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.