quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
For some reason I thought the case capacity of the 6 Dasher was way less than 6x47, therefore I figured your Dasher barrel life would be up there with your 6.5x47.

So you think I might get a few more rounds out of my 308 tactical barrel than Nikon will from his competition barrel...

Probably a round or two more with your 308 rig. Maybe if I was shooting your 6.5CM, I would have pulled that barrel by now?! Just kidding man

With the 6x47's they started to get flyers/lose velocity around 1500rds, I limped them along for a few more hundred rounds. Dump more powder in the case.... Not going to mess with that with the Dashers.

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
With the 6x47's they started to get flyers/lose velocity around 1500rds, I limped them along for a few more hundred rounds. Dump more powder in the case.... Not going to mess with that with the Dashers.

I forgot about your fiddling with the 6x47 as the round count increased. That's good news that the Dasher behaves better.

quote:

Originally posted by offgrid:
Probably a round or two more with your 308 rig. Maybe if I was shooting your 6.5CM, I would have pulled that barrel by now?! Just kidding man

Exactly.
6.5 brass as soft as lead, plastic tips that melt in flight like gummy bears in your mouth, a name that few can spell correctly. Plus a POS barrel, action, and gun plumber to boot. But the gun's real issue is the nut behind the butt that requires some serious tightening....

My log book shows 2200 rounds on the 6.5Creed barrel and 4000 rounds on the 308. Here's the 308 over the weekend at 800 yards, on my new favorite 20" steel. The 1/4" thickness makes it really loud. Variable winds from my left, 1st round miss just to the left, hit 2nd & 3rd, 4th round miss just to the right, hit 5th. And dialed elevation 3 clicks low -- that whole loose nut thingie.

Vertical of about 1-1/4" for the three impacts. I'll keep this barrel for a few more rounds.

Jeez fritz, those barrels are shot, you might as well just give them to me, and I'll make wall hangers out of them. I think I have a 22LR with many years of barrel life remaining that I'll give you in return.

Hey, are those Hang Fast Targets? If so any complaints?

Also, did you get into the Douglas Team Match?

Thanks for the wall mounting offer for my tomato-stake quality barrels, but for now I'll keep plugging away at sending those portly bullets down range. Damn fat bore rifles -- the barrels just last too long. Probably should start thinking about having replacement barrels in the wings, though.

The hanger is JCSteel's new slotted hook T-post bracket. I like it. The hook is made from 3/8" AR500. I haven't hit the hook directly, but landed a couple rounds right next to it -- the splash just barely marked the hook's paint. I will be adding more of these brackets to my target/hanger mix.

I forgot the Douglas match was this weekend, figured it to be the following weekend. Damn computer system install is making things whacko -- we just delayed the go live to October 1. The Competition Dynamics website says they will allow on-site sign ups on Saturday. Woo-hoo, I'm in! Are you going? Anyone else from Colorado?

Yup, offgrid, Scotty, Antony, and I are going. Not sure who else?

quote:

Originally posted by Alpine:
Also, did you get into the Douglas Team Match?

No, the team match didn't work out. Oh well. My boss is happy, since I'll be at the Board of Directors meetings to field questions concerning operations.

I had planned for the Resurgence 3-Gun match in Logan in late September, but business travel interferes.

I'm still interested in the Team Steel Safari match in October. For the first time in years I don't have business travel in late October.

So you think you can shoot accurately? Yeah, everyone can shoot fairly accurate in prone, of a bench, using a lead-sled, etc.

Try shooting off a tripod and/or sticks at paper, you'll be surprised how hard it is.

I've always done fairly well at Raton's Station-7, shooting off a tripod. A couple small 4" diamonds at 240 and 300-yards, and larger diamonds at 350, 370, and two at 390-yards, which I believe to be between 8 and 12"?

Last couple weekends, I've been practicing shooting longer distances off a tripod and doing well, but last weekend I got two out of ten shots at 1050-yards with my 308. I blamed it on a tricky wind, but now I'm rethinking it.

Today I had to fire-form four cases for the Dasher, and said to myself, let's see how I do on paper using a tripod at 100-meters? First shot basically right where I was aiming, second shot 0.32" right, third shot 0.69" left, then fourth shot way left opening the group up to 1.30". Funny thing, when your shoot at paper, you can really see your body movement, and are more aware of those stressors that can cause your accuracy to start to wander.

Once I get my 40-XB's converted to repeaters, I'm going to start practicing more often off a tripod on paper i.e. Dot Drills.

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

New build (.300 Norma) is back from the smith and doing its sea trials. So far it looks to be the cure for my .300 win mag issues. Actually out muscling it by more than expected. Out shopping for some thicker steel. Workup with the Flatline solids has been lackluster but the Berger's hammer.

Curious what barrel life is with that 300 Norma? I'm thinking about going the direction of the 30 Nosler.

I'm guessing it's not going to have very good barrel life but it's not going to be a volume shooter. Worked out a very accurate load with the 215 Berger hybrid. After dialing it in I sent the last 4 rounds over the Magneto Speed. Got an average of 3142 fps with an ES of 11.

I also considered the .30 Nosler and .30-375 Ruger. Finally decided to start a whole new rifle and liked the future options of the .338 bolt face.

I've always heard the 300 Norma was a barrel burner, but I could never pin anyone down who would give me any numbers. Although I'm happy with my 300WM shooting the 215's at 2860, I would like to shoot the 230's, and personnaly think the 300WM cannot push them fast enough to take advantage of the higher BC the 230's offer. I was looking at the 30-375 Ruger or 300 Blaser as the ideal cartridge to shoot the 230's until Nosler came out with the 30 Nosler, so that's the reasoning of chasing that cartridge.

How much powder are you using to launch the 215's?

Oh, forgot to mention. I picked up a used barreled action in 28 Nosler, and found a good load for the 195-Hybrids, 3030-fps with an SD of 7, unfortunately, I can't print a good group at 100-meters. Haven't had time to see if it's the barrel, load, action/stock interface, or scope mount that's causing the problem?

With the 180-Hybrids, I'm going 3160-fps, but ES/SD numbers don't look good, so I'll have to experiment with that bullet.

My load for the 215 is 87.8 grains of Retumbo. Planning on working up a 230 load next. Would like to see if it prefers one over the other.

quote:

Originally posted by jlemmy:
My load for the 215 is 87.8 grains of Retumbo. Planning on working up a 230 load next. Would like to see if it prefers one over the other.

87.8 grains. Sweet Jeebus. That's more than double the amount of powder that goes into any case in this house!!

fritz and Alpine, good shooting with you two yesterday in Douglas. Beautiful place to shoot, tough switching winds, terrain effect on wind...Look forward to shooting that match again in August.

My Dasher is shooting extremely well. Scratched my way to a 1st place tie, bummed I lost the shoot off! 8" diamond at 560yds shooting off of tripod, missed wind call. Dang wind! Have to admit I enjoyed beating a guy in our squad shooting a 6 Creedmoor, zinging 105 Hybrids at 3200fps, 260fps faster then my Dasher

Yep, the Douglas match was a good one. Offgrid gets kudos for 1st place tie, Alpine for a solid score in the top quartile. I got the T-ball participation award -- more on that in a bit.

That 6 Creedmoor (who would own a gun with a chambering named "Creedmoor"? ...) was definitely pushing hot loads. Copper Creek ammo lists their loads from 3000 to 3150 fps. With that shnazzy $900 Proof Research carbon barrel, assuming 1200-1500 round barrel life, he's burning $.60 to $.75 in barrel every time he pressed the go switch.

Dashers be da shiznits.

quote:

Originally posted by Alpine:
So you think you can shoot accurately? Yeah, everyone can shoot fairly accurate in prone, of a bench, using a lead-sled, etc.

Try shooting off a tripod and/or sticks at paper, you'll be surprised how hard it is.

The Douglas match was not kind to my under-developed shooting off a tripod skilz. IIRC we had three stations in a row (or maybe 3 out of 4 stations) that required tripods to see the targets over the tall grass and weeds. Hey, I can do this...targets are reasonably sized, not that far away....

Wrong. 1 hit out of 5, two stations in a row. On to a station of 5 shots prone, then 5 shots at same targets from tripod. 5 hits out of 5 from prone, 0 hits out of 5 from sitting tripod with rear bag support. Ruh-roh Rastro. I'm down 13 points in 3 stations. Not good. In fact, bad. First -- I will practice more from the tripod on small targets. Second -- I will get a pair of shooting sticks, like offgrid and Alpine, to support the rifle's buttstock.

I found the Hornady ELD-M ammo shot well. A little better than AMax, but not a revolutionary change. I will burn the rest of my AMax ammo before completely converting to ELD-M.

The TBAC suppressor was a mixed bag in competition. Nice being fairly quiet while shooting, and I could remove my ear muffs. The can had time to cool between stations, so it never really got hot. On the down side, it really doesn't reduce recoil as well as brake. I still saw the bullet strike our closest targets from prone (maybe 220 yards?), but I feel the rifle settles down faster with my APA brake. The additional recoil also didn't help staying target when shooting from the tripod. I wasn't fully prepared for the 9" barrel extension while carrying the gun slung between stations. The tall weeds and sage brush keep snagging on the down-pointed barrel while moving around. I couldn't just hang my rifle muzzle down and walk without thinking about what the muzzle was doing.

I will buy Atlas bipod leg extensions this week. For a number of our prone stations, our shooting positions were downward-sloping from the top portion of a blunt ridge. No big deal for the close targets at the bottom of a shallow valley, but as targets climbed up the opposing slope as they got farther away, I couldn't get enough elevation on my standard-height Atlas bipod. Alpine and offgrid had leg extensions, whereas I got to put my bipod on my pack. A few prone shooting positions were bit awkward. This ain't no square range with covered shooting stations, flat ground, wind flags, and concession stand.

Speaking of wind, I think my internal wind-gauge-ometer needs some recalibration. The winds weren't that strong yesterday, but we saw dramatic changes in just minutes on some stages, sometimes as much as a full 180 degrees directional change. I definitely had some WTF misses right and left.

This was a good match.

Even though I had been practicing quite a bit shooting off a tripod, I struggled with the station that had the tall grass and tangled barbed wire running through the grass. There was a slight depression that swallowed a few inches off my bipods two forward feet, so I dropped the rear leg to level the tripod, and it was too low to shoot comfortably off of, especially when we where shooting slightly at an upward incline. I did'nt feel comfortable at all, and could feel the stressors on my body causing some wobble. Should have been an easy stage to clean as all the targets where under 400-yards. Next month, I will have to adjust my bipod accordingly.

quote:

Originally posted by fritz:
I will get a pair of shooting sticks, like offgrid and Alpine, to support the rifle's buttstock.

I still can’t express how grateful I am to offgrid for having introduced me to using a tripod at the front and bipod (sticks) at the rear. Even at my shooting skill level the extra time required to deploy the sticks is vastly outweighed by how they improve my shooting from a raised position.

Yep, tripod plus sticks makes sense. I picked up a pair of sticks at Bass Pro last night, which means my skills with them will be meager at best for the next match.

I'll see a few of you at Raton this weekend. I will shoot both the AR match on Saturday and the bolt action on Sunday.