HotRod308

I have been thinking after buying high quality Redding or RCBS match dies you think all you need to do is but right size bushing and reload ammo and everything thing is just great. Then one day your shooting along doing fine and you start shooting some what I call crazy Ivan shots. not even on call. So you go back and you get the old bullet run out dail indicator gauge out and you find out out that some of your loaded rounds are .006 run and some a little more. So whats wrong, I removed the expander ball and put the small one in, but that means I have to use a punch or dummy round to straighten and necks that are dented inward before sizing. But if it makes it better, so be it. But while I did that I find a whole bunch of resizing lube up in the bushing, it wasn't free floating around. So lesson learned, clean my sizing die after every few hundred case, doesn't take long. Good practice. Still my run on a few were still .005 most were under .003 some were spot on .001. But why those .005 yet. Took a flashlight looked up inside and saw what looked like brass particles. So I took the custom seating die apart. Yes, brass was there and crud up in the seating stem as well. All that crap up there probably not allowing the bullet to stay straight while being seated. Once everything was re-cleaned, made a dummy round and bullet runout was less than .001. Although I haven't made a new batch of ammo to check yet, I feel I just may have finally figured it out. Even my standard seating die once cleaned did way better to the point were I may have never bought a custom seating die so many years ago. Bottom line, clean your dies!!!

I had a wild cat 6mm LR rifle with the gas port moved fwd 2 inches as the barrel was 26 inch. It worked fine that way. CLE out of Florida has the opinion that moving the gas system fwd is not worth the trouble it could cause. Although I never saw any problems but when you build rifles one might see them more often. But the 6.5 creedmoor using H4350 will have plenty of gas volume to run the BCG as long as the port is big enough. I have 24 inch barrel on my 7mm-08 and rifle length gas system and I have plenty of accuracy. Going to mid range match this weekend 20 shots at 300yds, then 2 each 20 shot strings at 600yds, scope one day and irons the next day, Gotta load ammo this week.

I always believed that long range shooting that a longer barrel is better even though they are those who don't think so. Anyway, 1-7 would help keep those big BC bullets sping fast enough when you can't shoot them as hard as a bolt gun can. Curious on the competition do you plan making the rifle shoot from mag length or single load so you move that bullet out fwd of the mag closer to the lands? I was going to suggest if mag length was a requirement to think about buying a 6mm creedmoor, then everything you shoot would be mag length. The BC on those bullets are very high and you its easier to get those up to speed as well. I had great luck with my x caliber 7mm-08 barrel on my LR. My last string at 600 yds was 200-13X out of 20 shots for record I had only 3 shots not within the 6 inch high xring and I shot 9 x's in a row using iron sights. I used 160g TMK bullets .050 off the lands.

Very Very nice indeed!!

Fulton armory sells shims sets for the gas system so you shim the gas system off the shoulder of the barrel so the gas port of the gas cylinder is perfectly centered over the gas port. Also, talk to them about unitizing the gas system. They can drill two small holes tap them so the end plate is attached to the gas system. Another way was to weld them. The last way, I new of was to use red lock-tight. Clean to remove all oils, place on barrel, apply red lock tight to area to be joined, tighten figure eight very tight for 24 hrs. You wouldn't think it would work but it does considering it's still under pressure when its its installed for real. One has to install the gas system without over torque the figure 8, if you do you bend the barrel ever so slightly.

When comes to accuracy for M-14/M1A Many say it's all in the glass bedding. However I believe it's a little bit of everything. Its how the gas system installed properly shimmed off the shoulder and figure 8 just barely tight at 5:30 tight at 6 oclock. Up-rod just off the bolt roller when dummy round in the chamber, nice tight rear sight with no slop in it. Glass bedding thats snug. It all adds up. A high quality barrel don't mean much if the rest isn't done right. That receiver and stock looks excellent.

After looking closer at your photo it does by appearence that the front sight assy is leaning way to the left visually which would make sense why the rifle is shooting way to the right. So I would assume the front sight is pined to the barrel is not adjustable, so the barrel extension was over tighten on to the barrel when it was put together and chambered. Just a guess.

To get the rear sight center and have the rifle hit where you aim zero windage without any wind blowing. The front sight needs to rotate .008 for every inch off at 100 yds. When moving the front sight to correct windage it's the opposite direction of the rear sight, in your case the front sight needs to rotate to the right to move the muzzle to the left. But doing this it would look pretty odd by how much it's off. I would agree that if it's a brand new rifle the barrel could of made very wrong and there is no way to correct it. But there is one last thing to check. Your rear sight is a clamp on. You have to make sure it's actually physically canter on the receiver with windage set at zero. I found on my nightforce scope mount it fit perfect on one of my DPMS uppers perfectly square and level, but on another upper it would not. It was cooked not level and was unable to level the scope in the mount or use on that rifle. The reason was the machine of the clamp didn't fit the edge correctly and was clamping on the unmachined surface instead of the sharp edge of the flap top. the machine work of nightforce wasn't at fault neither was DPMS it just didn't work out.

Just finished loading 7-08 290 rounds for the LR for the mid range matches next week. 160 TMK, 40g varget, CCIBR2 primers. loaded .050 off lands. Last practice match match this Sunday with scope. Learned a valuable lesson about checking parallax adjustment from last weekend. Very critical to be checked, funny that I have been shooting for so long to finally learn this lesson.

Its very interesting on how different rifles using the same bullet will have such different seating depths for accuracy. My friend and I just finished the Berger Bullet testing procedure which is for VLD bullets but could be used for anything I believe. We were using the 7mm 162 ELD match bullet My friends rifle was a 280 Rem and mine was a 7-08 on a LR platform. Berger Bullets instructs to seat 6 rounds at .010, .050, .090, .120 off the lands those who don't mind jamming bullets into the lands start at .010 jammed, then .040, .080, .110 shot three shot groups of each seating depth and you will find your rifle will have a noticeable tight group over the other seating depths. Repeat the teat with the remaining 3 shots of each seating depth to confirm results. One then can fine tune the seating depth at .006 increments up and down for another 24 rounds. My friend found that his 280 liked the 162 ELD at .102 off the lands while my 7mm-08 was spot on at .050

Although I don't have any experience with cfe223 or AR comp, I have shot R15 and 168 and found it to be slower than I thought it would be. R-15 is on the slow side I believe. I did just chrono 42g H4895, 168MK, WW Case, CCIBR primmer, 2.800 OAL. My one AR has a 20 inch barrel and it was 2550 avg FPS. I would expect a 16 inch barrel would be 25-30 FPS slower per inch. Fed 168 match is 2650FPS with a 24 inch barrel, figure 25FPS per inch that would be 2400 FPS give or take on throat of the chamber and temp etc. I would think getting 2600 plus with a 16 inch barrel would be hard to get to unless you shoot a lighter bullet, say 135g - 150g maybe. Sorry can't help to much.

I have a x-caliber 7-08 barrel 24 inch light weight profile. Still working on fine tuning loads but so far the 160 TMK shoot about 1/2 MOA to 3/4 depending how well I hold it. Barrel cleans up very nice as well. I'm considering a a 6mm CM barrel right now.

Check out Fulton Armory web page. They have 6.5 cm barrels by Criterion (one person already mention them) ready to go. I suggest getting a 24 inch barrel if you plan on shooting out to 800yds or so. One can get a little more FPS with a 24 over a shorter barrel.

Over this past week I finally finished my 308 DPMS LR project rifle. I pulled the old barrel and hand guard and installed a 20 inch M-110 profile barrel by Criterion. I purchased the barrel and 4 rail hand guard, and High pressure bolt from Fulton Armory. They did the chamber and head space as well, all I did was assemble it back together. The rifle has a two stage trigger and a magpul stock. I modified the gas block to adjust gas pressure as well. First shooting went well, no malfunctions once the gas port was opened up enough. Feed fired and ejected and locked to the rear from then on. Still need to find a better scope mount yet. Most scope mounts seem to high to me and perfer one that keeps the scope lower for a good stock weld but haven't found one that I like yet. I added photo of the rifle and last two groups I fired. The dot covers the orange circle even at high 4 power setting, kind of though to hold it any better. It seems to like the 175g MK over the 168 MK, but need to do some more shooting yet.

After seeing Walmart cave and raise the age limit to 21 to buy guns to 21 just pissed me off. but what can I do, not much. Not much anyone one can do considering the huge size of wallmart, not even unions can bring them down. But I could pass my point or make my point to them by loading up one or two shopping carts full of beer and anything else I can think of that a person of 18 could buy and use and go kill someone else with. Once I have my shopping cart full proceed to the check out and let them ring it up. Once done, ask for the manager on duty. Once the person arrives, ask them why Wallmart allows 18 yr olds buy this and go use it and kill others with it. What is the difference between a loaded up drunk 18yr old texting and hitting another car head on? Then walk with out paying for it. Just an idea.

On a M-14 gas system one could actually bend the barrel nose up a little if you force the figure eight down to the six oclock position. I seen a few M1A from Springfield where it would shoot 10 inches high at 100 yds with the rear sight all the way down. Simple fix, loosen the figure eight one full turn and reinstall the plug and go shoot. Then it was correct after that requiring some 10 clicks up from bottom to center up at 100yds.

Although the big AR can shoot very well, but if one wants to win and has the skill set, shooting a semi auto isn't going to do it. The bolt gun with the 30 inch barrel is going to be way to go. If they made a class where semi autos could compete against each other would be the ticket. That would encourage people to bring their big or Ar-15 out to compete and that would lead to experimentation leading to more accurate rifles, barrels, parts, and etc. Several years ago I took my big AR set up as match rifle with iron sights to a practice f-class match. Being the only sling shooter, I didn't care if I shot on a f-class target, a black bull is the same size anyway. After we were done, I talked to the F--class guy pulling shooting on the same target, he didn't know at first what rifle I was using. I shot a pretty good score at 600 and he was surprised when we switched out for him to shoot to see a semi auto with irons behind the firing point.

Although I have no way to prove it..... I have found that DI system with a lot of drag from the gas rings results in a little higher FPS while with little to no drag from the gas rings results FPS are a little slower. As carbon builds up on the gas rings, the ES increases as the gas rings cause more drag from when they are cleaned. The gas piston might be smoother as it has no gas rings and the BCG has very little drag when moving compared to a BCG with gas rings. I know many people don't agree with my idea of DI system without gas rings, and that's fine. Like I said I have no way to prove it, it just my thought.

My Palma rifle is a Mod 70 Winchester, 30inch barrel, 1-13 twist on a McMillan prone stock. Mostly shoot the 155 TMKs now, 46.7 of varget and WW case. Bubbas45-70, since the shooting season is basically over for the year, I probably won't be back to Moffit ND until the spring match next year. Tom from Bismarck set a new state record up in Rolla ND last weekend. Fired a 598 out of 600 for 3 600yd matches. Another shooter had in one match a 200-16X with a scoped rifle tying the state record. My high score for that day was a 197-10X using my 308 AR.

I'm in Fargo and just shot a 1000yd match in Moffit. Not only is it cold in the winter, I think Moffit ND is one windy place to shoot at. Had 13 1/2 mins of wind on at 1000yds shooting my palma rifle. I shoot at the forks rifle club as well.

http://www.brpc1.org/http://www.brpc1.org/ Is the home page. http://www.brpc1.org/events/ list calendar of events. Have fun

Although I don't live there anymore, but there is a group of dedicated HP shooters at Boulder City who shoot 200, 300, 600 yds and 800, 900, 1000 yds as well. Not sure what you goal for your rifle is. You should check out their web site and check out there programs. They have hanging metal plates out to 900 yds as well. Take care

just removed a 6.5 CM barrel, 24 inches made by DPMS - 8.5 twist. Probably has some 2,000 -2500 rounds through it, 50$ and it's yours. If your interested in it.

A lot of the normal routine of shooting a match was changed with electronic targets. No need for a spotting scope at 200yds at all, just look at your phone for scoring. At 600yds the person writing your score down doesn't need a spotting scope as it's on the phone. A cross fire would be hard to prove as well. but it was cool not to pull targets.

I competed in a NRA XC match at Camp Atterbury IN this past weekend, 200, 300, and 600yds. They used electronic targets for all the stages of the match. Using WiFi on my phone I was able to see the location of where the bullet hit the aiming area just by glancing at my phone and once done with the string save the target as well. Very cool system over all, nit sure how much maintenance it takes to keep it working. It was my first match of the new year and did OK. With iron sights at 600yds the 20 shot group was 16.3 wide and 7.8 high. Considering the 15mph wind with wind let ups and pick ups my score wasn''t to bad shooting a 308. About 14-15 shots were within height of the 6 inch x ring. The sitting was my 2nd string, 100-7X while my first sitting string was 198-1 and low to the right in the ten ring. What I should of done while reloading for the last five shots to see the group and made an adjustment. At 300yds, I did exactly that, made a sight adj after the firing that first 5 rounds and ended up with a 99 then a 100-5.