Re: .375 Cheytac questions
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: DanGuy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks all, good info. I'll definitely follow up on recommendations. Peter, I'm newer to this LR game than most here, and of course to the .375 CT, so it's comforting to see that I'm not the only one feeling some confusion. It would be nice to have a single thread "all things .375 CT" where we could share updated experiences about this round and different rifle configurations for it. </div></div>
The difficulty we have with this calibre stems from the incompatible twist rates needed to stabilise the bullets being produced.
Originally, those of us who got on board with the Jamison/Cheytac menu had the benefit of a cheaper SMK and a monolithic solid both at 350g which covered off up to a mile or just beyond with the SMK for cheaper shooting and practise ... and a good performing bullet capable of going as far out as the difference in E.S. would allow for accurate shooting elevation wise.
Ultimately that is the main hurdle ... elevation spread ... which is born out of the variance in the E.S. of the rounds which prevents repeatable performance. Once you have the wind doped ... the further out you go ... you are going to encounter higher and higher elevation spreads simply from the changes in the M.V. ... regardless of the B.C. of the bullet. The B.C. may help on buffering the wind changes and may help on retaining velocity ... which helps on distance ... but if the rounds have a 30 fps+ E.S. you only have to run them through a Ballistic Programme to work out the high and low extremes mean that a goal of hitting man sized targets will not be repeatable.
Had we stuck with designing bullets to work with the original LRB twist of 1-11.5 for example ... then the benefits of gain twists for those same bullets could have been absorbed better and quicker ... and then we could have looked to more detailed differences of bore diameter and the height and depth of the rifling and the benefit of altering neck tension ... all with a goal of bringing down the E.S.'s and thereby having a more "repeatable" level of accuracy.
Instead what has happened is that the alternative bullet providers have gone out to design bullets with "improved B.C." capabilities ... each of which needs a seperate twist rate to stabilise them ... that is if they can be stabilised properly ( and some simply don't work from many reports ) ... and what you have now is an expensive situation where some barrels are now almost "obsolete" because of twist rate differences ... and no-one making true progress because of a lack of standardisation.
You also in my view have an open door for some bullet makers to bring out very expensive bullets without seemingly suitable R&D in the real world and are selling these based on scientific design models claiming that their's is the latest and best etc ... with guys at the shooting end having to invest a shit load of capital in a new barrel plus the cost of their bullets and powder simply to try them out. Sometimes only to find that they don't work. Which to me is a waste of money and also a waste of time.
So on the one hand you had a fairly succesful "time proven" pairing with the SMK and Jamison solid ... only to find that the business people behind the Cheytac/Jamison collaboration could'nt get on and seemingly killed each other off ...
Only to find that this platform has been replaced by in my view a real cluster £uck of different bullet designs all of which are hard to standardise ... with probably a 1-10 or 1-8 or a myriad of different gain twist ratio's being tried to accommodate them. Combine this with some guys in the bullet making business who are quite openly prepared to insult and bait one another ... decrying the others products ... and the whole situation gets worse.
The truth is that the civilian market will pave the way to find out what works best ... but there are not many in the civilian market who can afford to commission a new barrel for every new bullet ... with some bullets needing more than one barrel twist combination in order to properly try them out ( like a gain twist and a straight twist ) before you can realistically say "they work" or that "they don't".
This is all before you can start to make progress with powder and primer combinations and neck tension to bring down the E.S.'s so that repeatable elevation can be obtained at the distances these bullets ought to work at.
If you went back in time and looked at the many good rifle designs and improvements made for the 30-06 ... what you don't see is people making the same mistake of saying that the round works best with bullets which all need a different twist rate ...
It basically adds too many variables into the pot ... and has a lot of good quality trigger pullers either deprived of participating in the development because of financial limits ... or participating and wasting their time ... or worst of all trying to participate on a "budget" and finding that the industry is either letting them down by failing to work as sensible businessmen ... or are ripping them off with expensive bullets which have never been properly tested and ought not to be sold until they are.
This is just my take on things though ... and each to their own opinion.
Personally I am hopeful that Sierra and Berger will bring in 350g bullets at sensible prices and that those who are making solid bullets will see the benefit of coming out with solids which will work in the same twist rates.
The Jamison solids were pretty good performers and if the "market" had stuck with solids that could equal or improve upon them "with the same twist rate" we would be a lot further down the road to getting information which could raise everyone's ability to shoot at ELR with the expectation of repeatable accuracy.
