The Tale of a Rifle, It's Performance and Load Data.
For 10 years I dogged the originator of the Armalite Wilson AR10. After reading an article on the man and his rifle in 1999, I contacted
the Gent and found that he was not selling to the public. His clientele were the Marines, Army and Contract Companies operating in war
zones. Despite being turned down, I continued with intermittent contact attempts for a 10 year period, all to no avail.
One day, while sitting in the armoury and talking to Latigo, he noticed the pages of a magazine sticking out the end of a manila folder.
He asked what it was and I explained about Stewart Wilson's AR10s with the 16" barrels shooting moa at 1,000 yards and photos of the
Marine Team that was testing them. He said, "Hey! We need one of those". After hearing the tale of my trying to secure one, he
suggested we call, write or email Mr. Wilson. I told him it was an exercise in futility, but after searching the net we found a website,
shooterready.com that was a long distance training DVD and, sure enough. It belonged to Mr.Wilson. For a brief period of one week his
phone number was on that website. Talk about luck! He removed it after my call. "Are you that same S.O.B in Montana that's been
writing and emailing me since 1999?" ........ uhhh........ Yes sir. He laughed and agreed to sell me a rifle "because you've been dogging me
for all these years", but if the price was questioned the deal was off. We didn't question the price and witin a few weeks we had the rifle
and the first 10 shots on a target. .685 moa.
Since then he and I have become friends and it's nice to have an inside track with Mr.Wilson. He's the Father of the Windrunner .408
series of rifles and designed the product line for EDM Firearms. Lat's rifle is the prototype of those rifles, but with a lot of options not
available on the production model. Ok, so this isn't about all that. It's about the journey to the sub-moa at 1,000 yards the rifle was/is
guaranteed to do. It came with the target, specific load data and specific case prep and reloading requirements. Enter.... me.
These are the original specs on the rifle:
She has a custom, internally re-machined Armalite AR10 receiver/magazine well cut to accept a slightly longer AR10 custom magazine,
this because of the required OAL.
All internal receiver areas are coated with a Tungsten Disulfide Matrix derivative. The chamber and throat are cut to accept one
projectile profile only. The Sierra 175 MK, and no other. Because of these cuts the TTL, seat depth and OAL are specific and critical, thus
the need and reason for a custom machined Mag-well.
Walther 17-4 S/S barrel, internally tapered .006 electro-polished bore and a 1-10 ROT. hBN Specific.
SWS foregrip and a prototype trigger from his inventory that later evolved into the Chip McCormick trigger.
The following is the sequence and history of some 1,850 chrono'd and logged in rounds sent downrange, some of which were moa in 5
round groups, but Lat wandered in and out of moa to 2moa week after week. H was getting frustrated. I'll make this as short as I can.
We used the original Load Data, case prep and the cases themselves were not easy to get. They were to be Lake City headstamped "LR".
Those are the USMC Long Range cases that are once fired and collected by a specific case and projectile supplier. Prep, shoot... no moa,
change the load by 1/10gr increments up and down...... moa once in a while.
This is what we tried:
Powder charge change in 1/10gr increments to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.
TTL OAL
Bushing change
Seat depth changes
Seat depth and charge changes to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.... Chrono spread literally tight with the original data, IE: 2505fps.
SD +-6
The above amounted to some 1,800 rounds with one critical change midway through. We found that our hBN process, similar to
the process touted on the web was not deep or hard enough. (Our own process I've alredy posted) You should be able to go 900 to 1,500 rounds without seeing any coppering of the lands/grooves at all. Lat was discouraged to say the least. He was about ready to stack it in the armoury and work with his M1 Garand for a while, until..............
Lat's down prone in the shootshed and I told him I'd been watching his shooting technique all along and judged it solid and correct, but
today I had an idea. I had him remove his prescription shooting glasses, put on his contacts and fire 5 rounds. MOA!! We went back to
the armoury and reloaded 20 of the original load data we had on day one! 4 moa groups right out of the gate! Back to the armoury for
another 20 rounds.........But this time, I had him remove his contacts. Sub-moa! Back for another 10, same results sub-moa!
So, 1.850 SMK projectiles, pounds of powder, frustration and disappointment was all traced back to something so simple we hadn't
considered it. Contacts and prescription shooting glasses. Those contacts did a slight floating action on his lenses and the shooting
glasses changed with his prone head position. He could move his head slightly and got a better, sharper picture. That should have told
me something, but I never imagined it.
The Wilson performs exactly as designed, and Latigo is an extremely happy camper. A lot of component dollars lighter.... but happy.
For 10 years I dogged the originator of the Armalite Wilson AR10. After reading an article on the man and his rifle in 1999, I contacted
the Gent and found that he was not selling to the public. His clientele were the Marines, Army and Contract Companies operating in war
zones. Despite being turned down, I continued with intermittent contact attempts for a 10 year period, all to no avail.
One day, while sitting in the armoury and talking to Latigo, he noticed the pages of a magazine sticking out the end of a manila folder.
He asked what it was and I explained about Stewart Wilson's AR10s with the 16" barrels shooting moa at 1,000 yards and photos of the
Marine Team that was testing them. He said, "Hey! We need one of those". After hearing the tale of my trying to secure one, he
suggested we call, write or email Mr. Wilson. I told him it was an exercise in futility, but after searching the net we found a website,
shooterready.com that was a long distance training DVD and, sure enough. It belonged to Mr.Wilson. For a brief period of one week his
phone number was on that website. Talk about luck! He removed it after my call. "Are you that same S.O.B in Montana that's been
writing and emailing me since 1999?" ........ uhhh........ Yes sir. He laughed and agreed to sell me a rifle "because you've been dogging me
for all these years", but if the price was questioned the deal was off. We didn't question the price and witin a few weeks we had the rifle
and the first 10 shots on a target. .685 moa.
Since then he and I have become friends and it's nice to have an inside track with Mr.Wilson. He's the Father of the Windrunner .408
series of rifles and designed the product line for EDM Firearms. Lat's rifle is the prototype of those rifles, but with a lot of options not
available on the production model. Ok, so this isn't about all that. It's about the journey to the sub-moa at 1,000 yards the rifle was/is
guaranteed to do. It came with the target, specific load data and specific case prep and reloading requirements. Enter.... me.
These are the original specs on the rifle:
She has a custom, internally re-machined Armalite AR10 receiver/magazine well cut to accept a slightly longer AR10 custom magazine,
this because of the required OAL.
All internal receiver areas are coated with a Tungsten Disulfide Matrix derivative. The chamber and throat are cut to accept one
projectile profile only. The Sierra 175 MK, and no other. Because of these cuts the TTL, seat depth and OAL are specific and critical, thus
the need and reason for a custom machined Mag-well.
Walther 17-4 S/S barrel, internally tapered .006 electro-polished bore and a 1-10 ROT. hBN Specific.
SWS foregrip and a prototype trigger from his inventory that later evolved into the Chip McCormick trigger.
The following is the sequence and history of some 1,850 chrono'd and logged in rounds sent downrange, some of which were moa in 5
round groups, but Lat wandered in and out of moa to 2moa week after week. H was getting frustrated. I'll make this as short as I can.
We used the original Load Data, case prep and the cases themselves were not easy to get. They were to be Lake City headstamped "LR".
Those are the USMC Long Range cases that are once fired and collected by a specific case and projectile supplier. Prep, shoot... no moa,
change the load by 1/10gr increments up and down...... moa once in a while.
This is what we tried:
Powder charge change in 1/10gr increments to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.
TTL OAL
Bushing change
Seat depth changes
Seat depth and charge changes to 2gr under and 2gr over intial data.... Chrono spread literally tight with the original data, IE: 2505fps.
SD +-6
The above amounted to some 1,800 rounds with one critical change midway through. We found that our hBN process, similar to
the process touted on the web was not deep or hard enough. (Our own process I've alredy posted) You should be able to go 900 to 1,500 rounds without seeing any coppering of the lands/grooves at all. Lat was discouraged to say the least. He was about ready to stack it in the armoury and work with his M1 Garand for a while, until..............
Lat's down prone in the shootshed and I told him I'd been watching his shooting technique all along and judged it solid and correct, but
today I had an idea. I had him remove his prescription shooting glasses, put on his contacts and fire 5 rounds. MOA!! We went back to
the armoury and reloaded 20 of the original load data we had on day one! 4 moa groups right out of the gate! Back to the armoury for
another 20 rounds.........But this time, I had him remove his contacts. Sub-moa! Back for another 10, same results sub-moa!
So, 1.850 SMK projectiles, pounds of powder, frustration and disappointment was all traced back to something so simple we hadn't
considered it. Contacts and prescription shooting glasses. Those contacts did a slight floating action on his lenses and the shooting
glasses changed with his prone head position. He could move his head slightly and got a better, sharper picture. That should have told
me something, but I never imagined it.
The Wilson performs exactly as designed, and Latigo is an extremely happy camper. A lot of component dollars lighter.... but happy.
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