quote:

Originally posted by jelrod1:
I think the Calypso has more advantage potentially in rimfire than centerfire because the actual distance between you and the targets are closer. Terrain and other things certainly have a big part too but there is just less distance. Doesn't mean it's easier by any means, just look at the drop on my 216 target, but there's less chance of wind in multiple directions. Drops are so much that if you're off a few yards on the distance it's a miss. Smaller venues with less hiking it's easy to tote the gear. A lot of people in rimfire are using it now. You still see some kestrels and I take mine as backup but the feedback from the Calypso is just so much more. I shot a match this past weekend that had an 18" circle at 444. Was dialed 22.3 mils. Fortunately not much wind that morning.

I make out a dope card similar to yours fritz, but on the rifle. Some are using those EDope cards and transferring to it from Quickdope but I like the flexibility of writing it out. Or drawing it out to show target position.

I also use a rifle mounted dope card. It's just faster and easier for me to reference on the clock. Sounds silly. How much difference can there really be between the rifle and the wrist?

For me it is significant.

For sure. A lot of it depends on the game being played or the particular stage. Troop line card looks way different for me than a stage that has a big pan. I may list one out and draw the other. One thing I like is the turret tape. Can mark the turret and dial to it quickly.

jelrod -- That's a large dope card / card holder. Who makes it?

I have both but what's shown is the smaller one. I'm not sure if he's selling many of these anymore or not. If interested I can check. I know the guy well.

I am absolutely interested in buying the data card holders. I'd like 2 sets -- 2 of each size. Let me know how to move forward.

This just might be the ticket for complex stages at Steel Safari and NRL Hunter -- where targets are at unknown locations and unknown distances.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
I am absolutely interested in buying the data card holders. I'd like 2 sets -- 2 of each size. Let me know how to move forward.

This just might be the ticket for complex stages at Steel Safari and NRL Hunter -- where targets are at unknown locations and unknown distances.

I emailed you.

IndianaBoy, I do believe what you've laid out will make an informative thread and I look forward to it. Like you said I believe a lot of stuff will overlap between the disciplines. My focus and my business is rimfire specific but I do see a bunch of overlap.

Still on wind related, it's also possible to pair a calypso to the kestrel. That may be beneficial to some. Through Quickdope I can pair the calypso and kestrel at the same time too, especially if there is no cell service. Lots of options out there these days.

Ok, I went back and clipped one of my topics from earlier in the thread:

Technical practical accuracy. AR upper design choices that can affect practical accuracy. Rail deflection.


This will be primarily geared towards gas guns. I have much less experience with the intricacies of bolt guns so I will defer to those more experienced in that arena.

Part 1: Ammunition. You are somewhat limited to some of the options available to bolt guns because your ammunition must be short enough to fit in and feed from a magazine. You are also more limited on powder selection. You can't just pic a pet load from a bolt gun in 6mm ARC and think it will work well in a gas gun. In a gas gun, powder burn rate matters significantly more because you aren't just tuning a rifle and ammo to shoot tight groups, it also has to have an appropriate burn rate so that the gas port pressure isn't excessive. This has more to do with how the rifle recoils and being able to manage the rifle while watching your own trace, impacts and misses than pure accuracy. But a rifle that is operating within it's optimal window of gas volume and pressure will generally shoot better.

Ball powders, while they meter wonderfully, are usually sub-optimal for precision work with a gas gun. They are usually dirtier, and more temperature sensitive. Choosing a relatively temperature insensitive powder like Varget or H4895 is a substantial advantage. Wild velocity swings because your ammo is sitting in a black magazine in the sun and is +20 degrees over ambient can be a problem. As well as the added headache of having a temperature chart for your ammo so you know what MV to use based on the current ambient temp. Don't make your powder choice if you are a handloader based on what listed powder gives the best MV. You don't need speed, you need consistency. The last match I shot I beat a Pro series competitor who was shooting 6mm Creedmoor with a likely MV of 2800ish FPS and my 6mm ARC load is just a tick under 2500 FPS. I could get an extra 150 FPS by shooting Hornady factory match ammo but that powder burns horribly filthy in my rifle and the 108 ELDM doesn't shoot well in my rifle at any rate.

Bullet selection is also crucial. You want to find a bullet that 'jumps' well. Bolt gun guys usually have the option to seat their bullets as close to the lands as they want and can help tune their ammunition in that way as well as charge weight. You can't do this in a gas gun, because you are more restricted by magazine length. Berger Hybrids jump well. I am using the 6mm 105. The Hornady Aeromatch also shoot well. They group as well for me as the Bergers but they shoot to a slightly different POI. Their gilding metal alloy looks slightly different to me from the Bergers so I assume this is a friction related effect. I do think Berger has the absolute best QC in the industry so I generally just buy Bergers. But in my testing the Hornady Aeromatch shot just as well.

I do not care for the Hornady ELDM bullets. IMHO they are chasing the highest BC they can get with their heat shield tips, and compromises are made elsewhere. I had tips deforming, bending, and even breaking off in my 6mm ARC rifle. I found a piece of one in amongst the lugs in my barrel extension while cleaning the rifle, and never fired another one after that. I never had that problem with the 73 ELDM in my 5.56 gas gun rifle, but they never grouped remotely as well as the Sierra 69s in that rifle even with extensive testing of multiple powders and load development.

Now lets get down to mechanical accuracy.

It goes without saying that you want the fattest barrel that you can reasonably handle. Barrel stiffness is always helpful for consistency. You alse get what you pay for in rifle barrels. I'm not saying you MUST buy an $800 Bartlein to be competitive but you aren't likely to get match winning accuracy with a sub $200 bargain bin barrel. JP has sold cut rifled barrels but their bread and butter is their very good button rifled barrels. With proper attention to detail and process and strict QC, a button rifled barrel can be a shooter. I am currently shooting a Bartlein because I had to go to a custom shop to get the length, contour, and gas journal that I wanted. Use a JP bolt. They are extremely consistent with regards to headspace.


Now let's get into some of the voodoo. Your AR type rifle will have rail deflection. That means that if you zero off of a bipod at the front of the handguard, your zero will be shifted in the vertical when you shoot off of a shooting bag placed on a prop with the rifle placed on the bag just in front of your handguard. There are ways to mitigate this to some degree. I discovered rail deflection because my initial handguard, a BCM free flat, had an atrocious amount. .5 mils to be precise. My first few matches with this rifle, I would absolutely hammer from prone positions and crash hard from props even when breaking stable, clean shots. I wasn't aware of what was going on and a fellow competitor clued me into it. I switched my upper to a Larue Stealth which has a unitized almost monolithic upper receiver, which mitigated this substantially. I thought perhaps it would eliminate it completely, but it did not. It dropped to .2 mils of deflection instead of .5. This is easier to deal with. When I am shooting from the bipod, my kestrel dope is true. When I am on a positional stage, I just add .2 mils to all the dope my kestrel gives me before I write it down on my rifle mounted dope card. Range doesn't matter, you don't have to add more on longer targets. It is a simple shift of your basic zero. So why does this happen? Everything deflects(bends temporarily). Even with a handguard bolted to the front of the beefy upper receiver, and the barrel nut isolated, the upper receiver itself flexes under the weight of the rifle. It actually bends MORE when the bipod is out at the front of the handguard. So the deflection is actually happening in the condition that I zero the rifle, prone with a bipod. That deflection points the barrel up a microscopic amount more. Which is why I then have to add .2 mils of elevation when shooting from a positional bag and the handguard isn't loaded with quite as much leverage. A heavier rifle exacerbates this, as it makes sense that a heavier load on a system of a given rigidity is going to deflect more. PRS rifles are generally heavy.

I never noticed this effect in my rifles before, even with years of shooting 3 gun. The accuracy requirements weren't strict enough to make it apparent, and a typical 3 gun rifle launching 55gr bulk ammo usually isn't accurate enough in the aggregate to make it show up on paper at 100 yards.


Mass in your operating system is your friend. When you are launching heavy for caliber bullets, you want a full mass carrier and likely a heavy buffer. I can't explain why but switching from a carbine buffer to an H2 buffer in my 6mm ARC eliminated inexplicable flyers. I did multiple tests with great ammo on the same day, switching back and forth and changing nothing else.


Adjustable gas blocks are your friend. The vast majority of AR-15 rifles are overgassed. You can spec a custom small gas port if you want but that may restrict you as you tune a handload to your rifle if your accuracy node is on the low end. I use a Superlative Arms gas block in the bleed-off mode. I also shoot with a silencer because over the course of a day the concussion of a brake can be detrimental to being able to focus on watching your own trace. Many very high level competitors use a brake but users of both have won matches. If you use a can, buy one that it geared towards use on precision rifles. If the attachment method has any wobble, wiggle, or lash in the retention system, it will wiggle and wiggle isn't good. I am using a Thunderbeast Ultra 9 but there are likely dozens of suitable options.


If you choose to shoot with a suppressor you need a cover. It only takes a few rounds through a can before it gets hot enough to throw mirage. You don't want any more mirage in your sight picture than what the range is giving you naturally.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: IndianaBoy,

addendum:

Ideally you would use a very rigid upper/handguard system. I think the prior owners of Mega are bringing back their monolithic uppers now that the LMT patent has expired. VLTOR has a monolithic upper but I have no experience with it. Larue is a solid choice but their stuff has become hard to get and sadly it seems like Mark's divorce has really affected that company. If you can find a Stealth 2.0 upper, they are really easy to build around.



Trigger.

I have used them all. Larue MBT, Geissele SSA, CMC, JP, Hyperfire, Timney.

IMHO the absolute best for precision work is the Triggertech AR Diamond. One of the huge advantages of bolt guns is that their triggers can be adjusted down to sub 6oz. Being able to break that shot at the exact right moment is enormous. I have never pulled a finer trigger in an AR than the Triggertech. I am not running out to replace my other triggers because for MOST AR rifle purposes, a crisp 3.5 Hyperfire is fine. The AR diamond can be adjust down to about 1.5lbs and it is worth every penny for this game.



Balance:


Your rifle needs to be properly balanced to shoot well positionally. If the rifle is front or rear heavy, and you slap it down on a bag on a tank trap or window ledge, you will fight it continuously while you are trying to get a clean sight picture. You need to be able to set your rifle down on bag just in front of the magazine well, and it will set there without input even if you take both hands off of it. This is crucially important, and I will discuss it further when I get down to position technique in a later post.

You can add weights to the handguard and/or to the stock to achieve this. Mass is your friend in this sport so if you have the option to add mass to your handguard, or use a lighter stock, I would add mass to your handguard.


NRL Hunter guys will likely have a different perspective on this because if I understand correctly, their rifles have to come in under a certain weight. PRS rifles are heavy, it just comes with the game.

Current rifle setup:




You can see the weights on the handguard, as well as my MDT Send-It level which I will discuss in a later post. You can also see the accessibility of the adjustable gas block with my rifle +1 gas system and this handguard length.

Also note the pod-loc lever on the rear of the bipod that allows me to adjust cant of the rifle and get it level quickly when shooting from surfaces that are sloped to one side or the other.

IndianaBoy, appreciate your discussion on accuracy!