So I talked to Kyle from XLR about getting one of these chassis and he let me know that he had one available for me to try out. So I ordered the full setup available by them and it showed at my doorstep on Thursday. The weather was crappy on Friday with high winds and blowing rain, snow, sleet, etc all day. Saturday was a better forecast with mid 40s and a light northwest wind at about 10-15 mph at times. I had several new guns via trade that I haven't shot yet so I wanted to get several of them sighted in along with my 223 now that my new XLR Element chassis had arrived.
I got my bags set up on an old dresser and ran my targets out to my 100 yard mark. My POI had hardly moved at all switching from my previous stock to this one. I had sighted it in on Black Hills Re-manufactured 52 gr HPBT previously and I had some of my own 52 gr loads that I wanted to try.
The XLR Element I found to be a decent amount lighter than the McRee T5 that I have used in the past on a similar setup in 308. I like this because I have the full 26" barrel plus the brake so anywhere else I can shed weight is nice. It has a very nice slender frame in the front so that made carrying it very nice and easy to hold onto (the vented ribs almost acted like finger groves with how it sat in my hand). I previously had a B&C A2 Medalist on this gun and that has a very WIDE front end.
The Ergo grip on here is amazing (as all Ergo products I have used are) and felt very good in my hand. I have larger hands and this grip was nice and thick. The standard Tactical Lite butt stock that XLR puts on there is very nice and lightweight and actually came with the exact LOP that I needed and the cheek rest was at a perfect height for my setup. The cheek rest is a nice soft foam material. I mention and appreciate this simple feature because my other chassis on my PCR 338 is a Whiskey 3 Gen 3 and it has a thin plastic cheek riser as standard and I was kind of disappointed that was the case on my $1000+ chassis.
Overall I found this to be a very comfortable, light, adjustable, sleek looking chassis. I have no complaints with the setup and I am completely happy with how it felt and performed today. I am definitely looking forward to May when the woodchucks start coming out in full force around here and I can really test it out.
My gun dropped right in with perfect fit and the magazine slides into a firm position with no resistance and very little wobble when secured. The specs of the gun are as follows:
Remington 700 SPS Varmint in 223 Rem
SAS Tactical custom muzzle brake threaded 1/2x28
Phoenix Custom Rifles Varmint style bolt knob (awesome guys with great work and products)
EGW 0 MOA base
Leupold Mark 4 rings
Bushnell Elite 6500 4.5-30x50mm
XLR Element Chassis with AICS polymer mags
Final thoughts are that XLR makes a great product and have awesome customer service! If you are on the edge about getting one of these chassis I would say go for it! Best $600 I have spent on a stock system in a while! Thanks Kyle for another AWESOME product!
RANGE REPORT: PLEASE ADVISE HAND LOAD QUESTION BEFORE PICTURES!
I shot two groups with my handloads and both looked almost identical so I only ended up uploading one photo of one group. I didn't actually put the calipers on the group, but as you can see from my thumb as a reference, it was tight. That is 5 shots pictured there. The 4th could have been several things: me pulling, the wind gust picking up, or just a random flyer..regardless it opened it up to what, .5 MOA?
One of the pictures is of the primers because I wanted your guy's opinions on whether or not that was an indication of overpressuring. I made two mistakes with this hand load:
1) I didn't trim or chamfer the brass
2) I loaded up 50 before testing accuracy
Luckily I dodged the bullet on the second one as I had great results. But the first one I had questions about. I was met with some resistance when closing the bullet into the chamber and figured this had to do with the brass being a little bit too long. This was once fired AE (federal) 223 brass (made sure not to use 5.56) that was previously fired from my 5.56 chambered AR-15. There were no other signs of pressure in the load other than the fact that it looked like the primer was filling the bolt face hole a little bit. I will have to check my hand load book tomorrow where I record the loads but I was about 8% below max on the powder (varget) and I believe CCI primers (once again, I need to check).
I checked some of the same brass (not same load) fired by my AR-15 and it had nice clean indents on the primer with no swelling (also used Wolf primers). But when I looked on the factory Black Hills I shot, it had very similar markings on the primer that you see below. I continued shooting my 5-shots without much hesitation. What are your thoughts? Am I safe to shoot the other 40 rounds I have loaded or should I set them aside and use the same load but trim them now that I have a trimmer and chamfer/deburrer?
I got my bags set up on an old dresser and ran my targets out to my 100 yard mark. My POI had hardly moved at all switching from my previous stock to this one. I had sighted it in on Black Hills Re-manufactured 52 gr HPBT previously and I had some of my own 52 gr loads that I wanted to try.
The XLR Element I found to be a decent amount lighter than the McRee T5 that I have used in the past on a similar setup in 308. I like this because I have the full 26" barrel plus the brake so anywhere else I can shed weight is nice. It has a very nice slender frame in the front so that made carrying it very nice and easy to hold onto (the vented ribs almost acted like finger groves with how it sat in my hand). I previously had a B&C A2 Medalist on this gun and that has a very WIDE front end.
The Ergo grip on here is amazing (as all Ergo products I have used are) and felt very good in my hand. I have larger hands and this grip was nice and thick. The standard Tactical Lite butt stock that XLR puts on there is very nice and lightweight and actually came with the exact LOP that I needed and the cheek rest was at a perfect height for my setup. The cheek rest is a nice soft foam material. I mention and appreciate this simple feature because my other chassis on my PCR 338 is a Whiskey 3 Gen 3 and it has a thin plastic cheek riser as standard and I was kind of disappointed that was the case on my $1000+ chassis.
Overall I found this to be a very comfortable, light, adjustable, sleek looking chassis. I have no complaints with the setup and I am completely happy with how it felt and performed today. I am definitely looking forward to May when the woodchucks start coming out in full force around here and I can really test it out.
My gun dropped right in with perfect fit and the magazine slides into a firm position with no resistance and very little wobble when secured. The specs of the gun are as follows:
Remington 700 SPS Varmint in 223 Rem
SAS Tactical custom muzzle brake threaded 1/2x28
Phoenix Custom Rifles Varmint style bolt knob (awesome guys with great work and products)
EGW 0 MOA base
Leupold Mark 4 rings
Bushnell Elite 6500 4.5-30x50mm
XLR Element Chassis with AICS polymer mags
Final thoughts are that XLR makes a great product and have awesome customer service! If you are on the edge about getting one of these chassis I would say go for it! Best $600 I have spent on a stock system in a while! Thanks Kyle for another AWESOME product!
RANGE REPORT: PLEASE ADVISE HAND LOAD QUESTION BEFORE PICTURES!
I shot two groups with my handloads and both looked almost identical so I only ended up uploading one photo of one group. I didn't actually put the calipers on the group, but as you can see from my thumb as a reference, it was tight. That is 5 shots pictured there. The 4th could have been several things: me pulling, the wind gust picking up, or just a random flyer..regardless it opened it up to what, .5 MOA?
One of the pictures is of the primers because I wanted your guy's opinions on whether or not that was an indication of overpressuring. I made two mistakes with this hand load:
1) I didn't trim or chamfer the brass
2) I loaded up 50 before testing accuracy
Luckily I dodged the bullet on the second one as I had great results. But the first one I had questions about. I was met with some resistance when closing the bullet into the chamber and figured this had to do with the brass being a little bit too long. This was once fired AE (federal) 223 brass (made sure not to use 5.56) that was previously fired from my 5.56 chambered AR-15. There were no other signs of pressure in the load other than the fact that it looked like the primer was filling the bolt face hole a little bit. I will have to check my hand load book tomorrow where I record the loads but I was about 8% below max on the powder (varget) and I believe CCI primers (once again, I need to check).
I checked some of the same brass (not same load) fired by my AR-15 and it had nice clean indents on the primer with no swelling (also used Wolf primers). But when I looked on the factory Black Hills I shot, it had very similar markings on the primer that you see below. I continued shooting my 5-shots without much hesitation. What are your thoughts? Am I safe to shoot the other 40 rounds I have loaded or should I set them aside and use the same load but trim them now that I have a trimmer and chamfer/deburrer?
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