I was intrigued by offgrid's post, so I went looking.

The name is Ckye-pod and it's pricey at $550. It's almost as expensive as the Joy-pod, and it doesn't even have Bluetooth.

I hope offgrid tells us more about using this bipod and what he likes about it and so on.

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
Been using the Cyke-Pod bipod for awhile now.

Oh, goody: another bipod to consider.
I could see how the variable leg spread feature could be useful.

Thanks for posting. It’s good to see this thread bumped up.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
Been using the Cyke-Pod bipod for awhile now.

Oh, goody: another bipod to consider.
I could see how the variable leg spread feature could be useful.

Thanks for posting. It’s good to see this thread bumped up.

40. Thousand. Posts? Really?

I thought I was chatting at 2,900.

Posted this picture a couple pages back. Atlas at lowest setting, Ckye-Pod about 2" from lowest.



What I like about the Ckye-Pod over the Atlas

-wider stance/more stable. Easy to see the difference through the scope by simply holding on a very small target, how little movement with the Ckye-Pod.

-finer height adjustment. Now using a heavy fill Game Changer for a rear bag. The GC is much more stable over the lightweight bag I've used for several years. The lightweight bag has more range of height by squeezing which I needed with the coarser Atlas leg adjustment. Probably going to fill my lightweight bag with heavy fill.

-how low/high it will go at 90.

-adapts better to uneven terrain with the 170 degree cant angle/leg adjustment.

-built in barricade stop.

-rotating it 180 for a shorter set up shooting off a large rock/boulder....

https://406bullets.com/pages/c...instructional-videos

Shot this at the 2000rd mark on the other 6BRA barrel, 500yds. A little more vertical then the new barrel! Haven't change the load other then chase the lands a little.



Interesting to compare the 6BRA to my previous 6BR and Dasher's as well as other 6BR's/Dasher's around me. My 28" 6BR 29.8/4895/105/2870, that's a common load/velocity for a 28" 6BR. With .2 less grains of powder and 2" less barrel length 6BRA/105 zipping along at 2935. Dasher's I shot out 31.6/4895/105/2930-2970. 6BRA is efficient little case for sure. No perceivable accuracy difference between the three calibers, comes down to the barrel. Also interesting how the 6BR, 6BRA, Dasher has changed what I expect/accept for accuracy. In the next month going to have jelrod1 chamber a MTU contour 22" 6BRA. There's two 600yd max local PRS type matches I'll shoot suppressed, a little handier with the 22". Guessing will be in 2850-2880fps range, plenty for 600yds.

Offgrid,

Mark at Short Action Customs has done a lot of load work with the 6BRA. I found it interesting that seating depth had more impact on vertical than charge weight. He found the Bergers liked to be jumped a minimum of .050. I think he shot a five shot group at 600 yards with less than a 1/4 vertical. I'm going to play around with seating depth and see if I can duplicate his results. Great shooting BTW.

swage,

I did a seating depth test with all three barrels with the Hybrids, ten thou increments from 10 jam to 60 jump. Load three charges, 30, 30.4, 3.8 4895 at same seating depth, shoot as a group. Target will clearly show what seating depth the bullet prefers. As much as I wanted the Hybrids to shoot... the VLD's shoot better. Don't have a picture of a complete test. This is the HVLD's at .010 jam, 30.0, 30.4, 30.8/4895. That's a wide range of charges, clearly shows that bullet likes a jam. At zero and .010 jump.... opened up. When I test the next barrel will snap a picture of entire target.



How's your 6BRA shooting? Smiling after shooting random FF loads?!

Offgrid,

I made it through the first 100 FF loads. My shooting buddy had a 6BRA built by the same smith as well. We were giggling like two school girls shooting that day. I don't see myself shooting the 6.5CM much anymore. I'm most likely going to put a BRA barrel on it. That's how much I like this caliber.

I am entered in a 2-rifle match in September -- carbine & bolt action -- so it's time to tune up for it. But sometimes plans don't quite work out. My B-I-L met me at our ranch -- to split a cord of wood, mow a small section of a field, and fell a couple of trees. I helped with splitting the wood, but said he's on his own after that.

As I'm setting up paper at 100 and steel at distance, I see that one neighbor's cattle are pouring into the field behind my longer distance steel targets. Frickin' cows knocked down two posts of an older fence. So much of day turned into weeding, as I waited for 100+ cows to meander from one part of the field to another. Frickin' cows.

My bolt action 6.5 Creedmoor came with a flat base, making longer distance shots a challenge. My 'smith ordered & installed a 20 MOA base, and I just got it back. Re-zeroing was pretty easy -- roughly 22 MOA down and 2 MOA left. The cattle briefly cleared, so on to a 455 yard target. Crap -- forgot to bring my dope cards. I dial the SWAG elevation, and it was fortunately really close. Three rounds virtually on top of each other, and then I see cows 400 yards away, right behind the target. Oh well, 3 rounds with 1.25" vertical -- the barrel still works.

Maybe an hour later, the cows move a bit. On to the 18" AR-15 to confirm it's ready to roll for the match. Like the first 18" barrel on this rifle, 75 grain Hornady HPBT is the competition ammo. Like to first barrel, it shoots Hornady's Black line with noticeably higher MV than the Match line. As in 80 fps faster. My other ARs also produce faster MVs with the Black line, but generally only 10-20 fps faster. Accuracy is no different between the two lines, therefore once I use up the last case of my 75 Match ammo, I will buy only the Black line. Like my first barrel, this one's POI shifts a bit if I don't have the FTW cover on the TBAC suppressor.

Anyway, I get .75" and .90" groups at 100 with the 75 Black rounds on paper, then look see if steel is OK. Woohoo, cattle are out of the way. I make a quick run of targets from 285 to 513 yards, and all is good. Then the cattle move back. Frickin' cattle. Back to digging weeds.

Over 2 years in the making, I finally have a .223 bolt action training rifle. Mounted my only spare scope -- an older NF NXS 5.5-22x SFP. The rifle's major components are Defiance action with DLC coating, Proof carbon barrel, Grayboe stock and bottom metal, Triggertech Special trigger, and Accurate Mag AICS-style magazines.



I've been shooting Nightforce's ATACR scopes for awhile now, so I kinda forgot the nuances of setting the zero stop for the older NF scopes. It took me longer to zero at 100 than was necessary. Probably little chance of getting that Mensa Society invitation. Eventually I get a zero, using my last box of Hornady 68 HPBT.

Shooting for a group, I lay four rounds in .4" -- with horizontal stringing that's likely due to variable cross winds. Then I yank shot #5, producing a .8" 5-round group. OK, I'm comfy this rifle can shoot. But now the cows are back again. Frickin' cows.

But the cattle eventually wander off a bit, and I have a brief opportunity at the 513 yard target. The barrel has only 30 rounds on it, and I don't have MV yet. I take a SWAG on elevation with Hornady 75 Match, and send rounds. Elevation is a little high on the target, but the cattle are moving back into sight. No time to futz around. In winds of 10-15 mph from my left, I send 8 rounds and land 6 -- one miss to the left and one miss to the right, both at what seems to be same elevation as the other rounds.



At 513 yards on a 12" plate -- 6 rounds landed with 2-3/8" vertical with Hornady factory 75. I am going to like this rifle.

I shot in the 2-rifle match over the weekend. The good -- I placed in the top third and shot my bolt action well. The bad -- I didn't shoot my 18" AR well, and the easy points I lost cost me a finish in the top 20%.

After discussing the issue with two strong shooters in my squad, and after futzing with other rifles last night when I got home, I think I understand my challenges.

It's a combo of the following:
- Magpul UBR stock on the rifle
- the height of the optics bore
- the way I tend to use more cheek pressure than optimal to obtain a good cheek weld.

What's happening is the optimal eyebox position on this rifle often requires me to place too much downward pressure on the stock, which results in vertical stringing and sending my shots high. I'm currently using an older Larue mount, with a 1.5" height over rail. With one exception, all my other AR mounts are 1.4" to 1.5". Therefore the Larue isn't the odd ball.

The scope is a Nightforce NXS F1 3.5-15x. I have two others, mounted on other ARs, and I don't have issues with those rifles. Length of pull is pretty similar on all my rifles, both AR and bolt action.

The first thing I plan to do is remount the NF scope on this 18" with a Larue mount which has a 1.9" height over rail. This mount will likely eliminate my tendency to over-pressure the cheek weld.

My long term plan is more likely to ditch the UBR stock all together. Upon a quick review, the Luth AR and the XLR AR stocks are possible options. I suppose I could put a Magpul PRS stock on this 18" AR, but it will make the rifle heavier and less versatile for positional shooting. I have PRS stocks on my 20" and 24" barrel ARs, and I shoot them really well.

A wandering vertical zero on this AR has plagued me since I changed this 18" AR from its original A2 stock to its current Magpul UBR stock. It appears now I finally have a clue to the problem(s), after a few years and thousands of rounds. Nobody said I was a Mensa candidate.

A talented shooter in our squad used a bolt action chambered in 224 Valkyrie, handloading ammo with Hornady 88 ELD bullets. He let me shoot a few rounds at targets of 450-600 yards, in variable cross winds. The scope position wasn't really set up for me, but I was able to adapt my head position and cheek weld.

As expected, recoil was really mild. Light bullet, low powder charge, heavy gun, suppressed. Viewed through a NF ATACR scope, I saw my own trace a couple of times. The 88 ELD bullet bucked wind well, seemingly close to my 140 ELDs. The gun held vertical well in my limited number of rounds.

Evidently the barrel has a bit over 4,000 rounds on it, and it's still shooting well. This seems very high for effective Valkyrie mileage, but the owner stated that the barrel rarely even gets warm on this rifle. He states most shots were slow fire, in short strings. I see no way a Valkyrie AR shot in the way we tend to shoot ARs in competition would have a barrel lasting this long.

Overall, I was impressed.

I do believe that factory Valkyrie ammo still has a ways to go. As a result, I don't see my adding a Valkyrie upper any time soon.

A shooter on another stage experienced serious over pressure signs with his 6.5 Creedmoor Ruger Precision Rifle. Bolt sticking, a few popped primers, and a number of cratered primers. His issues got worse towards the end of a stage's string, and were almost non-existent at the starts of stages. Rounds were flying higher than the dope chart predicted.

He used hand loads which approximated Hornady's factory 140 ELD ammo. The rifle had some 600 rounds down range at the start of the match. His load development evidently occurred between 150 and 200 rounds on the barrel.

At the end of day 1, a Magnetospeed test showed his MV climbing dramatically with each round in 5-round strings, starting from a cold rifle. Round 5 would be 80+ fps faster than round 1. His last rounds were around 2800 fps on a 24" barrel with a brake. I get that MV with a 26" Bartlein barrel and a 9" TBAC suppressor. In other words, his load was hot for that barrel.

The most knowledgeable shooter in our squad felt the barrel just sped up -- at 600 rounds, which was its second speed-up since being new. None of us had seen this before, but we're not used to hammer-forged bolt-action barrels. The shooter used Hornady factory 147 ELD ammo on the second day and had no overpressure signs. So....he will be pulling bullets on existing ammo, and reducing powder charges.

I've never seen a barrel speed up after 200 rounds, but then again I'm used to seeing a different type of barrel than in the RPR.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
A shooter on another stage experienced serious over pressure signs with his 6.5 Creedmoor Ruger Precision Rifle. Bolt sticking, a few popped primers, and a number of cratered primers. His issues got worse towards the end of a stage's string, and were almost non-existent at the starts of stages. Rounds were flying higher than the dope chart predicted.

He used hand loads which approximated Hornady's factory 140 ELD ammo. The rifle had some 600 rounds down range at the start of the match. His load development evidently occurred between 150 and 200 rounds on the barrel.

At the end of day 1, a Magnetospeed test showed his MV climbing dramatically with each round in 5-round strings, starting from a cold rifle. Round 5 would be 80+ fps faster than round 1. His last rounds were around 2800 fps on a 24" barrel with a brake. I get that MV with a 26" Bartlein barrel and a 9" TBAC suppressor. In other words, his load was hot for that barrel.

The most knowledgeable shooter in our squad felt the barrel just sped up -- at 600 rounds, which was its second speed-up since being new. None of us had seen this before, but we're not used to hammer-forged bolt-action barrels. The shooter used Hornady factory 147 ELD ammo on the second day and had no overpressure signs. So....he will be pulling bullets on existing ammo, and reducing powder charges.

I've never seen a barrel speed up after 200 rounds, but then again I'm used to seeing a different type of barrel than in the RPR.

Do you happen to know which powder he was using for his handloads?

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
Do you happen to know which powder he was using for his handloads?

Unfortunately I do not remember. The guys around me discussed a whole bunch of powder types. I don't think it was Varget.

I do recall that for the given type of powder used, the reloaders there stated his load wasn't at max. I recall it being a normal-ish load that should roughly duplicate Hornady's factory ammo for MV. I recall one guy stating the charge was 1.5 grains below max.

I don't know if that was a 41.5 grain charge with a 43 grain max, or a 31.5 grain charge with a 33 grain max.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
Do you happen to know which powder he was using for his handloads?

Unfortunately I do not remember. The guys around me discussed a whole bunch of powder types. I don't think it was Varget.

I do recall that for the given type of powder used, the reloaders there stated his load wasn't at max. I recall it being a normal-ish load that should roughly duplicate Hornady's factory ammo for MV. I recall one guy stating the charge was 1.5 grains below max.

I don't know if that was a 41.5 grain charge with a 43 grain max, or a 31.5 grain charge with a 33 grain max.

The reason I was asking is because there are powders that are more susceptible to environmental issues than others. When we get into the Hornady equivalents, I can't help but think someone is using Superformance powder from Hodgdon. They developed it with Hornady for their ammo and Hodgdon sells it as a reloading component.

The range you are giving here is close to what pops up at Hodgdon's site for a load for the 6.5CM with a 140gr bullet. It's dead of for IMR4955 and very close for Superformance. There is no telling which loading data your friends were using.

However, with that stated, I would not be surprised if he was using Superformance powder and that one is notorious for being finicky and temperamental in the heat. Primers popping, cratering, hard bolt lift, you name it. Superformance is a spherical powder, nice metering, but it's just not an extreme powder that is unaffected by heat like Varget.

Whoops, I take that bit back. There was a + sign to click on the Hodgdon website. For the 140gr A-Max, they don't have the ELD bullets, there are no loads with a max at 43.0; they are all 41.0 or less. And there are none in the 33gr range.

I realize you're doing this from memory, and you were probably not paying too close attention to handload recipes, but if the numbers you cited were correct, this guy was in the max territory at the start and it only got worse as the temperature went up. And Superformance is not even listed for that specific bullet, which is strange.

I would urge him, if you see him again, to use the Hodgdon loading data, all other is suspect.

Whatever powder he was using, it seemed to be heat sensitive. Other things a few experienced shooters did on his RPR after the first day:

- Swabbed out the chamber with lightly-wet patches. The chamber had very little carbon, but it did have a number of really small brass flecks on the patches. I saw this myself. Another shooter -- who has used an RPR for a few seasons -- stated this is common when he cleans. Pretty much everyone else stated they've never seen such brass flecks from their own rifles.

- One shooter cleaned the RPR barrel, to see if there was a carbon ring in the throat. He stated he's pretty familiar with this process, as he must look for carbon rings in his 6mm BRX barrels. And he's shot out a lot of 6 BRX barrels over the years. He found no indication of a carbon ring.

- I saw two of the full-length bore cleaning patches. They had some amount of carbon on them, but not bad. Cleaning patches from my Bartlein barrels with Hornady factor ammo do show a little less carbon, however.

- Extractor marks on the RPR cases weren't out of the ordinary.

- His handload case length and overall cartridge length looked just like my factory 140 ELD rounds. We didn't put them on micrometers, however.

- The RPR's spent cases showed some minor lines in the middle of the case. Not quite concentric lines, maybe a bit like swirls. By comparison, there were virtually no marks on my spent cases -- they are smooth and shiny, almost like unfired cases. I'm guessing that means the RPR's chamber had some tooling imperfections, whereas my chamber had virtually none. I don't recall what brass he was using in the RPR.

quote:

Originally posted by NikonUser:
I would urge him, if you see him again, to use the Hodgdon loading data, all other is suspect.

The guy who won the 2-rifle match lives just a few miles from the RPR owner. It's my understanding that they plan to get together within the next week or two. I believe the plan is to:
- pull bullets on all the existing RPR handloads and dump the powder
- review the load data for the powder being used. Reload with lower charge weights, and work up new loads.

I suspect there will be a bore cleaning that will include copper removal.

But I suspect you're right -- it's too much powder, and powder of a type that's temperature sensitive.

FWIW, the RPR owner is a Marine -- uncertain if he's still in active duty. Nice guy, ridiculously respectful, arms like tree trunks, appeared to be in his early-to-mid twenties. Fairly new to the precision rifle game -- he stated he's much more familiar with ARs.

Like a few of the guys there who were more familiar with ARs, the Marine was quite interested in how precision-rifle-based guys handled dope cards for the bolt-action targets. One competitor even took phone pictures of my wrist-band dope cards, which showed the layout, distances, elevation, and windage corrections for the 15 targets on a stage.

I have an old box of Hornady 140 ELD ammunition. They used to list reloading data on the box to replicate factory loads. My box lists 41.5 gr Hogdon 4350 with FGMM LRP loaded to 2.81 OAL.

My custom load for my 6.5CM is 42.3 Hogdon 4350 FGMM LRP loaded to 2.83 OAL. For some reason in my rifle likes about .070-.080 jump. I don't care what the groups are at 100 yards. I test all my hand loads 600 yards and I get the least amount of vertical with that load.