This rifle nearly qualifies to be in the Vintage Rifle category. ?
After moving onto the ranch and finally getting my house built well enough to live in, I can finally start playing with reloading a little...it has been years!
I have a first generation FN SPR that I picked up used several years ago. Supposedly it was a local police trade-in, but who knows. It was in excellent condition, complete with a circa 2000 Leupold Mk4 with M3 turrets and 168gr dial. This scope has the most mushy dials I've ever seen...but it is useable, and I'm a sucker for used department/military guns. *I did skim bed the rifle a few years ago and Krylon the stock....don't ask why, I can't remember.
I finally got to shoot it the other day after I pieced together most of my reloading stuff out of moving boxes, and put together 10 quick rounds of 165gr Nosler Ballistic Tip as I intend to use this rifle for hunting.
I shot one fowler of 150gr FMJ just to verify that the rifle would be on paper at 100, and then my first 5-shot group of the NBT over 43.0 grains of Varget...I wanted similar velocities to 168gr FGMM for the M3 dial. Shooting was done off of a bipod and rear bag off of the back of my 4-wheeler.
That very first group turned out to be .419". I was floored! I shot the second group (44.0gr varget this time), and it was just under an inch.
Loaded up the last 40 remaining bullets, zeroed the rifle off of shooting sticks (hunting), and verified the dope to 500 yards. The dial tracks perfectly to the load. I also found that I'm now only about a 1.5 - 1.75 MOA shooter when seated off of stcks...time for practice. Anyways if my photo posting works out the third photo was taken at 350 yards.
This was a great way to get back into reloading and dusting off some guns.
After moving onto the ranch and finally getting my house built well enough to live in, I can finally start playing with reloading a little...it has been years!
I have a first generation FN SPR that I picked up used several years ago. Supposedly it was a local police trade-in, but who knows. It was in excellent condition, complete with a circa 2000 Leupold Mk4 with M3 turrets and 168gr dial. This scope has the most mushy dials I've ever seen...but it is useable, and I'm a sucker for used department/military guns. *I did skim bed the rifle a few years ago and Krylon the stock....don't ask why, I can't remember.
I finally got to shoot it the other day after I pieced together most of my reloading stuff out of moving boxes, and put together 10 quick rounds of 165gr Nosler Ballistic Tip as I intend to use this rifle for hunting.
I shot one fowler of 150gr FMJ just to verify that the rifle would be on paper at 100, and then my first 5-shot group of the NBT over 43.0 grains of Varget...I wanted similar velocities to 168gr FGMM for the M3 dial. Shooting was done off of a bipod and rear bag off of the back of my 4-wheeler.
That very first group turned out to be .419". I was floored! I shot the second group (44.0gr varget this time), and it was just under an inch.
Loaded up the last 40 remaining bullets, zeroed the rifle off of shooting sticks (hunting), and verified the dope to 500 yards. The dial tracks perfectly to the load. I also found that I'm now only about a 1.5 - 1.75 MOA shooter when seated off of stcks...time for practice. Anyways if my photo posting works out the third photo was taken at 350 yards.
This was a great way to get back into reloading and dusting off some guns.
