Cleaning a Precision Rifle

Cleaning a Precision Rifle

Many "correct" ways, but this is my way and it works...



There are many ways to clean a precision rifle, and there are many kits out there that claim to clean it the best way possible. There are many schools of thought as to what the right ways and wrong ways are; i.e. "Don't pull the brush/jag/patch/whatever back through the bore from the muzzle end", "always use a bronze/copper bore brush", "don't/do use solvents", etc. etc.

I am not going to go into a whole gamut of different methods out there on the inter-webs that are construed as being the "correct" way to clean your rifle.   I will however outline the process I use, as I feel that it is most effective without any undesirable side effects.

Basic items you will need before you get started and yes, they are necessary.

• Bore Guide. This is one of the most important and often most overlooked pieces of kit in a rifleman's tool kit for cleaning their precision rifles.

• Carbon Fiber or coated cleaning rod. This is another important one. You can get away with brass or aluminum, as the metals are much softer than the steel in the barrel, but even aluminum can damage a steel crown if the conditions are "perfect".

• "Parker-Hale" style jag. This is one that I will not go without. You can use push style jags and there are the old fashioned loop style jags as well. I generally do not have a problem with the push style jags, but I will never use a loop style jag. They do not work as well, they leave half of the jag uncovered by the patch to bounce off your lands and grooves and they generally just aren't a good idea.

• Rifle stand or something to keep the rifle steady on while pushing the cleaning rod through it. You don't want your rifle to rock around all over the place and fall over while you are cleaning it.

• Empty Water bottle. Not necessary, but it makes cleanup much easier.Once you have assembled your kit of hard-goods, you will also need to select your cleaners and protectors or all-in-ones. I am personally a big fan of FrogLube CLP and good old fashioned Automatic Transmission Fluid. Ill explain why later.

First things first, unload the weapon, check and make clear. Remove all ammo from the area that you are going to be working in. Remove the bolt and insert the bore guide, lock it in and make sure that it fits nice and snug against the chamber. Also slide the water bottle mouth over the muzzle. A regular Arrowhead bottle fits snug on my compensator, and stays put until I remove it. It does an excellent job of catching any solvents, debris or pushed through patches when they pop out the muzzle.
I don't use a bore brush on any of my rifles. I find that its just not a necessary step honestly. I utilize the Parker-Hale jag and regular cotton patch, only. Roll the patch around the jag and apply a liberal amount of your favorite bore-cleaner. I personally like M-Pro7 Bore Gel. I find it works well, contains no ammonia, is non-toxic, has no harsh fumes and cleans out well. Run the patch through the bore until around 1/4 of the patch is showing out of the muzzle. Pull the patch back though and let sit for 5-15 minutes. Take this time to clean up the bolt and whatever else may need a wipe-down or a cleaning.

After you let the bore gel sit and do its work, run a series of clean, dry patches down the bore until they come out somewhat clean. at this point in time you can run a CLP type product down the bore. For this I like FrogLube CLP. If you don't have any CLP stuff around, grab some ATF fluid, I typically go for synthetic, but its not necessary. I really like Automatic Transmission Fluid for this application for a few reasons. First, it contains no tackifiers that make it sticky, like you will find in motor oil or gear oil. Second, its thin enough to clean up well and get into the pores of the metal itself and stay put to provide protection from the elements. Third, ATF contains a fair amount of detergents. You can actually do a fine job of cleaning an entire firearm with nothing more than ATF. It also works well as a lubricant, though it doesn't stay put as well as dedicated firearms lubes like FrogLube, Slip2000, etc.

Run 1 heavily CLP/ATF oiled patch down the bore, followed by dry patches until they come out clean and dry. I then like to follow up with one more lightly oiled patch, followed up by one more dry patch.

At this point, I consider the bore clean and ready for storage.

Making the Escape to FREEDOM

Recently I was fortunate enough to find an opportunity that was able to lead me out of California and into the free state of Idaho, and I have to say, I like the change of environment.  

Life up here is different and the same.  I live in a good size town, not too far away from Boise.  Housing costs are cheap up here, and the standard of living is high.  People up here are a different breed than those from Los Angeles too it seems.  People here seem to value life and respect others in general.  The breakdown of the family unit is not nearly as prevalent here as it is elsewhere, and I do strongly believe that that has a big part to play in it.

Once I was settled into my new digs and my new job, I made time to head over to the local DMV office to obtain my new states driving license.  While I was there, I also dropped off an application for my very own Concealed Carry Permit.  I handed the nice lady behind the counter my packed that had my application and much of my firearms training history.  She was impressed that I had everything so prepared, and I could tell she appreciated me doing some of the work for her.  I was then fingerprinted and informed that it would take somewhere between two weeks and 30 days to receive my permit, if I passed the background check.

Well, somewhere around three weeks after my DMV visit, I received a letter stating that my application was approved and that I could re-visit the DMV office to pay my fee and receive my temporary permit.  This was fine with me and I promptly headed over there at the first chance I had.

This all happened three months ago, and I must say, it feels good to be able to legally carry to protect myself and my loved ones.  Carrying a firearm has just become, well... Routine.  My daily actions however, no longer are.

I find myself more aware of my surroundings.  I was never un-aware before, but now I find myself noticing much more in the people around me.  How they walk, where their focus is, what they have in their hands and so on.  I wouldn't call it paranoid, because I don't fear these people, I would just call it curious.   That being said, I recent ran across an article that I think sums up my new perception in my daily life just about perfectly.  It was written by an active Reserve Police Officer in Iowa and published by the Gazette.  Please read the article, it may put a lot of what we "sheep dog" citizens do on a daily basis into perspective for many others that just don't understand.

http://thegazette.com/subject/opinion/guest-columnists/i-carry-a-gun-every-day-20150104

What are your thoughts on the subject?

Reloading DIY - Stuck Case Removal

DIY: Stuck case removal tool

As you can see here, I managed to get a .223 case stuck nice and tight in my Dillon sizing die.  I even pulled part of the rim off trying to free the case, with no luck.  Now I'll show you how to get it out with very little time and effort wasted, so you can get back to reloading as soon as possible.

Required Materials

• The materials you need:

All of the materials you need can be sourced from just about any local hardware store.  I happen to have an Osh right around the corner from my house, so I went there.

First thing I did was source 1/2"x20 tap.  The tap that I got had the proper sized drill bit packaged with it, so that made it even easier.  If you can't find a tap/drill bit package, you will need to source a #7 drill bit as well.

Bolts, washers and spacers are also required.  1/2x20 thread bolts are needed, so as they match the thread size and pitch of the tap.  I got 2 different lengths, a 2" and a 1 1/2", so I have options depending on what the problem is.  

I also glued together a stack of washers to use as a spacer, and I bought a couple different length bronze spacers, again, just so I have more problem solving options.

Last, but not least, I also picked up a clear container tube to store everything in, so that I have it handy for future use.  

• Now that we have everything together, lets put it all to work.

This case was stuck pretty good.  I had just cleaned the die, and I must have just not had enough lube on the brass and it just cinched itself into place. 

First thing to do is drill through the center of the primer pocket with the #7 bit.  If, like me, you were not able to remove the de-capping pin, be quite mindful of it while drilling and GO SLOW!

Once you have the primer pocket drilled out, you will need to thread the hole with the tap that you purchased.  Again, the best advice I can give you is to go slow and back it out every quarter of a turn or so.  You will want to use a bit of light oil on the tap as well, which will help keep it from binding up and it will help it stay sharper longer.  If you break the tap off, you might as well just go buy another die, so be careful and again, go slow.

Once it is tapped, you will want to clean all the brass shavings up as best as possible and grab your spacers along with the corresponding length bolt.  Place the spacer down over the case, top with a washer and then thread the bolt in.  

As you tighten the bolt, you are pulling the case up and out of the die.  It doesn't take much force with a ratchet and socket, and the case is free before you know it.

This case came unstuck easily, but as I mentioned earlier, the de-capping pin was still stuck in the case. That's where the longer bolt and spacer came in handy.

I placed the longer spacer over the case, and pushed the de-capping pin up and threaded it back into the die body, so I could exert force on the case and pull it away from the ball sizer on the pin. I'm very thankful I had the foresight to grab the extra spacer for this as it made life much, much easier.

And here you can see the case free from the die, and the mouth severely deformed during the process.  This was likely caused by the de-capping pin being pulled through and the expander ball catching the lip of the case mouth.  Luckily I was able to save the de-capping pin and went on to re-size a bunch of cases only a few minutes after freeing it up.

Hope this was helpful for you.  Remember, use enough lube and if something gets stuck, don't panic, just use some ingenuity and fix it yourself for just a few bucks and a trip to the hardware store.

-LongRangeProductions

Remington 700 SPS Tactical, A Long Term Evolution (pt.2)

Remington 700 SPS Tactical

A Long Term Evolution (pt.2)

Part one can be found here

...

I began shopping around and asking a lot of people I shoot with if I could look through their optics.  A few really stuck out to me in terms of overall quality and value.  The big names out there all make really excellent stuff, much of it way too far out of my price range for me to even consider it.  

Schmidt&Bender glass is some of the best that I have ever looked through.  The turrets are top notch and the end products that they put out are arguably the best out there, period.  

I also looked through US Optics, which makes a very nice package, with clarity coming in as a close second to Schmidt&Bender, but with some really nice options such as the EREK turret that offers fine elevation adjustments, but also allows the shooter to dial in massive amounts of elevation in just one revolution.

Vortex and Leupold also offered a lot of value for money.  The Viper PST is a very good optic to beat, but the reticle options left me wanting more.  The Leupold Mk4 was another scope that was almost everything I wanted, but just not quite right.  The turrets were sub-par in my opinion and was really the ultimate reason why I passed up on it.

I eventually settled on a Bushnell HDMR with the G2DMR reticle.  It had everything I wanted, crystal clear glass with no chromatic aberration, a very good reticle that allows for precise windage and elevation holds (if you shoot the reticle instead of dialing the turrets) and the locking turrets feel rock solid with excellent tactile feedback when dialing in adjustments.  I was sold on it, and a little more than a thousand dollars later, I had one mounted in some 35mm Seekins rings and attached to my rifle.  

• The Bushnell HDMR scope mounted and the Falcon sitting next to it.

While I was upgrading the glass, I also decided to add a muzzle-brake and upgrade the ammunition feeding system as well.  I bought myself a Shrewd-Brake and a Seekins Detachable Bottom Metal conversion kit and inletted the stock to accept it.  While I was doing that, I gave my barreled action to Gary Eliseo of Competition Shooting Machine (www.gotxring.com) to thread the barrel for the brake.  Now I had a standard Remington 700SPS Tactical  in a nice stock with a good scope and the ability to feed it with 5 and 10 round detachable magazines.  

• The rifle with the Brake, Scope and DBM all installed, in the HS precision stock.

I was pretty happy with the rifle. It was shooting great and the scope was fantastic.  Unfortunately for my wallet though, I kept shooting matches with Gary Eliseo and some of the guys that have had Gary build chassis for their rifles.  I had the opportunity to shoot a couple of Eliseo RTS guns and decided that with all the adjustability and improved ergonomics and features that I should get myself one also.

So a few months ago, I called Gary up at his shop and told him just how much I wanted one of his RTS chassis'.  He obliged and put me on the list for one to be built.  I decided I wanted the "Varminter" model that offered a slightly shorter hand-guard, but still offered the fully adjustable butt.  I also decided I wanted it in Cerakoted in Flat-Dark-Earth.

Well about a month ago I dropped off my barreled action to Gary and let him go to town on it. I also dropped off a Timney tactical straight shoe trigger for him to modify (no-more mechanical safety) and install.  I got it a few days later fully assembled and beautiful.  I was shooting in one of Garys tactical matches in 2 days, so I mounted up my Bushnell HDMR, set the trigger to a crisp 1.5lbs and hit the range to get my zero's.  

• The new Eliseo RTS chassis. The evolution is complete.. For now.

Needless to say, I couldn't be happier with the overall evolution of this rifle.  I really am very pleased with it.  Now all I need to do is figure out what caliber to re-barrel it to if I ever become bored with the .308.  HA!

• Here is everything that the rifle went through leading up to the Eliseo RTS chassis.

1. Stock Hogue overmold stock
2. Falcon Menace Scope #1
3. Falcon Menace Scope #2
4. Seekins Detachable Magazine kit
5. HS Precision Stock
6. Factory X-Mark Pro trigger

Remington 700 SPS Tactical, A Long Term Evolution

Remington 700 SPS Tactical 

A Long Term Evolution

About half a decade back I purchased a brand new Remington 700 SPS tactical in .308 Winchester from Buds Gun Shop (www.budsgunshop.com) and had them send it over to my FFL dealer.

The gun came equipped with all the basic standard equipment.  It featured a Hogue over-molded stock that left the barrel free floated, until you put even a slight load on the fore-end that is.   The stock is at least aluminum pillar bedded for the action screws though, and the stock was quite comfortable to shoot with due to its super soft recoil pad.

The rifle also came equipped with the fairly new X-Mark Pro trigger.  I'm guessing that the X-Mark Pro is Remington's answer to the "very good for an off-the-shelf" Accu-Trigger that Savage offers.  The X-Mark pro is an adjustable trigger, allowing you to adjust pull-weight, over-travel, and sear engagement.  The lowest I was able to safely adjust my X-Mark down to was around 4lbs.  The trigger was better than say a stock Ruger 10/22 trigger, but it was nothing to write home about, ever.

The barrel on the SPS Tactical is a 20" varmint/tactical contour, featuring a 1-12" right-hand twist.  The chamber also has a fairly long throat like most factory barrels, but it doesn't seem to mind the long jump all that much, and over-all accuracy was quite impressive considering all the little things it had going against it.  The rifle easily pulled off Minute-of-Angle accuracy with factory Federal Gold Medal Match (FGMM) in both 168gr and 175gr flavor.  

Trying (then) to keep it a budget build, when it came to optics, I cheaped out and bought a Falcon Menace 4-14x44 scope, mounted it in some very nice, not so budget Nightforce Ti rings and put that combo on an EGW 20moa base.  The glass on the Falcon scope was decent for the price point (sub $400) and the turrets and reticle allowed for good ranging and adjustments while shooting at unknown distances.  I did learn my lesson about buying cheap glass however when the turrets stopped tracking correctly.  I was able to get a freebie replacement through some connections and was quickly back up and shooting with an exact replacement of the broken scope.  This time though, the glass was a bit cloudy and the turrets felt mushy and a lot less positive.  My guess is that quality control over the years has degraded and resulted in a much less than stellar product for the money now-a-days.  Bottom line is though, the gun still shot well, and if I was able to easily see the target through the sub-par glass, I was usually still able to hit it.

Here is how the rifle looked during the first stage of it's life.

Fast forward a couple of years and the gun is still in the Hogue stock with a stock trigger and mediocre glass.  The gun is a decent shooter as it sits, but I got the bug to start making it a better shooter.  First on the list (and cheapest) was a new stock.

I began browsing some of the rifle oriented message boards online and came across a very good deal on a factory Remington 700-5R 'Mil-Spec' HS-Precision stock.  These stocks are very good for a factory stock.  They offer a full aluminum bedding block that holds the action very well and centers it quite precisely.  The fore-arm is very wide and flat on the bottom to allow for shooting off of a rest and it is light.  The barrel also becomes truly free-floated.

Because of all of the benefits that this new (to-me) stock offered, accuracy improved.  I began seeing 3/4 MOA accuracy with the FGGM ammo and overall comfort was improved as well.  Comfort behind a weapons system, as I began to discover, can be a huge compliment to accuracy, or an even bigger detriment if you don't have it.

The rifle with the Falcon Glass and HS Precision Stock.

Another year went by.  The gun was a good shooter and I was getting more and more comfortable behind it.  Everything was good... Except the glass.  

Continues in pt.2 (here)

Precision Reloading for Rifle (pt.1)

A short guide to Precision Reloading for Rifle (pt.1)

Match Grade Brass Preparation (By Tom at www.BigSkyAmmunition.com) 

For years people have always battled over how to prep there long range brass.  It seems everyone everyone has a different method of prepping their brass, but is there a true right or wrong?  I can’t say yes or no to that, as long as its working for them.  Here at BigSky Ammunition though, when we have a customer contact us for either a custom prepared brass or a precision ammunition order for their rifle or for a rifle we built for them, it all starts in the brass preparation.  Brass preparation is always the foundation for precision rifle ammo.

Brass Preparation starts with a quality piece of brass, Lake City, Federal, Winchester, Remington.  All of these headstamps generally are good brass.  First, make sure you have cleaned your brass very well.  This starts a completely different dispute all together, but your brass should be cleaned before they ever touch the sizing dies.  

Dies are another big debate.  Standard or bench rest/competition dies.  In simple terms a good set of Redding dies will generally do everything that needs to be done.  If you are going out for 1000 yard bench rest competitions, and are trying to achieve the tightest groups possible then you might consider a set of custom cut dies to match the chamber of the rifle.  

Once you have the brass ready for sizing it would be wise to do a very close inspection of the quality and condition of your brass.  Carefully inspect them for any damage to the shoulder or head area.  One area that is commonly overlooked is inside the case, right above the flash cup.  This is generally where you see most of the case head separations.  One easy way to check for this is to take a paper clip and straighten it out for the length of your case an put a sharp 90* bend at the very end of the tip.   This will let you run it across the inside of the case to see if you have a lip or fissure inside.  If you find a lip discard that brass an go to the next.

Once you have found your brass that will be used you can start with your sizing process.  A good lube is a must.  A good thin lube is the best.  Lube liberally.  

A lot of people use also use a bushing style neck sizer set up and again there are so many options out there that it often comes down to what you feel confident in and how far you want to take it.  If and when a custom chamber is being sized for you will need to know the neck dimensions,  along with length, but with an off the shelf target or tactical style rifle a standard set of Redding or RCBS dies will be just fine.  

You can control the neck tension with different size expander balls, you want a firm tension on the bullet, but not so much that you will have to force it into the mouth.  

Where a lot of accuracy is lost is in trimming.  When trimming your case its very important to make sure each case is trimmed the same, when you have a 1 or 2 thousands difference you end up changing the neck tension by the length of neck area that your bullet is seated into.  Once you have gotten your trimmer set so you are getting the precise length every time you can head to the internal flash hole cleaning and forming.  It does not matter what tool you use here as long as it is doing the job, people will either look over this, or over think it.  This will really affect how your primer flash enters the case.  An odd shape flash hole  will cause a uneven start on your powder.  Just make sure that every primer cup and flash hole is clean and uniform.  

After this your once step closer to loading. 

To be continued in part 2, "Loading Your Match Prepped Brass"

Budget Optics Talk..

Budgets Optics and Why I Won't Do It Again...

Optics can be one of those things that can either make or break an otherwise decent rifle setup.  I know I have been though my fair share of less than stellar scopes, and I have had, well, mixed results at best.

My first personal foray into long range shooting was with a Bass Pro shops store branded hunting scope perched atop a sporterized Mauser 98 rifle that had been re-chambered from 8mm Mauser to .308 Winchester.  The rifle was accurate enough for shooting out to 600 yards at least, but the scope was a limiting factor in a lot of ways.  While the optics were crisp and clear, the IPHY (Inch per Hundred Yards) turrets and more so, the fine duplex reticle made it difficult to accurately dial in long range target and especially to make small adjustments on the fly.

The next combination I went with, was truthfully a major upgrade.  I bought a new Remington 700 SPS tactical model in .308 Winchester.  I bought good Nightforce rings, and a 20MOA EGW base right off the bat for it.  When it came to glass though, my budget was kind of blown, so I ended up pinching pennies and I bought a Falcon Menace 4x14x44 scope.

The Falcon Menace was truthfully a good bargain for the money spent.  It offered target style turrets that could be adjusted in 1/4 MOA increments, as well as a decent reticle that had distinct hash marks on the stadia for effective ranging and measuring, as well as on the fly shot corrections.  The optics were clear and it featured a First Focal Plane so that the reticle markers were correct at any magnification.  I grew as a shooter a lot using this scope and it served me quite well for a good 3 years. It did however begin to show a lack of repeatability as the shot count grew.  I finally did a "box test" on it after much frustration and it was clearly no longer serviceable.

That leads me to where I am today.. Same Remington 700 rifle as my go-to stick, but now it has some very decent glass atop it.  In my hunt for good, quality optics, I was lucky enough, through the generosity of good friends and a great shooting community, test and evaluate various scopes from a variety of manufacturers.

Leupold MK4, US Optics SN-3, Vortex Razor HD, Nightforce NXS, and Bushnell DMR were the standouts from my experiences.  After much deliberation and budgeting to be able to afford any of the above mentioned units, I decided to purchase the Bushnell DMR with the G2DMR reticle in a MIL/MIL format.

I went with the Bushnell mainly due to the optics clarity, (its amazingly clear, as good as the USO and better than the other offerings I tried) the reticle and the fact that it is First Focal Plane.  The reticle is the G2DMR reticle and offers a christmas tree of hash marks branching off of the lower vertical stadia.  This allows for better hold-overs for on the fly wind calls and elevation corrections.  Bushnell also offers a No BS "Bullet-Proof 100% Guarantee" on these scopes.  The other feature that I found to be terrific was the locking turrets.  Its a push-lock, pull-unlock system that works quite well and the click adjustments on the turrets themselves is very solid and audible.

Going from the Falcon to the Bushnell has been a night and day change.  The optics are so crisp and clear at all magnifications that I can quite easily see though mirage out to 1050 yards and beyond on a warm day, and still be able to read it for wind calls.  The reticle is not overly busy like some of the Horus offerings and is very easy to read.

I actually like this scope so much that I am considering purchasing another one for my Mauser 98 once it is re-barreled in 6.5x55 SWEDE and re-stocked in a McMillan A5.  That should make for a great 1500 yard gun easily.