Right, so, I unexpectedly had some free time this afternoon. What did I do? I threw out my carefully crafted plan, ran to the range and did about a third of what I wanted to do about half as well as I wanted to do it. On the bright side, my 4 y/o son came out as a shooting buddy...my group sizes include my super ghetto backpack and rolled jacket rest with a wiggly young man on the mat next to me ;-).
Here's what actually went down:
Arrived to the range - calm conditions, right at 6 C. I setup a flat rate box with a water weighted vodka bottle in the bottom and a little square drawn on the front at around 25 meters. I dialed down 7 MRAD (the 4701's worth), right .5 MRAD said "meh, that'll buff" and went to the 100 yard line. Caveat: I did not verify this distance, I'm sure there's error here. That was shot one through three. Let the rifle cool, mucked about with targets.
Fired a three shot group at the 100 yard target, realized I was still 2 MRAD high - which, hilariously, was basically center mass on the upper target. Better to be lucky than good? Shot's 4-6 went into .707 inches. This was at least partly on plan, I started with the Hornady American Gunner 140 gn OTM. I had four rounds that looked sad and lonely, so I fired a four shot group after some cooling at .770 inches. Three of those were touching - it sucks being ham fisted sometimes.
At this point, my inner monologue screamed "Leroooooooooy Jenkins" and on went the APA Little B* as well as my Magnetospeed...so much for only changing one thing at a time and trying to exercise some control. I was on the clock! While a 12.5 lb 6.5 CM doesn't have a lot of recoil, it was noticeably less with the Lil' B* on the muzzle - no complaints on that front. Perhaps it's worth noting that cool down time lessened bit by bit between groups as time ran short and no consideration to cool down was given between shots.
I shifted to my oddball 127 meter targets and fired a very "meh" 1.196"/.823 MOA five shot group. Vavg was 2533 fps, SD was 14.3 fps, ES was 33 fps.
Next was 147 gn ELD-M @ 2550 fps, SD 22.2 fps, ES 56 fps - .656"/.45 MOA five shot group.
Last was SIG 140 gn OTM @ 2617 fps, SD 20.6 fps, ES 50 fps - 1.072"/.74 MOA five shot group.
Given the odd ball ranges, pending verification and a host of other factors, I take all that with a MASSIVE spoonful of salt. The trigger felt good. The velocity surprised me - that's down there in the range of factory 6.5 SKAN loads for 1896 Mausers ;-). That was 25 shots or so spread across roughly 90 mins. I still have two loads to chrono and all need to be shot w/o my chrono hanging off the barrel (and significantly more attention to detail). Wall o' text done on the PC, I'll upload some photo off the phone.
Here's what actually went down:
Arrived to the range - calm conditions, right at 6 C. I setup a flat rate box with a water weighted vodka bottle in the bottom and a little square drawn on the front at around 25 meters. I dialed down 7 MRAD (the 4701's worth), right .5 MRAD said "meh, that'll buff" and went to the 100 yard line. Caveat: I did not verify this distance, I'm sure there's error here. That was shot one through three. Let the rifle cool, mucked about with targets.
Fired a three shot group at the 100 yard target, realized I was still 2 MRAD high - which, hilariously, was basically center mass on the upper target. Better to be lucky than good? Shot's 4-6 went into .707 inches. This was at least partly on plan, I started with the Hornady American Gunner 140 gn OTM. I had four rounds that looked sad and lonely, so I fired a four shot group after some cooling at .770 inches. Three of those were touching - it sucks being ham fisted sometimes.
At this point, my inner monologue screamed "Leroooooooooy Jenkins" and on went the APA Little B* as well as my Magnetospeed...so much for only changing one thing at a time and trying to exercise some control. I was on the clock! While a 12.5 lb 6.5 CM doesn't have a lot of recoil, it was noticeably less with the Lil' B* on the muzzle - no complaints on that front. Perhaps it's worth noting that cool down time lessened bit by bit between groups as time ran short and no consideration to cool down was given between shots.
I shifted to my oddball 127 meter targets and fired a very "meh" 1.196"/.823 MOA five shot group. Vavg was 2533 fps, SD was 14.3 fps, ES was 33 fps.
Next was 147 gn ELD-M @ 2550 fps, SD 22.2 fps, ES 56 fps - .656"/.45 MOA five shot group.
Last was SIG 140 gn OTM @ 2617 fps, SD 20.6 fps, ES 50 fps - 1.072"/.74 MOA five shot group.
Given the odd ball ranges, pending verification and a host of other factors, I take all that with a MASSIVE spoonful of salt. The trigger felt good. The velocity surprised me - that's down there in the range of factory 6.5 SKAN loads for 1896 Mausers ;-). That was 25 shots or so spread across roughly 90 mins. I still have two loads to chrono and all need to be shot w/o my chrono hanging off the barrel (and significantly more attention to detail). Wall o' text done on the PC, I'll upload some photo off the phone.
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