I've been hanging around here for some time now. And since there seems to be quite an APS following, and since I am practically Kirby's neighbor I arranged a visit and went "down the long driveway" to meet him. To say I was impressed with the young man would be a gross understatement. He is one of the nicest human beings I have ever met! Anyway, since I am too old and financially challenged to start a new "long Range" hobby, I asked Kirby if he could make my old A-Bolt "new" and rejuvinated. The reason being that it would always shoot 140 grain and lighter bullets ok, but anything heavier would just not work, period! I wanted to shoot 160 AB's in it and the way it was that wasn't going to happen. He allowed as how he probably could help me out. After asking me a few questions it was decided that he would accurize the action and fit a 1 in 9 Lilja barrel, # 5 contour I believe and fluted. I had already had the rifle restocked by Lonewolf in his "Howler" thumbhole model. So at the beginning of this year I turned my baby over to the doctor and asked if it could be ready by hunting season it would be nice, but not mandatory.
Toward the middle of September I got the email, that's my equivalent to the little brown truck for some of the rest of you guys. So I went back down the long driveway and took delivery of my "new" A-Bolt. It really didn't look a lot different, but it's trigger was now very nice and the fit and finish was perfect. In preparation for this day I had reloaded some new brass for barrel breakin. Now you MUST understand that I did absolutely now load workup, I looked in a manual after I found an old box of 150 grain Nosler solid bases. I loaded up 20 rounds with a middle of the road load for the sole purpose of breaking in the barrel. Kirby requested that I shoot one and clean for the first 10 shots. This is what it looked like, I made a minor sight adjustment after the first 5:
After the shoot one clean one I started shooting 3 shot groups. The first 3 shot group was really good, then I shot the second one:
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