097048

I think I remember how to salute but I refuse to do the assault course...

40 minutes ago, Big Al said:

That said, people can only do what they can and as such not everyone ends up a winner.

Success at competition certainly is a good measure but I'm sure you'd agree that not everyone that's good at something competes.   Also, not everyone that competes is necessarily good at it either.

On 1/23/2024 at 10:24 AM, Triffid said:

Delving further, I've come across a series looking at the impact of sample size on load development, which pretty much rubbishes the normal ways I've used (eg Ladder / OCW). The podcasts are long and detailed, but my takeaways from it are:

1. To get a representative idea of group size, you need to fire about 30 shots.

2. Conclusions based on smaller number of shots (eg 3 and 5 shot groups/velocities) are invalid. Using exactly the same load, you are likely to shoot very different 3 and 5 shot group size, velocities and/or zero position.

3. You can use small samples to identify 'bad' loads, but not 'good' ones; if a three shot group measures 3MoA, it cannot get any smaller. But a group measuring 0.5MOA can only stay the same or get bigger.

4. Their load development process consists of throwing different combinations of components at the rifle to see which ones work. No powder charge work-up or seating depth changes; with large sample numbers they find that there are no 'nodes'.

 

I'm going to try shooting ten five-round groups of my favourite load . . .

Your points 1, 2 & 3 are valid summaries from the videos.  Point 4 is completely unfair   to suggest "throwing different combinations etc"

Statistics and the way they apply them in the videos is sound.  It points up the nonsense of people quoting SD from a five shot string (or even 3 shot as occasionally posted on this forum).  I don't think they are suggesting that load development can't improve the consistency of ammo, it clearly does - it's just how shooters fail to grasp the reality of small sample statistics error bars and say "oh cool I've got a great shooting load" after a good five shot or even five by five shot NRA (US) grouping.  For sure 5x5 is realistic - it's what I do, it's just not a great predictor of possible divergence.

The thing that gets glossed over in these discussions is the variability of the shooter him/her self.  I don't know about others but I can't hold point of aim like a bolted down bench gun.  And that variability is effecting group size but not chrono data.   Good consistent well made ammo on the chrono, wobbly old me at the trigger.  Group size not relatable to just internal ballistics effects but muddied by inherent inaccuracy of the nut behind the butt.

52 minutes ago, JCalleja91 said:

There's alot of chat hear mentioning hand loaded ammunition.. do they mention Factory ammo at all? Is a tuner beneficial then where other factors aren't tunable? 

I started watching the video but it got a bit deep for my tired brain and I fell asleep 😅

😂

I think the consensus on the video was that wrt factory ammo other factors overwhelm any possible effects from a tuner

9 hours ago, a1baz said:

I have a magpul bev block but the cheapest I’ve used was 2 bits of plywood! I know people will say your can break your receiver but I didn’t : D

Thanks, I managed to get one for £13 off Amazon - it's actually very good and works a treat.

I think what we can agree on is that there's endless scope for debate and theorising about the very complex subject that is internal ballistics. Hand-loading and 'tuning' loads and firearms for optimum performance is fascinating.  I've come to the conclusion that it's far easier to eliminate bad performing loads than to arrive at a near perfect marriage between load and rifle.

I make ammunition that's as repeatable as I can make it,  use only the best components,  invest in the best rifle & sight combo I can afford,  take care to eliminate poor groupings and then crack on with shooting!  I get pleasing accuracy and precision however I'm sure there's something further to be gained - it's just very hard to get that last nth% ..

6 minutes ago, Artiglio said:

 

Of those that listened to the whole video,  would I be right in thinking they were leading upto the conclusion that  a decent barrel, good components, well developed load and carefully produced ammo were far more important factors than the tuner, which wouldn’t be able to cope with variances in ammo anyway? 
 

"race car parts make a race car" is the way they summed it up.  Also, your last point is a key observation - if there is any effect from tuners it's tiny compared to so many other factors and because of practical reasons, most load development is limited in numbers of shots, so statistically suspect when comparing results and therefore tuner benefits are inconclusive at best

20 minutes ago, John MH said:

Might be worth doing.

indeed

1 hour ago, Elwood said:

I’m certainly no expert on tuners, but most people think they are an accuracy upgrade, which they can be. More importantly though they allow you to keep your accurate barrel in tune in varying conditions, ie hot and cold. They also allow you to do it on the range and if you have too during a competition.

I still do a proper load development, charge weight, seating, primer, neck tension before finally running a tuner test, most of my tuners are set on 0 where it was when I was doing my load development.

Disclaimer, no I haven’t watched the video.

"Most people think..."    "Most people" also think doing statistics on three shot strings is reasonable in load development.

I'd rather take the view of experts under consideration than the views of persons that have spent quite large sums of money on a gadget - confirmation bias being a well known problem.

If it adds to confidence then crack on,  I'll not be joining the tuner ownership club myself.

2 hours ago, No i deer said:

What did you gain from watching the video pops..?

1) a clearer understanding of barrel harmonics and the ballistic effects that overwhelm any real-world "tuning" available from adjustable barrel weights.

2) the significance of bullet axial alignment and yaw related dispersion being more significant than I thought

3) some useful links to other related subjects

Well, that was 75mins well spent I think.  Very interesting indeed.

Well worth a listen.

One thing it's validated for me is the care required to ensure bullet alignment is well spent in reducing dispersion due to cross-velocities.

I'll not be ordering a muzzle tuner anytime soon though.  With the money saved (?) I've ordered Jeff Siewert's book

45 minutes ago, John MH said:

Having used both .338 and 6mm Bullets with Noserings with very good results I thought I'd give this a try.

 

Came with a full set of Collars, .22, 6mm, .25, 6.5mm, 7mm, .30 and .33

Could you show us a before and after picture please ?

That's interesting.  I like the use of painted letters X, Y to help identify the limits