Re: Got to watch a 26" 700 and LTR side by side at 1K
168s drop to subsonic between 900 and 1000 and show yaw (elongated holes) at 1000. Yaw is not necessarily a bad thing.
I shot along with the Marine Rifle Team guys for years when they were shooting sticks at 1000.
In 1986 I won the Palma Trophy Match at Perry and the guy I was paired with that day won the Service Rifle Trophy for the same match. As expected when we went to the pits all his 1000 yard shots were elongated but and knocked hell out of the ten ring. He told me all their 168 loads did this but didn't affect accuracy and I was standing there looking at the proof. If I remember right I think he was about seven points behind me but considering the fact I was using a Mod 70 with 26" McMillan barrel, aperture sights and ammo loaded by me and he was using a M14 heavy barrel which was shorter and had all kinds of stuff hung on the barrel including a post front sight and ammo loaded by L/Cpls who were not shooters, he did one hell of a fine job of shooting.
If a rifle has them coming in sideways in the X ring and your rounds are punching round holes shooting a bigger group, you are going to get more points for round holes haha.
I would not cut barrel, 26" or longer for long range. Won't hurt to go to 175s for sure. Maybe even 190s or if you can find them the old Sierra 180s with long boat tails but they will be tough to find.
I once got caught at a match when they changed the course of fire to long range and I was not prepared. I had chosen my 24" Palma barrel built to take to Canada in 82. 13.8 twist barrel .298X.3055 to boot and that little rifle will run like a champ to 600 but I had never shot 168s at 1000. Only the Canadian crap ball ammo.
Well due to a weather forecast coming for Sunday they changed course of fire to 10SG, 10ST, 10PR, 10-600 and 20 at 1000. We left the 600 and I had about a five point lead on the field and knew I was looking at a Clusterbama at 1000. To boot did not have a zero and it was a 2 sighter match to boot. To my surprise I got off the 1000 with a 194-7x I think it was with a short round at 6:00 just barely making paper ! ! ! which counted for four points of the six I dropped.
My load was 37 gr. 4895 with 168s in LC Match cases. Barrel dims were so tight that 37 grains was a fairly hot load.
Rule of thumb to remember, the shorter your barrel the shorter your effective range will be unless you have a combo like I had. Then again hitting the target is not necessarily the name of the game, getting them in X ring and 10 ring is.
Tactical barrrels are fine but consider this if they were best, the M24 and M40A1 would have them too.
I order three barrel profiles when I build mine. Course guns: No 5A 26", No 7 26" and Light or Medium Palma depending on caliber. If it is going to be a prone long range only I will also go with 28" Win bullgun specs which is same as MTU specs for their magnums or leastways used to be.
I also run tight chambers and min headspace.
