Surgeon actions

[Elwood]

There is one drawback to using a nightforce on a surgeon.I found out the other day, that they dont have enough adjustment, to go low enough to get a 100 yards zero. The mount needs shimming by at leasy 6 thousands of an inch. this amount will allow a 100 yards zero, but only just, so a 10 thou shim would be a far better bet, as it would bring the scope adjustment "off bottom". I decided to stick my schmidt on my surgeon, because it has more adjustment, but a piece of 10 thou shim steel wont take any sorting.This is a fault of the nightforce, as they notoriously have a low adjustment range.

 

That's me buggered then, just bought another Nighforce to go on my Surgeon. Which incidentally is being shipped today and I also had a call saying my Stiller Viper has arrived, a bit like waiting for a bus...

[Ronin]

Ian

 

 

if it is a 8-32 NXS with NRP-2 ret, I know someone who wants one.

[bramble basher]

ian you and me both will try the shim route first as i would like to keep nightforce but on the other hand i could probably live with a schmidt

(will have to talk nice to her indoors)

[Elwood]

Alas Andy it's the 5.5-22x56 NPR2, not to worry someone will make it work for me, I think me and Dave (Baldie) might be having a little chat about shims.

[baldie]

Ross and myself took the "Gherkin" out to mattersey yesterday to run it in, and generally make a start on a load for it. From past experience of this calibre, its a waste of time and money running the loads low, and i went straight for the jugular with loads just under max, by about a grain....ok i know, its not good practise, and i,m not condoning it, but i built the rifle, and i know the cartridge very well now.

i started off with 38.5 grains of reloder 15, shoving a 123 grain scenar, with a cci br 4 primer, loaded at saami length.

We bore sighted it, and the first round put us 6" off the bull, so we cleaned it, adjusted , and fired again. !" off this time, so again we cleaned and adjusted.

When you have run a lot of rifles in, you tend to get a feel on the rod, as to the state of the barrel, and what it requires more, in the way of running in.

To be honest, i dont think this one required any running in, so we fired a 5 shot group, and here it is.

 

 

taking the calibre off gives .479 for 5 rounds, which i was pleased with. we cleaned it, and shot around 8 more 5 shot groups, which all averaged out around.3 and .4 of an inch.

 

 

 

The rifle is very consistant indeed, showing these size groups as the norm, and not just the odd good group.

We had some max loads of 39 grains to try too.Before i go into that, let me mention that i finished the barrel at 30" as an experiment to see what more i could wring out of the cartridge. This load of 38.5 grains gives 3150 fps with ES in the teens [primer probarbly] Which bears out my thoughts on barrel length in this cartridge.

 

More interestingly though, was the next 5 rounds which were half a grain more. The actually reduced the fps to just over 3000. The only explanation i can think of, is the extra powder is actually retarding the burn rate slightly, overall.The cases, primers, and bolt lift, are showing no pressure signs, so i reckon that load is a keeper, and accuracy may just be bettered by length messing. I,m not bothered if it isn,t... a genuine .4" shooter, every group would be more than good enough for me, and Ross is absolutely delighted with the results.

Trouble is...it shoots better than my own, so the stripey deckchair is gonna beat me.

The barrel is a tru-flite incidentally....and superb.

 

Incidentally, the nightforce on this rifle is the same as my own, in the same mounts, and this one adjusts low enough [with ease ]to zero at 100 yards....

[Ronin]

Looks good Dave,

 

 

although I think the praise will be getting dulled as its almost a foregone conclusion you will make a shooter

 

I don't think you specify the cartridge - is it 6.5x47?

 

If so I had similar groups with the BAT showing very, very slight vertical stringing - the two side by side targets have one low shot followed by the main group on the LHS target.

 

I found that 39g Varget gives "round" groups without the odd one slightly out.

 

 

Watch out for pressure if you use this though

 

How do you find the Tru Flight barrels to machine and use?

[baldie]

Yes, its a 6.5x47 Andy....as you know, its a magical cartridge, and personally, i dont think it will be ballistically bettered for a long time to come.

To say i,m impressed with truflite barrels would be an understatement. The steel is probarbly the nicest cutting stainless i,ve ever turned....real quality stuff indeed. Also, the internal finish is good, and as i mentioned earlier, you can feel this on the rod as you patch out.

I had another truflite in the same calibre go back to the customer on friday, i,d fitted that to a Swing action, and i,m eagerly awaiting his results now.

As soon as Foxy gets some more in, we will be having some hopefully.

Give one a go, they are lovely.

[Ronin]

I spoke to Foxy a while back but he didnt have the profile in a Tru Flight I wanted for another "47" build so I went with LW.

 

However, I feel another phone call coming on following further "interest"

[Elwood]

I'm liking what I hear about this caliber, and yours looks as if it's going to be un-sportingly accurate Dave.

 

My barrel has been here for a month or so, the stock should be in this country as I type so all it needs is the Surgeon action and Jewell trigger which I'm also hoping is in transit and then it's time to glue it all together

 

Going back to your FPS loss with a higher charge, I was told that this can be a early sign of high pressure, I'm not teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, just passing on what I heard, have you heard of this before?

[Ronin]

I'm liking what I hear about this caliber, and yours looks as if it's going to be un-sportingly accurate Dave.

 

 

To coin a tiresome phrase,

 

"its awesome"

 

[baldie]

Can,t say i,ve heard that Ian, but i approach anything thats unorthodox, or "odd" with caution...and back off. 39 grains of reloder 15 is .8 of a grain under max [if i remember without checking] and it spiked rapidly in my own 6.5x47, which is the reason i went with vhit 540....even though the reloder gave slightly tighter groups.

It seems to be a pretty forgiving cartridge, Ronin has success with varget, which i will try purely out of interest, and i,ll bet vv140 will work, and possibly AA2520 too.

[Guest northernchris]

The True-Flite i fitted to one of the Surgens in .308 sounds exactly the same as yours Dave.Looks like a good stick you have built yourself mate.

[devilishdave]

Fantastic looking rifle and it shoots as well, what more could you ask for?

 

Dave