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.

A Foray into High-Power Rifle Competition (pt.2)

First NRA High-Power Across the Course Match

(A part 2 continuation of this story)

Once I had gathered all of the equipment that I thought I would absolutely need for my first match (web sling, rule books, shooting mat, etc) I set out to load some ammunition that would be suitable.  Premium,  off the shelf ammo, like Black Hills or Federal, would have worked fine for my rifle in this match, but the whole purpose for me was to get into competition High-Power shooting with as little investment as possible.  Unfortunately, due to the 1/9" twist rate of the barrel on my AR15, I am not able to utilize the heavier and more accurate bullets out there for the .223 platform.  The loads I did come up with however, were a 62grain Sierra Game King BTHP bullet for the 200 and 300 yard stages and a 69grain Hornady Match BTHP bullet for the 600 yard stage.  I loaded both of these bullets in some once fired Lake City brass, using H355 powder and CCI No.450 small rifle primers.

The course of fire for the match I had decided to shoot in consisted of:

Stage 1. Standing position at 200 yards, 2 sighting shots and 20 shots for record in a time limit of 22 minutes.

Stage 2. Sitting or kneeling position at 200 yards, 2 sighting shots in a time limit of 2 minutes and two ten (10) shot rapid-fire string for score in a time limit of 60 seconds.

Stage 3. Prone position at 300 yards, 2 sighting shots in a time limit of 2 minutes and two ten (10) shot rapid-fire string for score in a time limit of 70 seconds.

Stage 4. Prone position at 600 yards, 2 sighting shots and 20 shots for record in a time limit of 22 minutes.

Once I got to the range and started looking at the other shooters setups I knew right off the bat that, as far as equipment was concerned, I was fairly out-classed.  Many other shooters in the Service Rifle category were shooting various accurized versions of the the AR15 A2 platform, with the vast majority featuring White Oak Armament uppers.  However, I was not discouraged and I committed myself to shooting to the best of my ability. I don't have too much experience or practice at this point anyways, so my rifle is not likely going to be my weak-point.

The first stage was OK.  I have minimal experience shooting in the proper standing position for precision target shooting but was able to pull off a fairly decent score for a first timer.  Standing at 200 yards I managed a score of a 134-1X, which means 134 points total with 1 "X-Ring" hit.  The second stage was in the sitting position and things improved quite a bit; I scored a 161-1X.

The third stage, shooting rapid fire prone, went a tad sour for me.  All of my previous shooting competition experience is with IPSC pistol shooting, where the name of the game is to clear the course in the least amount of time possible.  This usually results in some truly rapid fire, and the targets are a lot closer and a lot easier to make hits on.  They are also usually reactive, so you instantly know when you get a good hit, and conversely you know when you miss.  This is COMPLETELY different, and my mindset was not easily changed.  When the targets went up, I proceeded to fire at a pace that was not conducive to accuracy.  I was one of the first ones to get rounds down range and I was easily the first one to fire all 10 rounds, and that netted me a score of 142-0X.  Time limit shooting in a scenario like this is something that I really need to work on.  A more appropriate cadence of fire, I later found out, is to get on target, take a full breath in and out, fire at you're natural respiratory pause and repeat.  This is most definitely something I will practice, probably with an egg timer and a .22 conversion kit at my local indoor range.

The fourth and final stage of fire was slow-fire in the prone position at 600 yards.  This is where I really found the weak link in my equipment.  I know I am not the best shooter out there, but I also know that I have fairly good fundamentals.  My rifle has a 1/9" twist, not the best choice when it comes to 600 yard shooting, mostly due to the weight limit it places on the projectile that you can accurately shoot with it.  Most of the people out there will shoot 600 yards with 77grain or even heavier bullets.  These heavier bullets are more resistant to wind deflection and other environmental influences.  My barrel forces me to choose something in the 73grain or lighter class of bullets, and with all I could find at the local gun store being 69grain I figured it was my best bet and it's a projectile that I know will do the job fairly well.  The other downfall of my rifle is the fact that the barrel is not free-floated, meaning the there are external forces physically pushing on the barrel from the hand-guard and sling loop.  When shooting in the prone position with the sling, the method of stabilizing the rifle is to disconnect the butt-stock portion of the sling and create a loop. You then put that loop around your support arm, above the bicep in such a way that it automatically cinches down around your arm with forward pressure on the sling.  This, very effectively,  pulls the gun into your shoulder and gives you a very, very stable platform to shoot from.  With a free floated barrel there is absolutely nothing contacting it that will torque it in any way, shape, or form and it  is the most accurate option available.  As a result, I was only able to pull off a score of 128-0X.  What was disheartening was the fact that I would be able to fire a round, hit the 9 ring, fire again, hit the 10 ring and then my next shot utilizing the same hold would be a miss.

As a result of this match, I have decided that the first modification I am going to make to my rifle will be a service rifle float tube.  At a total investment cost of $105 from White Oak Armament, if I want to be at all competitive on a tight budget, I can't afford not to.

Once I get the float tube, I will be posting another installment on this blog thread with both a walk-through of the installation and a review of the overall improvement (if any) that it nets me.


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A Foray into High-Power Rifle Competition (pt.1)

The CMP Clinic and initial preperation

Recently I decided to take the proverbial plunge into High-Power competition.  It all began September of 2011 with a Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) clinic, followed by an introductory "match".  The clinic was very informative and went over the basic function and nomenclature of the M1 Garand rifle, as well as various shooting positions that best utilized the structure of the human body and the military web-sling.


For those of you who are unaware of what the CMP is, it was created by Congress in 1903 with the goal of providing civilians with an "opportunity to learn and practice marksmanship skills so they would be skilled marksmen if later called on to serve in the U.S. Military."  The CMP was formed with the precipitation of the adoption of the M1903 Springfield bolt-action rifle as the national service arm.  Most civilians up until this time were more familiar with the more popular lever-action rifles and were unable to achieve the same level of marksmanship and rate of fire with the new and unfamiliar bolt-action M1903 Springfield rifle.


The CMP's goals over the years remained.  Much like the NRA, the CMP offers programs to help youth and adults alike learn the fine art of marksmanship with military and match style rifles.  The CMP also offers members the opportunity to purchase surplus U.S. Military rifles at a fraction of retail costs.

I had originally decided to get into shooting high-power with my Springfield Armory M1A Loaded.  I went through the clinic using this rifle and did fairly well, though I quickly discovered the shortcomings and possible handicap of using this type of rifle vs. the AR15 platform.  It is heavy, not very ergonomic, the mag changes can be cumbersome and while the recoil is extremely manageable, it's still considerably more than that of an AR15.  Ammo costs were also a consideration here for me as well, and while I do reload the vast majority of my ammo, components are more costly for .308 vs. .223.

If you couldn't tell from the paragraph above, I ultimately decided on the AR15 platform as my competition rifle of choice, which means I will be competing in Modern Rifle.  I have a plain-jane 20" Stag AR15 A2 that I wasn't doing anything special with and I decided to use it for these competitions and upgrade as I go.  I also acquired a shooting mat from Dillon-Precision and a couple of military style cotton web-slings from Creedmoor Sports, and set out to shoot my first NRA "Across the Course" match.


Continue Reading by clicking here.


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The Mad Minute Reborn

The "Mad Minute" Drill Reborn

More than a century ago now, the "Mad Minute" drill was conceived by the British.  The idea was to score at minimum, 15 hits on a 12-inch round target at 300 yards, within one minute, using a bolt-action rifle.  


Through the duration of the First World War, it was not uncommon for riflemen to exceed this benchmark, in fact many of them even scored 30+ hits.  It was not until 1914 however that Sergeant Instructor Alfred Snoxall set the highest record, that surprisingly enough, still stands today.  He was able to manage 38 hits.  An incredible feat even by today's standards.


What does all that have to do with today?  Well, we thought we would give the "Mad Minute" a try, but with a bit of a modern spin.  We decided to allow both period correct and modern bolt-action rifles, as well as modern semi-automatic rifles.


Once we gathered a group (it wasn't that hard to find people to shoot in a fun match quite honestly) we set out to the range.  We first allowed 5 sighting shots to make sure the shooter was dialed in.  Once everything was dialed in and the shooter was on-target, we then commenced with what is known as a "McQueen Drill".  A McQueen drill is simple, a random target is presented to the shooter for a limited amount of time.  The shooter has to acquire, aim and fire, before the target disappears.  We were using 3 second windows of opportunity at 300 yards.  Immediately following the McQueen drill, we gave the shooters a short time to re-load and re-prep for the Mad Minute drill.  


People showed up with a variety of platforms to try out.  Some even showed up with period correct Lee Enfield SMLE's (one even brought period correct cordite .303 British ammo)  I personally gave it a go with 2 of my AR15's, a 20" A2 clone and a 16" "M-4gery".  Gary Eliseo showed up with one of his "tube guns", a Remington 700 based RTM Tactical model, chambered in .308, topped with US Optics glass.  He also brought out a very cool, very tricked out AR15 topped with an ACOG.  We also had an SKS and a Savage Model10 in the mix.


When it was all said and done, and the cordite fumed smoke had cleared the air, we truly realized what a feat of 38 hits in one minute at 300 yards actually is, ESPECIALLY with a bolt-action rifle.  Out of all the bolt guns that gave it a try that day, Gary Eliseo took honors with his RTM, scoring 24 hits in the minute.  I managed to score 28 hits with my A2 AR-15 clone using irons, and was feeling pretty good about my score too.  That is until Gary pulled out his second rifle to give it another go.  With his ACOG mounted AR15, Gary managed to decimate my score as he made 49 hits.  Impressive to say the least.


Most importantly though, this was set up to be a "fun match", and that's exactly what it was, load and loads of fun.  We set this up for shooters to test the limits of their abilities with their equipment and to challenge themselves, all while having a good time.  -Mission accomplished.


-LRP
(http://www.youtube.com/LongRangeProductions)


P.S. If you are interested in watching Gary's run with his RTM bolt gun, check out the video below.