PDT Partical Dampened Tuner - Range Report

[JG26_Irish]

Many of us on the Rimfire forum enjoy shooting the 6x5 challenge at 50/100/200yds. Me included. My previous best at 50yds was:

Average = 0.212" 0.405 MOA
Best = 0.147" 0.281 MOA

Shot with my trusty old bone stock Remington 540XR tgt rifle with 36x Sightron scope. Those are good numbers for any rifle. But being a confirmed accuracy addict, I was seeking more, lol. Enter Mike Ezell, of Ezell custom rifles in Auburn, KY. Mike has developed what he calls a PDT, or Particle Dampened Tuner. I do not know Mike other than speaking to him on the phone and am in no way associated with his business but I did know a thing or two about harmonic dampening of steel structures and had an interest in bbl tuners having seen the old Harrells tuners in action at various benchrest matches. What he described is a barrel tunner that contains particles of tungsten powder in tubes surrounding the bore and these help to dampen and broaden the node in the harmonic vibrations of the barrel. Regular tuners do this but the particles in theory were proving to widen the sweet spot and enable a tuner equipped rifle to not only shoot better but to shoot well with a range of ammo. I swallowed that story and ordered one about a month ago. Well yesterday, it arrived. I dropped all my Honey-Do's and installed it to my Purdy number (google Purdy Prescription or PRx for details), and raced off to the range to test the wonder weapon.

Range Report: Short answer is the PDT contains magic pixy dust that turns good rifles into amazing rifles and average ammo into Olympic grade match ammo. Wow, Wow, Wow!

Longer answer is this. I think I can legitimately claim that my rifle which was already shooting in the 2's at 50yds on a perfect day with one great lot of Lapua ammo, will now shoot in the 1's, even on a less than perfect day and will do it with several different ammo lots. I am pleased and really only scratched the surface. I set out shooting 5 shot groups at a USBR tgt from a two piece rest off of the bench at 50yds. After each group, I adjusted the tuner by two numbers and repeated the process. I was using Wolf Match Extra not wanting to burn up my good Lapua while warming up the bbl and clicking thru a range of settings. I was looking for the settings that caused the groups to tighten up in the vertical. It was windy and normally, too windy for me to bother to shoot. I aimed directly at the center dot of the tgt every time and did nothing to adjust for the wind or attempt to improve a group by holding off. This hurt the overall group sizes a little and raised the average group size. But what I was getting is a pattern, where the groups would shrink and then expand again as the rifle hit a node and then adjusted away from it. See the tgt pics posted below. I went from 30 down to 8. At this point, I ran out of Wolf and then switched to SK Std + ammo. The results to that point showed that set on 16 was getting the best results with a group of 0.165". So, I clicked the tuner back to 16 and repeated the group using the SK ammo. The result was a 0.206" group for five shots all in a nice little cloverleaf.

At this stage I wanted to adjust on both sides of this good setting to see if it improved. Clicking to 16.5 and 17 caused the groups to open up a little, so I clicked down to 15.5 and then 15. They opened up even more with vertical stringing but 4 of the 5 shots were all in one hole. With that in mind, I tried 16.25 and 15.75. Both of these settings got good results with groups of 0.292" and 0.135" respectively. Clearly somewhere between 16 and 15.75 seemed to be the sweet spot. Now I was out of SK ammo but was ready to switch to my Lapua Center X ammo and run some more groups. The first group was set at 15.75 and all four of the first shots hit exactly in the same hole with one flying high by about 1/4". Interesting. We stopped for 5 min to allow guys at the range to post tgts and when I resumed the cold bore caused the groups with setting of 16 to open up. But the Remington always does this after a break, so I repeated the same group with setting of 16 and was rewarded with a group that is the best ever for this rifle. It measured 0.097" center to center. Wow! I shot three more groups at that setting all in a row with the Lapua ammo but they were all in the twos with lots of horizontal dispersion as the wind had now picked up. The vertical dispersion was almost non-existent indicating that the tuner was still doing its job.

Some stats: I shot six groups with the PDT tuner at a setting of 16.0 and when I measured them, they averaged 0.199" with a best group of 0.097". That would be tops in the 6x5 challenge but they were not all shot in a row and were shot with three different Lapua ammo products (Wolf MX, SK Std+ and CX). So, I will not submit them as a legitimate series of groups. But the results on a less than perfect day were still impressive. I also measured the last six groups fired. These averaged 0.213" which equaled my best every run on a perfect day with zero wind. Plus the best group was that 0.097" which is a personal best with this rifle. I believe that if I sat down and shot groups on a perfect day with my focus on making the group as small as possible and adjusting for the wind with each shot, I can consistently get this rifle into the 10's at 50yds. I might still need to tweak the tuner a little bit as well. I also want to test it with Eley ammo since I have a bunch of it on hand.

Final summary: While the numbers indicate a small improvement, the most telling thing is the way the rifle shot on a day that was far from perfect and how well the rifle shot when dialed into a sweet spot. Out of 25 groups fired, I had 16 where all the holes were touching and nine that were smaller than 1/4 inch. All while NOT attempting to adjust for wind or mistakes I may have made on each group. And I was not being particularly careful. I was firing about one round every 20 seconds and as soon as each round was loaded, I aimed and sent it down range. At least 12 of the 25 groups had all but one round in a single itty bitty hole and only the one stray in some of those opened it up further. And in most cases, those stray shots were due to wind shifts that I intentionally did not adjust for. The results from this first test of the PDT are amazing and I am very pleased with it. Again, I have no association with Ezell or his business. I am just a happy customer. Now I want to go shoot a match to see how it does there. Need to shoot Justin's dot shoot again as well or take it out to 100yds. Will wait for a calm day for that.

Irish

 

[yoteman]

WOW!!!
irish have you tried it on a lesser rifle, to see if any improvement
we know that 540 rem is all ready a hammer

 

[mr2.0]

I'm curious also

 

[usmcchet9296]

Gonna get one of those for a Kimber 82G I setup as a bench rifle
hopefully it will tighten up my groups

 

[JG26_Irish]

WOW!!!
irish have you tried it on a lesser rifle, to see if any improvement
we know that 540 rem is all ready a hammer

The rear portion of the tuner is bored to exactly match the taper of the bbl so, the tuner will not match just any rifle. I have a HB Rem 700 in 223 that I would like to try it on but the center fire tuner model is mechanically different from the rimfire model and so, it is not necessarily a 1:1 replacement. At about $200 a copy it is not cheap either, and so buying one for all my rifles is also out, lol. It is also not fool proof. When I switched to Eley ammo, it seemed to scatter the rounds with the tuner on the Lapua settings. One two hr range session is not going to get all of the potential out of it. I have a lot of Eley that does not shoot all that well and my next step is to go to the range and burn about two boxes of it while clicking thru the settings to see if the tuner will tighten up ammo that is not a proven winner. After that I will try it with some Eley that is proven to shoot well in this rifle. The tuner adds almost a pound to the weight of the rifle, which means it is not a great field rifle accessory. In my opinion, a shooter will only be able to observe a benefit from the tuner with the most accurate rifle/scope combos and shooting techniques. I would never see the benefits if all I was doing is shooting off hand at squirrels. Too many other variables would take over and dominate the accuracy equation, if that makes sense.

Look at it this way, while the Remington may be a proven hammer, its best ever 5sh, 50yd group regardless of conditions or ammo was a 0.128" before the tuner. Now with the tuner, it shot a 0.097" the first time out. That is a 25% reduction in group size and was done in windy, sketchy conditions. Before the tuner, I think I had recorded only nine total groups with it in the 1's and I shoot it a lot. After the tuner, in the 1st range session, out of 26 groups fired, it recorded four groups in the 1's. That is killer impressive to me. It tells me that the rifle is already consistently shooting measurably better than before. And keep in mind that only seven of those 26 groups were fired with the tuner set at its best setting, so I expect the percentage of tight groups to increase once I start shooting it for groups, making small corrections for wind, etc. I went back and looked at the tgt where I was testing the nice lot of very accurate Lapua Center X that shoots the very best in my rifle. This was before the tuner and in perfect conditions it scored 15 groups that all averaged 0.251". No other ammo has ever done that well for me. With the tuner, I shot seven groups with the tuner set to the optimum setting. I discounted the one where the bore was cold since this rifle needs a few shots thru it before it begins to shoot straight. Taking the other six groups there was one shot with the Wolf ammo, one with the SK Std+ ammo and four with the Lapua CX ammo. All together they average 0.199". That is a 21% improvement. Even if I include the cold bore group the improvement is 11%. So, the best group improved by 25% and the average improved by 20%. That is measurable in my view, even with a rifle that is already shooting very well. When I bought the PDT I thought it a bit of a gamble, but considering what I spend on ammo, it seems rather cheap. It will be interesting to see if it will allow me to shoot cheaper ammo well. That would be nice. Anybody know where I can find some "cheaper ammo"?


The real proof will be taking it back to some ARA and IR50/50 matches and shooting for score. Those provide independent measurable data under match stress conditions. My best IR50/50 tgt with it was 248/12x and a typical tgt is about a 243 with 11x. My best USBR tgt was 245 (forgot the x count). My normal USBR score is lower at about 231/4x. As for ARA, I don't think I ever shot this rifle in ARA. We have a local unlimited IR50/50 match every month near me. I will go and play with the big boys and see how it does. They usually trounce me with their high dollar custom match grade rifles. A measurable improvement will be to not score in last place.

Irish

 

[BERTMAN77MK2]

Waiting for your results---- how about some pics with the harmonic dampner installed .

 

[Sledge1]

Thanks for the very informative and thorough report Irish. I too am interested in your results, especially being able to " tune" the cheaper ammo. Even at $200, it would pay for itself depending on a person's accuracy needs.

 

[JG26_Irish]

PDT Tuner Report




Bertman, I posted a pic of just the tuner in the original post at the top. Here is a pic of the rifle with tuner on it perched on the bench and another close up of the PDT itself from Ezell's website. For the initial test I chose to use a Rock Rest with a very thin sandbag on top for a front rest and a heavy Protector rear sandbag at the rear. It was a basic F-class legal shooting rest. I wanted to eliminate as many other variables as I could so, the merits or lack of merits from the tuner were visible. If you zoom in on the full targets that I posted, you can clearly see the groups get smaller as the rifle goes in and out of tune and bigger when it is going out of tune. I am not going to try to explain the physics behind bbl vibrations and am not even sure I fully understand them myself but the layman's description is that when the rifle is fired the recoil energy cause the rifle to rock backwards and the weight or inertia of the barrel is attempting to remain at rest or resist this movement. This results in a moment of inertia being placed on the barrel and that force bends the muzzle downward. As the bullet travels the length of the bbl, the barrel will stop moving down and eventually spring back up. This results in a sort of tuning fork vibration of the long metal tube (the barrel). I have no idea if it cycles once during the flight of the bullet down the tube or dozens of times but the tuner in effect causes the motion at the muzzle to stop or at least be at the same place every shot, so that the result is better overall accuracy.

The PDT adds weight but I think it is the variable length and the ability to adjust the harmonic frequency of the barrel vibrations to the speed and energy of the ammo that results in the biggest change and not so much the weight of the tuner on the end. What may make the PDT different from other tuners is the use of the powdered metal further dampens the amplitude of the vibrations and may slow them down, which results in less disturbance of the barrel in the first place. How is that for "Cheap Rifle Barrel Physics 101?"

I was working on an application similar to this for the AR15/M16 class of weapons last winter when I found the Ezell tuner and wanted to try it. I am pretty impressed so far. Not sure how well it would work on a center fire rifle. We will have to try that later.

Irish

 

[usmcchet9296]

Hey Irish do they make them to size? Have a Kimber 82G I made a bench gun and would like to get one
IMG_7318 by usmcchet92_96, on Flickr

 

[JG26_Irish]

Hey Irish do they make them to size? Have a Kimber 82G I made a bench gun and would like to get one
IMG_7318 by usmcchet92_96, on Flickr

Be-u-tee-ful rifle. Who made that stock? Is that scope a Sightron? What pwr? Very nice. To answer your question: Yes. They machine the bore of the unit to fit over your barrel. You have to mic the O.D. along the last 1 inch or so to give them the size and taper (if any). You also have to measure the length from breech face to muzzle. That is the Purdy number. Once installed, you adjust it to the PRx suggested length and then go to the range for fine tuning. Mine shot pretty good after only two clicks of adjustment but I did more to refine the settings. Keep in mind that any tuner is going to gain only as much as the rifle and scope are capable of. Unless the rig is aimed precisely and dead stable you probably will not be able to see the benefits or even be able to properly adjust it because all the other imperfections in the rest, scope, trigger pull, etc will cause enough bullet dispersion to mask the affects of the tuner. For example: If I were to shoot an open sight rifle, I doubt that I could aim the rifle to the same spot accurately enough to see the benefits. I could be wrong. After all tighter groups are relative, right? Better is still better.

I am not about promoting Ezell's business but Mike seemed to be an honest, good guy who did exactly what he said he would do. His website is at:

PDT Tuners | Ezell Custom Rifles

If you are interested, I suggest you call him as he is not all that responsive on e-mail.

Irish

 

[Kid_Lefty]

I am not about promoting Ezell's business but Mike seemed to be an honest, good guy who did exactly what he said he would do. His website is at:

PDT Tuners | Ezell Custom Rifles

Irish

A happy customer is the best advertisement! He's going to gain at least a few new customers from your experience so you should get a free t-shirt or something! Maybe you could get a kickback from Ezell for every customer that uses the promotional code "Irish".

Seriously though, thanks for sharing your experience. Didn't know what a "tuner" was so I had to do some research. Always learning something!

-Kid

 

[yoteman]

ok irish i understand a little better now
at $200 each, an sized for your remmie, could not swap it.

still if any one has tried it on a lesser rifle, please chim in
thanks
YO

 

[usmcchet9296]

Be-u-tee-ful rifle. Who made that stock? Is that scope a Sightron? What pwr? Very nice. To answer your question: Yes. They machine the bore of the unit to fit over your barrel. You have to mic the O.D. along the last 1 inch or so to give them the size and taper (if any). You also have to measure the length from breech face to muzzle. That is the Purdy number. Once installed, you adjust it to the PRx suggested length and then go to the range for fine tuning. Mine shot pretty good after only two clicks of adjustment but I did more to refine the settings. Keep in mind that any tuner is going to gain only as much as the rifle and scope are capable of. Unless the rig is aimed precisely and dead stable you probably will not be able to see the benefits or even be able to properly adjust it because all the other imperfections in the rest, scope, trigger pull, etc will cause enough bullet dispersion to mask the affects of the tuner. For example: If I were to shoot an open sight rifle, I doubt that I could aim the rifle to the same spot accurately enough to see the benefits. I could be wrong. After all tighter groups are relative, right? Better is still better.

I am not about promoting Ezell's business but Mike seemed to be an honest, good guy who did exactly what he said he would do. His website is at:

PDT Tuners | Ezell Custom Rifles

If you are interested, I suggest you call him as he is not all that responsive on e-mail.

Irish

Here are some stats
Action: Kimber 82G
Barrel: Kimber 82G
Trigger Kimber 82G
Stock: Laminate Benchrest style
Scope: Weaver 36T
Rings: Leopold
Sanded, Channeled, Bedded, Pillared the stock and added 5 coats of Candy Purple and 8 coats of clear. Wet sanded up to 2500 grit and polished to a piano shine.
the stock was from Richards Microfit Gunstocks

 

[yoteman]

here are some stats
action: Kimber 82g
barrel: Kimber 82g
trigger kimber 82g
stock: Laminate benchrest style
scope: Weaver 36t
rings: Leopold
sanded, channeled, bedded, pillared the stock and added 5 coats of candy purple and 8 coats of clear. Wet sanded up to 2500 grit and polished to a piano shine.
The stock was from richards microfit gunstocks

damm, nice

 

[JG26_Irish]

Here are some stats
Action: Kimber 82G
Barrel: Kimber 82G
Trigger Kimber 82G
Stock: Laminate Benchrest style
Scope: Weaver 36T
Rings: Leopold
Sanded, Channeled, Bedded, Pillared the stock and added 5 coats of Candy Purple and 8 coats of clear. Wet sanded up to 2500 grit and polished to a piano shine.
the stock was from Richards Microfit Gunstocks

Thx, that is a nice rig. How does it shoot? Post up some tgts for us. I have fondled a couple of 82G's but never pulled the trigger on one.

Irish

 

[usmcchet9296]

Thx, that is a nice rig. How does it shoot? Post up some tgts for us. I have fondled a couple of 82G's but never pulled the trigger on one.

Irish

At 25 is basically a 1 hole gun and at 50 is 1/2inch or better .....at 100 its not as good as my 82G I have with apertures.
One thing that sucks is the trigger you can only get to 2 lbs max .... any lighter and you have problems
that being said I love both my Kimbers but I think my bench gun would do better with a dampener

 

[*rim-star*]

I wish you all good luck with the tuners and accuracy but you should keep in mind that the majority of factory rifles is not going to compete with a full blown custom rifle in the BR game the only one that comes to mind is the Anschutz 2013BR that will compete but not dominate I have been in this game for years and I have not seen it happen the first thing I get from the rifles mentioned here is the trigger if its not 2-3 oz your already handicapped.The lightest trigger I ever seen on a 540 Rem was 8 oz and on the Kimber I did check one personally that was 4 oz which was highly modified.The accuracy mentioned here is very good for the rifles mentioned

 

[jbell]

Irish, looks very interesting. I have tried to stay away from tuners for years on my rimfires only because they are or at least can be inconsistent. They will make all the difference in the world when trying to squeeze those last few tenths out of an already very accurate rifle. However if you change ammo or even sometimes lot numbers of the same ammo you have to completely retest. I have been tempted so many time to try a tuner, and still may...

I am looking forward to hearing more about your results! I also look forward to seeing some damn small targets on the 6X5 thread from you!

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Curious how this stands up when enviro's change.

I did some experiments with a tuner on a .260. Shot wonderful after tuning one day, needed to be completely retuned the next. I gave it up because I was shooting more ammo to tune than I was for score.

Greg

 

[JG26_Irish]

PDT Tuner Report

Well, I have a little bit more info. regarding the PDT tuner. After only one range practice session, I took it to a local ARA match. Just so you all know, our local range is also the home range of about five nationally ranked shooters in ARA and other BR games. By nationally ranked: One is 20th, another is 18th, another is 9th and one is somewhere about 11th and the last one is 35th due to illness, his performance has declined. So, when I place at or near the bottom against these guys, it is not a disgrace. Plus, I learn more in one afternoon with them than most shooters can teach me in a month. True that a factory rifle cannot expect to compete head to head with custom BR rifles wielded by top 20 shooters. I know that. But, even before the tuner was installed, I beat one Hall custom rig and a semi-custom Cooper heavy bbl in a local match. My goals with the PDT on the Remington were not to turn it into a world class BR rifle. They were to evaluate how much improvement may or may not be gained from installing this new type of tuner. The powder damping feature widens the null in the bbl vibrations somewhat. This enables it to shoot different lots of the same ammo as well as some different ammo a little better than some other tuners might, without having to re-tune each time. If it works, it is a step forward from the traditional muzzle tuner. I am still learning its limitations and will share below what I observed at yesterdays match.

This was only my 2nd ever ARA match and these are scored "Worst Edge" so the tgt is very un-forgiving. A perfect score is 2500 pts. Each shot is worth 100pts max. If you are not in the center of the bull, you get 50pts or 25pts, etc. A good score is about 2350. My best score last time was about 1525 if I remember correctly and I am too lazy to look it up. Most of my tgts were in the 1300-1450 range. I had expected to shoot three cards and for whatever reason only took three boxes of my CenterX ammo and one box of Midas+ (which my gun never shot well). In addition to those, I had a partial box of SK+ and Eley Blk and one box of 10x in my bag. Upon arrival, I wanted to shoot at least 20rds to lube the bbl using the CenterX ammo. This I did observing that the rifle was shooting spot on and only needed 2 clicks of up adjustment. The range we were shooting is known for very tricky winds, which make precision shooting extremely tough for even the most seasoned expert. After completing my warmup, I was chatting with GS the top ranked shooter in the club. He informed me that the match director was not going to arrive for another hour and that if we wanted, we may as well shoot more practice. I took the box of Midas+ out and proceeded to burn up most of it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it shot almost same POI as my CenterX and it was shooting dead-on groups. In the past this ammo was the worst match grade ammo, I have tested and rarely could average better than high 3's. I gave most of what I had to a buddy but kept two boxes for testing. Now it was shooting as good as my best lot of CenterX without any further adjustments to the PDT. This was interesting.

Having run out of Midas+, I shot up the SK I had. It shot well also. But it always shot well. No surprise. With loads of time left, I shot some of the Eley. About 20rds. It was shooting high and to the right. I did not want to mess with my scope since I was not planning to use it in the match, so I just shot a few groups with it for grins. This turned out to be a big mistake. All the Lapua ammo uses the same lube but the Eley is different, and not thinking, I had fouled my bbl with the Eley lube. More on that later. The Match Dir arrived and we set up to compete. My gun always needs about 10 rds to warm up and start to sing when it is cold. The first shot is always high and right with each subsequent shot getting closer to the 10x. After 5 is it on tgt and I usually give it 5 more for good measure. When I began the first card using CenterX, my rifle was shooting all over the place. WTF? At that stage, I had not put 2&2 together and figured out that the Eley lube was not working well with the Lapua ammo "What is it about the Brits and Germans that makes them not want to play well together???" Anyways, I struggled massively through the first 15 shots of that first target, still confused about why my very accurate rifle, that had been shooting so well 20 minutes earlier was now shooting like crap. After it had digested about 25 rounds of Lapua (10 sighters and 15 for score), it began to settle down. I had been fiddling with the scope (bad idea, lol) in a vain attempt to get it back on tgt earlier in this tgt so, now the zero was off, but at least it was shooting consistently to the same POI. I finished the card with a good score on the last 10rds and then fired about 5 more into the sighters to complete my zero adjustments back to where I had it. So, by the time, I stood up from the 1st tgt, my rifle was both shooting well again, and zeroed. I will learn to not bring more than one type of ammo to a match and to bring three times more than I think I need. First card scored a 1350. No improvement from last match.

Second card started much better. First five shots scored 100pts. Perfect. I shot 15 more that all scored well. Nice. Feeling better, I completed the card. I scored this one looking thru my scope and best I could tell, I dropped 7-9 shots outside of the 100pt ring with none outside the 50pt ring. That works out to a worse case of about 2050pts. Some were too close to call, so it may be better than that but even worst case it was my best ever score on the ARA tgt. My performance dropped off at the end of this card. The winds had picked up on the last 10 shots and were swirling badly. This bit me more than once. I will report the actual score on this tgt later as I had to leave early having made a date with the most delicious, delightful, amazing woman on the planet and I did not want to leave such a rare and delightful creature waiting The scores will be posted in about a week. I learn something each time I shoot these matches and hope to do another one soon as well as go to the range and dial in a setting for the PDT with the Eley ammo. From what I saw at the match, it was grouping them well but did need to be adjusted for the different POI with Eley. That is no change as it always shot to a different POI with Eley vs Lapua. I expect that it will need one or two clicks different setting with the PDT but until I test it, I cannot say for sure.

I posted one pic. The smiling lady in the center of the shot was shooting a Anschutz 54 with Harrell tuner visible behind her and my rifle is on the 3rd bench from the left in the far background. All the other shooters were shooting customer BR rifles. Mostly Halls and Turbos with one 40XX Not a great pic but it was the only one I made. It tried to rain all day. More to follow.

Irish

 

[MikeEzell]

I just found this while googling my own tuner.
Boy, it's good info, and just what I like to hear from customers. I appreciate the good report and how you are going about testing with it. Being methodical is the key. All too often, people tend to move tuners randomly, hoping for improvement. Fact is, IME, very small tuner adjustments are all that's needed. FWIW, in almost evey case, 2 graduations from your best setting, is enough movement to keep up with any condition change and even ammo change. I've seen several lots of ammo that needed no change in tuner setting at all, but have also seen lots of eley that were very close in speed, need the two full marks movement to make them shoot. It's amazing how little movement is needed, but that simplifies keeping the gun in tune vs. needing x number of turns plus x number of graduations. It's just much easier knowing that the gun will go in and out of tune within a small range of movement, repeatably.

Another thing...I shoot more centerfire than rimfire. I honestly feel that the tuner is even better on the cf due to more vibrational amplitude and higher frequencies making the dampening "work" harder. I can't say enough about it on my centerfires. Just this past weekend I tied a UBR world record with it! The bad part is I still lost, finishing 2nd!!! That's been the story of my year, this year, but I've been in contention in pretty much every cf match I've shot with it. The first three matches were with unknown loads and even barrels! In each case, I was able to get the rifle tuned at the bench to be in contention to win at the end of the day. To me, that speaks volumes about the tuner. Actually, I think this past weekend where I tied the record, was the first time I was able to go to a match with a proven gun and load. The results were not too shabby. I just got beat b y the new record holder. This was a night match at 100 and 200 yards, so conditions were good but not perfect.

As for rimfire, I'm still new to the game. I have won a few cards with it in my first season and have been competitive at times. I struggle with the wind in rimfire so my best cards have usually been early, while the wind is still light. My honest opinion is that the most impressive thing about the PDT tuner is it's ability to make most ammo competitive, especially with the price and availability issues we face today with ammunition. While I'm pleased to hear that it has made Irish's groups smaller, I think the real magic is in better agging potential due to less ammo sensitivity. Some say that's just not possible, but the barrel being better damped means it's physically moving less. That makes for more forgiveness to ammo variances. Fliers are still fliers, but not as big. As I said, I'm new to rfbr...but I haven't shot a zero all season long. Lots of people may be able to say that, but being my first season, I'm proud of that. I've not embarrassed myself yet. That's the goal for this year.

I've been playing with weight of the tuner. As shipped, the rimfire tuner weighs about 10 ounces but can be lightened to around 7 ounces. In some cases, it seems to help.

Over the winter, I plan to make some accessories such as weights, bloops and cleaners. I designed the tuner with these in mind so it'll be pretty easy to make weights and bloops for them.

Thanks for the good report, Irish. If I can be of any help to anyone, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to help in any way that I can.---Mike Ezell

p.s.--FWIW, Shiraz at bullets.com now is a stocking dealer for my cf tuners and Killough Shooting Sports for the rimfire version. It's nice to have such respected people in the industry to put their confidence behind our product.

 

[JG26_Irish]

PDT Tuner Report

Mike,

Thanks for chiming in and adding your insights into the use of the PDT tuner. I would love to put one on my Remington Mod 700 HB varmint rifle, but my understanding is that I would have to thread the BBL. Right? I am not willing to do that. As for the rimfire, it was really easy to install and tune the first time. I set it to my PRx number and then started shooting groups. Within two graduations, it was shooting tiny bug holes. I kept going and found the groups would open up and then re-close as it went in and out of tune. I found at least two spots where they were nearly perfect. I probably need two or three days at the range to really learn it better but I started a new job to pay for more toys and have just not had the time yet. It is so sad when work gets in the way of serious play. Can I get an "Amen!"

I cannot say enough good about the PDT. My second ARA card last week got some attention because all the old experts knew what my rifle was capable of before.

Irish

 

[MikeEzell]

Mike,

Thanks for chiming in and adding your insights into the use of the PDT tuner. I would love to put one on my Remington Mod 700 HB varmint rifle, but my understanding is that I would have to thread the BBL. Right? I am not willing to do that. As for the rimfire, it was really easy to install and tune the first time. I set it to my PRx number and then started shooting groups. Within two graduations, it was shooting tiny bug holes. I kept going and found the groups would open up and then re-close as it went in and out of tune. I found at least two spots where they were nearly perfect. I probably need two or three days at the range to really learn it better but I started a new job to pay for more toys and have just not had the time yet. It is so sad when work gets in the way of serious play. Can I get an "Amen!"

I cannot say enough good about the PDT. My second ARA card last week got some attention because all the old experts knew what my rifle was capable of before.

Irish

Amen!

The cf tuners thread on. More recoil means it's simply harder to hold the tuner. The last thing anyone needs is for the tuner to slip. I could make one for you just like the one you have, that will clamp on, but it may slip.

Another thing, the current cf tuners are made for big barrels. I need .920 about 1.5 inches behind the muzzle...without an adapter. I plan to make some smaller ones over the winter.

 

[JG26_Irish]

I have a Springfield Match model of the FAL in .308 that I have wondered about installing one of these tuners on. It already has a threaded bbl. It also already shoots fairly well for an old school semi-auto battle rifle. I would have to figure out what the threads are and the diam. I know it is a metric rifle, and has a match grade bbl that is 20" long (to be verified). The bbl is fairly thin but it also has the rigid forend and gas piston mech attached to it. That almost certainly messes with the PRx numbers. Might need to talk to Tony about that one. But we are straying about from the rimfire intent of this part of the forum so, I will report that my ammo supplier now has 22lr in 10x, Eley Blk, SK std+, and CenterX. And my local gun store had Remington/Eley, RWS R50, RWS match, Norma, Reminton thunderbolt bulk packs on the shelves out in plain sight. Wow, it was a cornucopia of ammunition goodness that I have not seen in over two years anywhere. Maybe?? we are about to turn the corner.

Irish

 

[JG26_Irish]

Took the Remington 540XR to the range yesterday. It was more windy than I like for this kind of shooting but I wanted to get more trigger time with the Exell PDT muzzle tuner using other ammo that has not previously shot the best in my gun. I chose Eley Blk. Out of all the top ten options that I have tested in this rifle the Eley Black only performs to 5th place. It is routinely beaten by Lapua CX, Wolf Match Extra, Wolf Match and 10x. Not that Eley Black is bad ammo. It is great ammo and is supremely consistent, but is always consistently shooting slightly larger average and smallest groups. I wanted to see if the PDT changed this. Conditions this day were not nearly as good as the dead calm day that I shot my best groups at 50yds but were reasonably similar to the day I last shot this rifle at 100yds (using my best lot of CenterX). Results. I shot 15, five shot groups at 50yds, all while adjusting the PDT looking for a sweet spot. It shot pretty good at my CenterX setting of 16 but seemed to be slightly better at 29. While it did open up at some settings, it shot pretty consistently in the 2's at most of the settings from 24-30. But at 29 I had one group measured 0.098"c-c and another just as good except one shot went high opening it up a bit more. A third was nearly as good but the wind blew one to the left. Yada Yada. Still, it is exciting to see a rifle just pounding them into one hole over and over save for an occasional stray. This was all done while trying two different lots of Eley as well.

I then moved out to 100yds. I had posted up two pages with five bulls each on them as well as two other tgts. The grass obscured two of the little bulls so, I skipped them and just shot groups at any decent POA on the paper. Again, I fired 15 groups of five shots each. All from a bench and two piece rest. Wind if anything was now worse at about 5-7mph and variable. Still the little rifle was pitching strikes. I used the first three groups to get the proper range and then shot 6, five shot groups in a row that averaged 0.493"/0.491moa with a best group of 0.247"/0.236moa. Ot the total 15 groups, the worst was 0.829".

It is noteworthy that my best average at 100yds using my best lot of CenterX ammo in the past was 0.840". So, the PDT using only average ammo was able to improve my average by about 41%. My previous best overall group at 100yds had been 0.408". With the PDT, my best group improved to 0.247" or about 39% better. And these six groups are not that exceptional. All the groups averaged 0.606" at 100yds. So, it was shooting an average of just over 1/2moa at 100yds in gusty wind conditions that normally, I would have judged to be too windy. It was also observed that 7 of the 15 groups at 100yds were wider in the horizontal dispersion than in the vertical indicating again that wind was a significant factor. I was not attempting to read the wind or adjust for it during this session but I did use a very nice wind flag sitting at the 40yd line as an indicator. I also, did not stop shooting when the wind shifted or got worse. I just kept firing. This was a pleasant result.

Going back to the 50yd results. This day's best group of six consecutive five shot groups averaged 0.254" which about matches the best scored with Eley ammo of 0.252" but the best was scored on a zero wind day. The Eley average today did not match my best with CenterX. The best group with the PDT did however beat my best ever group with Eley and CenterX (prior to installing the PDT). And matched a previous 0.097" group shot with CenterX after installing the PDT. So, my conclusions there are that it improved the best group with Eley by 24% and the best group with Lapua by about 27%. Undeniable, consistently better results in every trial so far. I did not have time to do the 30rd dot drill at 50yds. Will do that later.

Irish

 

[Seymour Fish]

PDT Tuner Report

Well, I have a little bit more info. regarding the PDT tuner. After only one range practice session, I took it to a local ARA match. Just so you all know, our local range is also the home range of about five nationally ranked shooters in ARA and other BR games. By nationally ranked: One is 20th, another is 18th, another is 9th and one is somewhere about 11th and the last one is 35th due to illness, his performance has declined. So, when I place at or near the bottom against these guys, it is not a disgrace. Plus, I learn more in one afternoon with them than most shooters can teach me in a month. True that a factory rifle cannot expect to compete head to head with custom BR rifles wielded by top 20 shooters. I know that. But, even before the tuner was installed, I beat one Hall custom rig and a semi-custom Cooper heavy bbl in a local match. My goals with the PDT on the Remington were not to turn it into a world class BR rifle. They were to evaluate how much improvement may or may not be gained from installing this new type of tuner. The powder damping feature widens the null in the bbl vibrations somewhat. This enables it to shoot different lots of the same ammo as well as some different ammo a little better than some other tuners might, without having to re-tune each time. If it works, it is a step forward from the traditional muzzle tuner. I am still learning its limitations and will share below what I observed at yesterdays match.

This was only my 2nd ever ARA match and these are scored "Worst Edge" so the tgt is very un-forgiving. A perfect score is 2500 pts. Each shot is worth 100pts max. If you are not in the center of the bull, you get 50pts or 25pts, etc. A good score is about 2350. My best score last time was about 1525 if I remember correctly and I am too lazy to look it up. Most of my tgts were in the 1300-1450 range. I had expected to shoot three cards and for whatever reason only took three boxes of my CenterX ammo and one box of Midas+ (which my gun never shot well). In addition to those, I had a partial box of SK+ and Eley Blk and one box of 10x in my bag. Upon arrival, I wanted to shoot at least 20rds to lube the bbl using the CenterX ammo. This I did observing that the rifle was shooting spot on and only needed 2 clicks of up adjustment. The range we were shooting is known for very tricky winds, which make precision shooting extremely tough for even the most seasoned expert. After completing my warmup, I was chatting with GS the top ranked shooter in the club. He informed me that the match director was not going to arrive for another hour and that if we wanted, we may as well shoot more practice. I took the box of Midas+ out and proceeded to burn up most of it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it shot almost same POI as my CenterX and it was shooting dead-on groups. In the past this ammo was the worst match grade ammo, I have tested and rarely could average better than high 3's. I gave most of what I had to a buddy but kept two boxes for testing. Now it was shooting as good as my best lot of CenterX without any further adjustments to the PDT. This was interesting.

Having run out of Midas+, I shot up the SK I had. It shot well also. But it always shot well. No surprise. With loads of time left, I shot some of the Eley. About 20rds. It was shooting high and to the right. I did not want to mess with my scope since I was not planning to use it in the match, so I just shot a few groups with it for grins. This turned out to be a big mistake. All the Lapua ammo uses the same lube but the Eley is different, and not thinking, I had fouled my bbl with the Eley lube. More on that later. The Match Dir arrived and we set up to compete. My gun always needs about 10 rds to warm up and start to sing when it is cold. The first shot is always high and right with each subsequent shot getting closer to the 10x. After 5 is it on tgt and I usually give it 5 more for good measure. When I began the first card using CenterX, my rifle was shooting all over the place. WTF? At that stage, I had not put 2&2 together and figured out that the Eley lube was not working well with the Lapua ammo "What is it about the Brits and Germans that makes them not want to play well together???" Anyways, I struggled massively through the first 15 shots of that first target, still confused about why my very accurate rifle, that had been shooting so well 20 minutes earlier was now shooting like crap. After it had digested about 25 rounds of Lapua (10 sighters and 15 for score), it began to settle down. I had been fiddling with the scope (bad idea, lol) in a vain attempt to get it back on tgt earlier in this tgt so, now the zero was off, but at least it was shooting consistently to the same POI. I finished the card with a good score on the last 10rds and then fired about 5 more into the sighters to complete my zero adjustments back to where I had it. So, by the time, I stood up from the 1st tgt, my rifle was both shooting well again, and zeroed. I will learn to not bring more than one type of ammo to a match and to bring three times more than I think I need. First card scored a 1350. No improvement from last match.

Second card started much better. First five shots scored 100pts. Perfect. I shot 15 more that all scored well. Nice. Feeling better, I completed the card. I scored this one looking thru my scope and best I could tell, I dropped 7-9 shots outside of the 100pt ring with none outside the 50pt ring. That works out to a worse case of about 2050pts. Some were too close to call, so it may be better than that but even worst case it was my best ever score on the ARA tgt. My performance dropped off at the end of this card. The winds had picked up on the last 10 shots and were swirling badly. This bit me more than once. I will report the actual score on this tgt later as I had to leave early having made a date with the most delicious, delightful, amazing woman on the planet and I did not want to leave such a rare and delightful creature waiting The scores will be posted in about a week. I learn something each time I shoot these matches and hope to do another one soon as well as go to the range and dial in a setting for the PDT with the Eley ammo. From what I saw at the match, it was grouping them well but did need to be adjusted for the different POI with Eley. That is no change as it always shot to a different POI with Eley vs Lapua. I expect that it will need one or two clicks different setting with the PDT but until I test it, I cannot say for sure.

I posted one pic. The smiling lady in the center of the shot was shooting a Anschutz 54 with Harrell tuner visible behind her and my rifle is on the 3rd bench from the left in the far background. All the other shooters were shooting customer BR rifles. Mostly Halls and Turbos with one 40XX Not a great pic but it was the only one I made. It tried to rain all day. More to follow.

Irish

 

[Bwana John]

I have a Springfield Match model of the FAL in .308 that I have wondered about installing one of these tuners on. It already has a threaded bbl. It also already shoots fairly well for an old school semi-auto battle rifle. I would have to figure out what the threads are and the diam. I know it is a metric rifle, and has a match grade bbl that is 20" long (to be verified). The bbl is fairly thin but it also has the rigid forend and gas piston mech attached to it. That almost certainly messes with the PRx numbers. Might need to talk to Tony about that one. But we are straying about from the rimfire intent of this part of the forum so, I will report that my ammo supplier now has 22lr in 10x, Eley Blk, SK std+, and CenterX. And my local gun store had Remington/Eley, RWS R50, RWS match, Norma, Reminton thunderbolt bulk packs on the shelves out in plain sight. Wow, it was a cornucopia of ammunition goodness that I have not seen in over two years anywhere. Maybe?? we are about to turn the corner.

Irish

SA imported Brazilian Imbel FAL uses a 9/16"x24 LH threads for the muzzle SCD.
Putting a tuner on that "match grade" barrel still ain't gonna make it a "match" rifle.
Spend that money on ammo and just enjoy shooting that sledge hammer, throwing money at it is never going to make it a precision icepick.
Too many other problems; trigger, f and r sights on different receivers, tilting block, ect. ...

And if you take off the SCD how are you going to supress flash, mount a bayonet, launch grenades, or cycle blank ammunition?

 

[JG26_Irish]

Old thread dredged up from nowhere. As for the old FAL - it is all relative. By design it has lots of deficiencies which should keep it from shooting well. The 2 stage creepy trigger is not ideal, it is heavy and there are other cartridges that out perform the old 308. The very best of the LAR15's would probably out perform it. Still I have an old lot of Venezuelan surplus ammo that consistently shoot great in the old girl. This is with a 9x scope on the rifle. It is a detachable mount which is also not ideal but always worked well. All of my pics are stored away elsewhere as I rarely shoot that old warhorse anymore. Last month was the first time I had shot it in a while. We were just plinking with friends and all shots were off hand. It is not a tack driver but does OK. As for launching grenades, I don't have to do that anymore, lol.

But enough of this centerfire nonsense. This is the rimfire forum. Update on the Ezel tuner. I took a new job 4 yrs ago and saved up and purchased a Anschutz 54 Super Match from 1958 topped with a 20x Unertl. Bout as old-school as you can get. It shot so well that it would consistently beat the Remington 540 even with the tuner. The Remington did do better at 100y though. Long story short, I put the Remington in the safe and have not shot it since. About a year ago, I took the tuner off hoping to use it on a rimfire PRC rifle I was setting up. But there was just enough difference in the diameter that I could not use it. I have not had time to re-install it on to the Rem. So it sits on top of my safe collecting dust. I do still think it works but it is time consuming to get the most out of it and my available range time is not as much as it used to be. Sad but true.