I've been waiting for some cooler weather for what feels like forever since receiving the GM bbl back from Mike Manzella. I bought a couple of 1.20" dia straight CM bbls from GM on 10/5/2020, intending to find someone with a CNC lathe to contour them. Set them aside when other projects came up, then finally sent them off to John Scandale at Keystone Accuracy. Had John profile them to his Palma Sport contour, then cut the Rim-X tenon on one, and leave the other with a 4" straight shank. I chambered the one with his tenon with a JGS carbide Win 52D reamer several months ago, then finally sent the other one off to Mike to have him cut the tenon & chamber it with Padom's Eachus reamer. They're both finished at around 23", with an 11* crown.
We finally did get a cool front to push the extreme heat out of here this past Friday, so highs for a couple of days were in the mid-70s, and all I could think about while I was finishing up some field work was getting the Rim-X with the Eachus chambered GM out to put some rounds downrange with it. Today - since it's a Sunday - I finally took an hour or so off to shoot some Norma TAC-22 & Match, three lots of SK Std+, and a couple of lots of SK Rifle Match through the Rim-X. There were other lots of SK & Lapua to try, but it was 87* & breezy, with no clouds to provide any shade, and shooting prone off a bipod put me down on the ground with a lot of mirage degrading what I was seeing through a 5-25x56 Midas TAC. Besides that, the flies were bugging the dickens out of me, so I quit after shooting these 6x5 targets. This barrel shoots the Norma stuff at least as good as any of my other custom barreled CZ457s & Vudoo repeaters & single shots, and if nothing else, shooting it increased the round count in this new barrel. The 1st 6x5 was all TAC-22, while the 2nd one has the 1st four groups with Norma Match, then group 5 & 6 with a really good lot of SK Std+. 3rd 6x5 has groups 1 & 2 with a new lot of Std+ from Good Shooting, groups 3 & 4 with another new lot of Std+ from SFP, and groups 5 & 6 with an older lot of SK Rifle Match from 2017 that's performed pretty well in all my Kriegers. The 4th target has groups 1 & 2 shot with a new lot of SK Rifle Match from SPF that I haven't shot a lot of yet, but this GM/Eachus bbl shot at least as good with this lot as any of the other custom barrels I've tried it in so far. Counting the first 5 rounds I put on steel to get the scope zeroed, I shot 105rds yesterday, with no cleaning between lots/brands of ammo, which is a total of 115rds through this new barrel. If you'd seen what I saw through the scope with all the mirage, and some of my hurry-up shots when my left (support) elbow occasionally touched the burning hot shooting matt instead of resting on a Triad Tactical wedge bag, or a fly crawling around my eyes, I think that would go aways towards explain some of the sloppy groups. I'm looking forward to getting this rifle out again and shooting off front rest & rear bag up off the ground from a portable bench on a cooler day.
After I posted this reply yesterday, I realized that I hadn't included a photo of my Rim-X, and went looking for one in my photo files - but never found one. So here's a quicky shot of it in the shade of the house late this afternoon, in its scorched earth camo PRS1T stock, Hawkins DBM, & Athlon Midas TAC 5-25x56. Since it's CM instead of SS, I expect that I'd better get that GM bbl CeraKoted before it starts showing any rust...
what arca rail are you using? Also will a 1.25 barrel ft tube XRS chassis? Thanks Dave
