KABOOM

14 hours ago, terryh said:

Kaboom,

I've owned a Hawk Eye for years and used it a lot, very helpful tool. Recently purchased one of the Teslong unit (USB based) and found it pretty good.

Believe there is a Bluetooth version to go direct into a mobile device so probably the way to go?

As already noted - be prepared to be horrified!

T

 

Indeed my best use of a Hawkeye was to see copper in a Savage 1899 lever action in .243, the copper remains as I haven't a clue how to tear it apart( not my rifle in any case) the bore was more or less plated with copper. By now the question may exist "does it shoot decently'?

I haven't a clue never shot it. The Hawkeye in question was borrowed from a friend.

On 5/5/2020 at 1:55 PM, gruntus said:

+1 for inspection and also if your a "clean freak" for checking your cleaning regime it can be a useful tool.

It can, however, be one more thing to make you chase your tail and start worrying (unnecessarily?) when you see some pitting, coppering or throat erosion.

If you have a look up my old SMLE you could wonder how the bullet even makes it to the target! 😆

How you correlate these things to actual evidence on paper? I'm not quite sure.

G

Quite correct I have a Springfield 1903 with pits that helped me place in Service Rifle 3 years past . Seems the pits didn't matter all that much. Only one bore with "some " rifling left has been a total waste of ammo a 1896 Broomhandle Mauser , you can see what ought to be lands and grooves sadly results on target say its pure mirage keyholes at 10 yards! I worry if groups open sure then I either clean or look for keyholes. Copper gets removed after around 400 shots more or less, throat erosion in my usage bothers me not in the least. JB compound a few strokes to knock the rough off and away I go to another adventure. Best wishes for good shooting.

On 5/3/2020 at 1:53 AM, Triffid said:

If you do run out of adjustment length for your die/press setup, the easy fix is to mount the lock ring on the underside of the press, instead of on top. 

I've had this problem using Lee dies in a Dillon 550 press.

 

Triffid

Thank you I just learned something!

On 5/2/2020 at 6:12 PM, Furyan said:

Thanks Ronin

Kaboom I am careful with powder , just spill a bit on the floor the wife's hover didn't like it.

Electric motors and powder cant be good. What I did was place two containers identical in all respects other than front label near my partly full dispenser. Grabbed exactly the wrong one and poured only after seeing two very different granule sizes did I know I screwed up. I never did check the lable that day and relied on memory. My procedure now is only have the powder in use near the dispenser lable to the front at all times. All other powders in storage not to be touched until the stuff in use is put away and dispenser cleaned out.You cant be too careful with powder . I am quite sure good sir your very careful with powder.

After some thought I have to ask if a borescope is a cause of chasing some ideal not validated on target, thoughts??

I don't own one, I have used one for inspection of a few rifles and then began the worry. Only shooting vanquished the worry when results on target were as hoped for.

As a tool for inspection prior to purchase I see value in using one on used guns. Even so if the gun in question is either rare or extremely interesting would I purchase it having 

seem dubious things? Maybe is the reply, so far I haven't purchased any used firearms that failed to give results that were desirable, perhaps im just lucky?

On 1/7/2020 at 2:59 AM, Phaeton said:

sometimes, too clean a barrel shoots worse than slightly fouled like yours. I used to scrub clean my barrels (bronze brush) to bare metal and guess what? i had to foul them every time i shot.. sometimes taking up to 10 rounds to settle AND the barrel life went downhill. Now  i just patch and nylon brush  till patches come out clean. Barrels take far less rounds to settle during fouling (3 is enough) and life has gone up as well. 

I found the same thing to be true when competing in small bore rifle in my youth other than my barrel was fine when I sold the rifle.

On 1/3/2020 at 7:01 PM, Martin52 said:

Would anyone who has used the blue VFG paste on VFG felts care to comment on the results ? 

I am having trouble getting carbon out of my .308 F Class barrel after 600 rounds. Have been using Bore-Tech carbon and copper remover, also their Eliminator.  JB has had minor impact.

The load was probably on the warm side, I changed over from using 45.2 gr H4895 to 45.4 gr Benchmark 8208 (155 Berger FB's) so that may have contributed.

I'd be interested to hear.

Meanwhile, some recent borescope pics:

 

 

 

 

 

Not having the VGF Paste or felts I maybe out of depth. What I do  for stubborn carbon is nylon brush with one of several cleaners on hand, Ballistol, Hoppes no9, or surplus DoD Rifle bore cleaner. I soak then brush. JB Compound should these fail. My Patches are from Southern Bloomer . I haven't plugged a chamber and filled the bore with solvent (yet) seems it would work on really bad carbon fouling  if you had a large quantity of cheap solvent like DoD surplus RBC I get this for 1 USD per quart even in 2020.

22 hours ago, Furyan said:

Ok sorted think it might have been User error on my part doh, After loading for 30yrs both shotgun and rifle this is a first .

Cant say i was using the press to its full motion, Had a chat with Big AL  5min had it sorted damn i feel stupid lol.

 

 

If that is the worst thing you ever do handloading your doing fine, could have been like I did and failed to keep the powders separate and wound up mixing two types in the dispenser. At least I noticed before blowing something up and working for hours, cost me 40 bucks in powder and my dog was very ashamed of me.

Quote

 

The Redding web site has info on this very issue. SRVET is right on track I should have thought of this. 

2 hours ago, Furyan said:

I have had this problem for a bit as in cases not chambering in my 47L , Talk about frustrating or what now i have loaded 17HH, 223, 243, 308. All on the same press never had this problem before ?.

Once fired case , de-primed , cleaned, run through FL Redding die . But they will not chamber back into same rifle . I have screwed the Redding type s bushing die all the way in to where the locking rind has no threads , Still can not push the shoulder back enough .

On the shoulder New case is 1.465 .

On a fired case i get 1.471.  Any ideas why i can not push the shoulder back enough

A few thoughts, have the cases been fired several times? Perhaps anneal and try again. This if a new barrel could be the chamber reamer was at minimum dimension and the die at maximum dimension. Are the case necks jammed into the lead of rifling? I have encountered brass that wont resize in the neck many firings due to spring back, I didn't anneal them as they were not mine and the owner was in doubt about the number of uses. Perhaps send a fired case to Redding along with your current die and see what they can do. I find this most interesting I do hope the problem resolves simply.

15 hours ago, terryh said:

Kaboom,

The economy of it all obviously features but refining ammunition that works in your rifles must be ‘up there’ in the reasons. Caveat: some factory ammunition currently available is very good, like silly good 😎 e.g. recent play with Hornady in a stock Tikka Tac gave sub 1” group at 285 yards and a measured ES of 5 3 shot group. Accuracy was consistent throughout the morning.

In some cases (no pun) it is a matter of necessity e.g. BPCR, 6mm Dasher.

But I also, call me strange, quite enjoy reloading/casting - but I do it in stages and batches to avoid the brain fry you describe - also I’m lucky in that my middle son now shoots so I can delegate some of the less critical/easy to setup tasks to him.

The end product is the prize 😍

T

Well said! My goal was 1k of .223 this week if im lucky I will do half that! My greatest pleasure in hunting is game taken with a single shot rifle and ammo I load, can it get better? I rather doubt that.

11 hours ago, ezmobile said:

Gets me out of the way of my wife when,  seemingly,  I've upset her!☺️

Seriously though, in a way I do quite enjoy it, locked away in my "man cave" and having a solo conversation!  

Message to KABOOM: I was meant to be up your way in Wyoming in a couple of weeks time.......Ah well, maybe next year?

The sign at the state line says like no place else on earth, quite correct too, when you can do come here its the best place I have lived, after having spent years around the world while in the USMC and driving freight in this country all over im home and glad of it.

6 hours ago, miki said:

I perhaps disn't explain myself correctly although I can't see where I said that the length of the cartridge was directly related to neck length. A consistent dimensioned cartridge will offer a consistent resistance to the bullet as it leaves the neck. If the cases are the same volume and the COAL constant then the bullet is seated to the same depth and the 'release drag' is the same so with a matching charge the pressure will be the same and the bullet will enter the lands at the same moment at the same speed. It will leave the barrel at the same point of the wave and arrive at the point of aim subject only to the perturbations of the atmosphere. Nirvana (not the band, the idealism).

If the neck is longer than SAANi - trim it back. A few thou shorter wont effect stalking or varmint shooting IME . It depends what the OP is trying to acieve ... less than 1MOA over 600yds or 1MOA @ 100yds.

If the later (1 MOA @ 100) then as long as the case is not longer than SAAMi or significantly shorter (2 - 3mm) then it will make little to no difference to your required accuracy. If its longer 'trim it' if it's (a lot) shorter 'bin it'. If, on the other hand, you are searching to target at distances of 600M or greater (K02M for example) then getting everything perfectly matched to the chamber and timed to the harmonics in your rifle is a must.

Quite possible I didn't quite grasp your context regarding c.o.a.l, best regards.

Having spent the day loading .223 enjoying my task,after 200 rounds I think my brain melted. I first began handloading for the economy and versatility not found in factory offerings. The knowledge I have gained along the way is priceless, now with factory ammo more affordable the question arose why do we do this. As for me I think a three reasons, lower cost, accuracy, and yes I enjoy seeing the results of my labor on target. Why do you fellows load your own? Any ladies here I welcome the input as well

6 hours ago, miki said:

As long as they are not a huge amount shorter (2mm say) then it shouldn't (as @Gandysaid) be much if any difference, it depends upon if that difference is cumlative. Are the cases the same volume, is the the COAL the same, is the neck tension the same etc

With the same load does the MV change between the longer and the shorter case and by how much. Are you aiming for less than 1MOA over 600yds or 1MOA @ 100yds. Longer than SAAMi and i'd trim them to length, a few thou shorter wont effect stalking or varmint shooting IME

A consistent length will contribute to accuracy. Cases that are too long can jam in the lead of rifling resulting in pressure spikes. C.O.A.L has nothing to do with neck length unless your neck is so short you must seat ever deeper just to use the case in question. This is why I try to avoid setting the shoulder back unless its becoming hard to chamber, cases stretch in the resize die. I have noticed less neck growth by not setting the shoulder back. All my brass goes in the trimmer in any event, many times I wont remove any material or a slightly visible cut.

8 hours ago, Popsbengo said:

I've never bothered to wash the sizing lube off, just use a clean cloth.  I use dry lube in the neck.  Am I missing something?

I take case lube off with dry media in another tumbler I also dry lube in the necks.

8 hours ago, meles meles said:

Hmmmm...

*Ponders*

Most of our cases seem to last a goodly time: the majority of our rifles are old battle rifles and we tend to shoot them primarily with reduced power loads and cast bullets in deference to their age and prior service. Exceptions to that are our more modern target and stalking rifles. The stalking rifles don't fire enough shots to provide a significant sample size so we'll leave them out of consideration too. Of our target rifles, the 6.5x55 Norsqueagian and 7.62x51 and x54 see their cases lasting for at least a dozen reloads. We don't run super hot loads in them and usually use GGG or PPU brass, both of which we find very good value in terms of price:performance.

The one calibre where we have found the cases wearing is 7mm Remington Magnum. That does run a fairly hot load in a Remington 700 based target rifle we use out to 1,000 mards and occasionally further. It's very accurate and a delight to shoot. We've used both Lapua and PPU brass  and get similar case life from each - about 7 shots per case and then the primer pocket becomes loose. In a couple of instances we also so a few small neck cracks appearing at about the same time, so generally we use each case 7 times and then discard the whole batch. With PPU that's more affordable than Lapua. 

Now, what's causing the primer pockets to become loose? Surely it is more likely to be plastic deformation of the surrounding brass rather than an effect of the cleaning and preparation regime. Our cleaning regime is simple.

1. Decap - Lee universal decapper
2. Ultrasonic clean with a small quantity of detergent in tap water (quite a powerful ultrasonic bath)
3. Dry, vertically, neck down, in the sun
4. Lubricate with Lee's goo and resize with a Lee full length resizing die
5. Ultrasonic clean  - again with a small quantity of detergent in tap water
6. Dry, vertically, neck down, in the sun
7. Reload...

 

 

 

loose primer pockets! The result of usage and pressure when I find them I discard the lot of brass.

Do you gents bother to clean primer pockets? To date I don't bother, the cleaning I do is done while in the tumbler. I have read some on this topic and the general rule is either  yes it matters for best results or don't bother it wastes time and energy.

11 minutes ago, Popsbengo said:

👍

Just as general information I chose this forum to join partly based on the civility of the members. Far to many other forums I saw the discussions start with some minor point of non agreement and shortly become personal attacks and nonsense.

8 hours ago, Popsbengo said:

Morals ? For sure many criminals are immoral and deserve retribution but what about other factors like extreme poverty, or desperation, or social pressure or mental illness?

eg.  I'm not sure me shooting dead a desperate person for stealing some food would be a moral act on my behalf.

I would agree, without a direct threat to life there is no reason to shoot anyone. 

On 4/22/2020 at 2:36 AM, maximus otter said:

"At least four states in the U.S. have started to release inmates from their jails to protect vulnerable inmates as coronavirus infections have begun to appear from within."

https://www.foxnews.com/health/us-starts-release-inmates-coronavirus

"The Seattle coronavirus crime data is staggeringly high. As of Friday April 3, burglary cases were up 87% over the previous 28 days..."

https://mynorthwest.com/1802378/rantz-seattle-crime-up-after-coronavirus/

maximus otter

Panic buying is rather stupid no matter the item, if I lived in some location where crime was high and I was worried the police would fail or decide not to respond (virus protocols) I might buy a gun if I didn't have one. However in area small town in the middle of nothing we have zero issues with mobs or unrest, burglary ect. Many here have concealed carry permits and do carry a side arm. Within the border of my state we can carry a sidearm with no permit, or if we wish openly carry the firearm of choice with some  restrictions, govt offices, bar aka pub, post office , schools ect. Poor behavior like criminal activity is predicate of a lack of morals in the wrong doer.

On 2/11/2020 at 6:10 AM, 6.5 shooter said:

Hi all,

up until now I have been solely a neck sizer but I want to bump the shoulders back a little. 
I have all redding type s competition die sets and the only way possible with these die sets to bump the shoulder back is to use the FL sizer die and adjust it accordingly but I dont want to size the body. 
I dont want to have to buy forster shoulder bump dies for all my calibres so im thinking I will have to get a machinist to ream the walls of my FL dies out a little?

unless im missing something does anyone else have a different idea or how does everyone else carryout this task without full length sizing?

thanks

Sinclair International sells shims for use with a full length resize die these go under the die and provide a repeatable means of shoulder bump control. I haven't used them however they make sound mechanical sense. I set my fl dies to not touch the shoulder unless after several loadings its hard to chamber the case then I screw the die farther down experiment and when ease of chambering is achieved I quit. While simplistic it works and I get 10 shots out of my brass.

19 hours ago, snakeman said:

OP

1:9  24" barrel. ...Tried the 75g just once and it never produced consistent groups. By 'consistent' I am meaning 'one-atop-the-other' with no keyholes, no clover leafing - wanting it to print just one hole (although be it a slightly larger hole following 5 shots than on the first shot)....The 75g Berger VLD struggled to maintain consistent grouping wih N140, N150 and Varget back in the day. Attempted this with 300 bullets, until I decided to stop throwing money away

Reverted to the standard N140 & 69smk and rifle prints what I want it to print - no need to try anything else other than this combo at the distance I use it...200/300yds on fox ... 

Your twist is just about as perfect you'll get for the 69g bullet ..and anything else under 69g.... 55g sbk is also superb, with N130.

Tip: don't waste money chasing a rainbow - you'll be very rare in the land 75g and 1:9 twist imho - but good luck with your attempt

👍

Im happy to read this! I plan to do some work with the 69TMK and hadn't seen much on results this is encouraging! Atm I use the 55 grn blitzkings with super results, on prarie dogs, would be fine of jackrabbit , fox or coyotes too.

On 4/15/2020 at 3:21 PM, ontoproofer said:

hello

I've got a 223 with a 1 in 9 twist which is bang on with Hornady 75grain eld match. Ive bought some 75g bullet heads and was wondering if somebody has a recipe with which powder and where to start ?

I use CFE 223,  with that said I can use whatever I wish, no REACH rules in the USA. I look to load volume and velocity listed in data and begin there my primer choice is CCI. Cases are Starline. First I look in the data for the bullet I may chose , find powder and then purchase what I need.

On 4/10/2020 at 10:14 AM, VarmLR said:

I can't speak for anyone else nor do I claim what I use is the best wrt mag etc.

What I can say is that for years I shot at 1000 yds with "just" 17x mag and that was plenty.  For BR where the rifle is usually very  solidly supported on some sort of fixed rest, and FOV is less of an issue, ditto shake, then higher mags (the higher the better) are more usual.

However, I've found that once the weather warms up a little, you can start to have issues with mirage as distances go out and mag goes up, and also you compromise depth of field and field of view.  With poorer quality glass you also have less light transmission and a poorer resolution image to start with so winding up the mag makes things often worse instead of helping.

The real key is not just mag' but glass quality.  Give me a really good 10x optic and I'd way rather that at 1000yds than a mediocre one with twice the mag.

The other issue if you are using an all round rifle, not just one built for the range, is all up weight and the last thing you want is a 50x monster with a 34mm tube sat on your rail.  It's all a compromise.

After 35 years of shooting, I have settled on my own compromise which suits me and addresses all the issues above, with all my rifles shod with weights of extras that I can cope with in the field as well as on the range, which give me good image quality, and importantly, very good mechanical reliability and precision.  That matters as much as image quality imho.

My most "rangey" rifle is shod with a S&B PMII 5-25 which still cuts the mustard amongst the latest and greatest and I'd happily use it to 1500yds or more because the glass is up to it as is the mechanical precision and repeatability.

My hunting rifles, also used on the range have respectively a Nightforce NXS and a Bushnell DMR Elite fitted to them.  Both with modest upper reach but both easily 1000yd capable and with great clarity.  Not in the PMII league but what the Nightforce lacks in transmission it makes up for in clarity plus with both those scopes you could bash a fencepost in with the things and they'd probably still work fine (don't try this on Dad's rifle at home kids....he won;t be pleased and would have to explain "turn of phrase" to you in probably painful terms....).

You're spoiled for choice these days and best to do some in depth research and if possible try out the optics before you spend your hard earned.  Good glass can be had relatively modestly with scopes such as the Gen 2 Vortex scopes.  Where scopes are concerned I do think it's a case of buy once, cry once.  Only a rich man can afford to buy cheap glass...

 

 

 

You mention glass quality and that's a great point, poor glass may darken at higher mag levels ( variable scopes). I never have shot anything over 6x at deer or pronghorn here in the USA. I zero at 6x to 10x depends on the rifle in hand. target size may require more power, mirage exist's seen or not and is a windage factor. Small targets such as sage rats I start at 10x may go higher at long range 500yds or so.