Jump to content
308AR.com Community
  • Visit Aero Precision
  • Visit Brownells
  • Visit EuroOptic
  • Visit Site
  • Visit Beachin Tactical
  • Visit Rainier Arms
  • Visit Ballistic Advantage
  • Visit Palmetto State Armory
  • Visit Cabelas
  • Visit Sportsmans Guide

Range Day 27 Dec 20


98Z5V

Recommended Posts

I'm WAY SHORT on pics for this one, but @JBMatt came through! :thumbup:

Couple weeks ago, it was decided and announced by Matt and DirtBike Tommy that we were shooting the Sunday after Christmas.  Cool.  A few days ago, Matt tells me that he and Tommy are headed out there later Saturday afternoon to get set up, and camp there - I'm IN!  I tell him that I've still got some wood leftover to make a decent fire, and I'll be there.

Then, Saturday happens.  I have a plan, it's supposed to not take that long.  Replace some adjustable radius rods on a buddy's RZR, and seal the trans shift linkage cover on another buddy's RZR - and they live around the corner from each other.  No sweat.  I had ammo that I had to load up to test the 6 ARC, and I started that Friday night.  Wanted to load up some ammo for the .224 Valk, too - got that almost done, around 11:30am, when the first buddy asks what time to start the repairs.  I say 1pm. 

I get there at 1 - he doesn't answer the door.  I KNOW he's home...   at 1:15, he opens the garage door, just got out of the shower...   Alright...  We bust the radius rods out, and the neighbor comes over, and talks FOREVER...  Then, we go around the corner, I seal that trans cover up in quick order, and THEN!!!...

Gun Pusher John calls.  He decided to do the brakes on his wife's new-used commuter car, 2013 Honda Civic.  Says he having trouble with the rear drums.  Huh?!  :bitchslap:   DRUMS on a 2013 HONDA?!  You gotta be kidding me.  So, by now, It's about an hour from getting dark, and I head over to John's - and stop for beer.  If there's a fucking 2013 Honda car that really has drum rear brakes, then I'm gonna need some beer for this one.  Man, did I.  He and the neighbor almost got one side finished when I got there, so we finished that side.  Now, keep in mind, I didn't take that side apart, so I don't really know what's going on in there until we move to the other side...   Those damn things have SIX SPRINGS in them!!!   FOR WHAT, HONDA?!!?  Are you KIDDING ME HERE?!  That was THE most complicated drum brake setup I've ever seen in my life, and for absolutely NO reason did it NEED to be that complicated...   And what's my rule on that shiit?  YOU DON'T COMPLICATE SHIIT WITH COMPLICATED SHIIT!!!  If Mister Honda hadn't passed away years ago, he would have fired every single one of those Engineers involved in that bullshiit.  No doubt.

So, by the time I'm leaving John's, it's 8:15pm.  WAY dark, by now - and then the text messages start flowing, from Matt - he's telling me that they're freezing to death, and they're burning - hold on, I need to QUOTE the text - "Lighting a fire. Gettin chilly.  We're burning wheel chocks and plastic bottles..."   :laffs:

Now, I had all the ammo DONE, even loaded up another 24 of the .300 Win Mags, just to take them.  Good thing I didn't need that many - that'll come out later.  :thumbup:  I call Matt and get the story of how they're dying out there, and I tell him it's gonna EASILY take me an hour to case guns, load the truck, all that - in the dark - and forget something.  I catch a TON of shiit for it, too.  He says something about how cold it's getting out there, and I tell him it's still gonna be 72* in my house in the morning, when I wake up...  :lmao:

Part 2 coming up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, I get up at 6:30am, make coffee, gather my shiit up and load it, and I'm out of the house around 8am.  I'm out there around 8:30-ish or something, and there's a CARAVAN there.  Kenny brought out some people to shoot - which is WAY cool, but DAMN was there a group there.  I think @JBMatt already slayed the Mile once, before I got there, but it was a hoot.

There was activity on the firing line, so I picked a place to put up paper targets at 100, to start documenting the load development for the ARC and Valk.  I went through the ARC stuff, went right to the Valk stuff, and I hear Matt saying "Just got the Mile AGAIN!..."   Fuk, my time is coming, and I'm gonna have to get up there and do it.  Shortly after, he yells "GOT IT AGAIN!"   Damnit...   I dragged my hardware over there to the setup shooting position, and got the scope dialed.  It was 16.9 mils of elevation last time, so we're starting with that.  Density Altitude, because it was still cold-ish, was something like 500 feet.  Great.  I got on that bastard on the 6th round. 

Now, Matt already hit this fucker 3 times.  So I'd like to think that MY SHOT was the one that hit him right in the bread-basket.  After all, there are 3 that look alike - and one is different...   :banana:

20201227_130518.thumb.jpg.12799af4c733b745c0f3e7f0eb1333a8.jpg

So, Matt snatched that pic when he went out and checked the target, and he repainted it then.  In the afternoon, we went back after it - and the sun was just screwing us over.  Density Altitude by this time (it warmed up considerably) was something like 2700 feet.  BIG change in DA, and the wind was all weird...  

It was hard to even FIND the target, let along focus on it, and such.  It SUCKED.  Well, I got on that thing, brought 10 rounds, and forgot to adjust my elevation - I went back to zero.  So, first round is kinda short - by about a thousand-ish yards...   :bitchslap:  We saw the dirt splash, and Matt says, "What the HELL was that?!"   Uh, hold on, bro - lemme dial up some 16.9 mils here in a second...   :banana:

Start going through the mag then - lose the target.  NO!  I GOT IT!  I shoot, and it's 50 yards to the right or something.  Well, I THOUGHT that was the target - I can't FIND the bastard right now in the sunlight!  Change mags, go back at it, and I hit it on the 6th or 7th round, don't know which.  The pressure was on, and Matt was slinging me some MAJOR shiit...   :laffs:

So, he takes up the position, and the 2nd round into a mag, he hits.  Then he hits the NEXT one.  Next is slightly right, between the target and the t-post, THEN HE HITS THE DAMN THING AGAIN!!!   4 rounds in succession, 3 hits!  God was either smiliing down upon us, or laughing at us, but that shiit worked out RIGHT!!!

So, here's the pic of that one.  Again, 3 of these things are just like the others - and one is different.  I'll just say I was aiming for the carriage bolt, trying to knock the target down.  I did hit the left t-post sometime in that series...   :banana:

20201227_151435.thumb.jpg.1c406c860158ccd3b8d4244da7ecb1be.jpg

Pretty damned EPIC DAY, right there, men.   :thumbup:

Edited by 98Z5V
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, edgecrusher said:

And the test results?

Both great, for powder levels, speeds, SDs, accuracy.  Both the ARC and Valk loads are above what Hornady lists, and the speeds are beating both of the factory Match loads from them, with the same projectiles they're loading.  Accuracy, when I do my part, is excellent.  I jerked two of the Valk shots and called them, out of 5, but the other 3 were bug-holed touching.  Coffee, and Kenny's Food Coma from his cooking.  They're doing their part, I need to do mine. 

P.S.  I might like the Valk again.

Edited by 98Z5V
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, sketch said:

nice work bro!

I think you gotta tell that to @JBMatt - these 3 shots below are less than 8" overall - at a mile, that's less than 1/2-MOA right there!  This is the kinda stuff you can do, when you're on it out there, and the wind stays EXACTLY the same for a minute...  :hail:

2 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

20201227_151435.thumb.jpg.1c406c860158ccd3b8d4244da7ecb1be.jpg

Pretty damned EPIC DAY, right there, men.   :thumbup:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, MikedaddyH said:

What powder on the 224V ?? Projo's ??

 

2 hours ago, edgecrusher said:

And the test results?

 

2 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

Both great, for powder levels, speeds, SDs, accuracy.  Both the ARC and Valk loads are above what Hornady lists, and the speeds are beating both of the factory Match loads from them, with the same projectiles they're loading.  Accuracy, when I do my part, is excellent.  I jerked two of the Valk shots and called them, out of 5, but the other 3 were bug-holed touching.  Coffee, and Kenny's Food Coma from his cooking.  They're doing their part, I need to do mine. 

P.S.  I might like the Valk again.

So, the Valk factory ammo - The Federal 75gr factory loads went 2748 fps with an ES of 58, and the Hornady Match 88gr ELD-Ms (factory ammo) went 2578 fps, ES at 45.   I don't know what barrel length they're quoting for their loads, but the Hornady box states 2675 fps on the back of it.   Mine were Hornady 88 ELD-Ms going 2831 fps with an ES of 64, from a Ballistic Advantage 18" SPR barrel.  Not happy about that spread, but I'll work on it.

ARC:  Only thing it's ever shot are Hornady Match 108gr ELD-M factory ammo.  Those were quoted on the box at 2750 fps from a 24" barrel.  That factory ammo went 2616 fps with an ES of 48 today, again through a Ballistic Advantage 18" SPR barrel.  My final handload is going 2680 fps with an ES of 41. 

Gotta work on the mags for the ARC (I think), because it locked back on every last-round in the mags, but didn't pick up the next round, only on my handloads, every single time.  Had to "click" the trigger, then charge it to get the next one in the chamber.  That factory ammo cycled every single time, though, but it was loaded into one of my older used Grendel mags.   I'll be looking into this, whatever is going on, and solving it. 

Edited by 98Z5V
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, 98Z5V said:

 

 

So, the Valk factory ammo - The Federal 75gr factory loads went 2748 fps with an ES of 58, and the Hornady Match 88gr ELD-Ms (factory ammo) went 2578 fps, ES at 45.   I don't know what barrel length they're quoting for their loads, but the Hornady box states 2675 fps on the back of it.   Mine were Hornady 88 ELD-Ms going 2831 fps with an ES of 64, from a Ballistic Advantage 18" SPR barrel.  Not happy about that spread, but I'll work on it.

ARC:  Only thing it's ever shot are Hornady Match 108gr ELD-M factory ammo.  Those were quoted on the box at 2750 fps from a 24" barrel.  That factory ammo went 2616 fps with an ES of 48 today, again through a Ballistic Advantage 18" SPR barrel.  My final handload is going 2680 fps with an ES of 41. 

Gotta work on the mags for the ARC (I think), because it locked back on every last-round in the mags, but didn't pick up the next round, only on my handloads, every single time.  Had to "click" the trigger, then charge it to get the next one in the chamber.  That factory ammo cycled every single time, though, but it was loaded into one of my older used Grendel mags.   I'll be looking into this, whatever is going on, and solving it. 

Ok I have plenty of the 75gr Fed ammo. Going to duplicate that load. Hornady 75 & 80 gr projectiles are what I have. What powders are you going to try(use) ?

IMG_20191107_095235.jpg

Edited by MikedaddyH
Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, MikedaddyH said:

Ok I have plenty of the 75gr Fed ammo. Going to duplicate that load. Hornady 75 & 80 gr projectiles are what I have. What powders are you going to try(use) ?

 

For the Valk, it's only gonna be using the powder that I'm using now, and that's CFE223, on the 88 ELD-Ms, at 27.0 grains, running 2813 fps out of this 18" barrel. That's a crazy load that leaving some flattened primers, but not cratered primers, no brass flow, no pierced primers, and excellent accuracy. If I could go up more, before the next accuracy node, I would - but I don't think I'll get there before I'm damaging brass...  I think I found my limit, here, this weekend... 

I'm REALLY tempted to entirely change this thing up to Accurate 2520 powder, too.  The AA 2520 is working REALLY well in the other similar sized cases, and I use that in the Grendel, and the ARC.  It's working.  If the CFE 223 doesn't work for the Valk, I'll shiit-can it in a heartbeat.  And move to AA 2520. 

Just my $0.02 on it.  :thumbup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/27/2020 at 10:02 PM, 98Z5V said:

I think you gotta tell that to @JBMatt - these 3 shots below are less than 8" overall - at a mile, that's less than 1/2-MOA right there! 

This was the final result of all the number-crunching on @JBMatt's string that day.  Pretty fucking IMPRESSIVE!...  :hail::thumbup:

When you do your part at that kind of distance, and the wind actually cooperates...   It's fuckin' EPIC...   :banana:

1825612133_Ballistic-X-Export-2020-12-28162318.980606.thumb.png.24ad814ae7598145bd5faa7f6eca35ea.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, DNP said:

Humble. And good lookin too. One of those gay overweight AZ bodybuilder types. I gotta ask why Tanner is so thin though?  Is it because he never puts down the dremel tool long enough to pick up a fork?  

light beers! I owe him a case next visit! 🍻🍻🇺🇸

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...