Recent content by Buck Fever

I like nice things but I'm cheap. I wanted something like a 338 Lapua Magnum but the action I had in mind was limited to a standard Magnum bolt face and CIP length magazine. The action was an American Rifle Company Archimedes long action, bought on a pre-order for $1,120 (instead of the...

Electromagnetic radiation essentially works like an inductive cook top. It creates currents in metals and because the metals have resistance, they heat up. Little EMR like radio waves creates tiny currents, just big enough to amplify in to a sound signal, big EMR like an EMP will melt a high...

If you want to make it accurate at long range, make batches of your best few loads and shoot them at 500 yards to see what happens. Sometimes your best at 500 won't be your best at 100.

It's interesting that they mention value, I wouldn't expect a barrel made that way to be cheap. Every caliber and every twist needs a different electrode and I think they are somewhat consumable. I know the machines are expensive and I believe the process is slow...

The fascination with toroids is that a ring of contact is made even when there is some angular misalignment between the pieces. I'm not at all concerned with adding a few minutes to the barrel swap and headspace time. It's not a machinegun but it's still probably fast enough to swap in a match.

Look up a jack screw, that's exactly what it does, in miniature. The middle part is a clamp, the front is a barrel nut with a toroidal section and the recoil lug also has a toroidal section. With the clamp loose (or slightly stretched as I do it), the barrel nut can be tightened with a tiny...

Spring back happens as soon as you remove the die from the case, not over days. Conventional neck sizing in a full length die does size the neck too small and then expand it back with the neck expander on the decapping stem as it pulls out of the sized case. A collet neck sizer has a mandrel...

You could use a barrel nut wrench on a double nutted barrel, just tighten on the muzzle end of the double nut and loosen on the chamber end of the double nut. Using two barrel nut wrenches to tighten the double nut against itself would be a good idea too. But a custom double nut, two barrel...

I still don't get it, a double nutted barrel nut would be better, with no risk to the threads or loctite required...

Also, I'm cheap. Instead of getting a set of competition shell holders, I bought a set of steel shims for 1/2" bolts. I think they are used for leveling machinery. They are oversized a bit so they work with Magnum case heads, then I measure and carefully grind down a shell holder. After that...

A benchrest shooter is going to be running a tight chamber and headspace near 0.000". His brass shouldn't move much when firing and shouldn't move much when full length sizing. I also think the sizing 1/2 the neck just helps when the necks are too thin so the bulge centers the case when...

Some people do a switch barrel with the barrel only torqued to 30-40 ft-lbs. That seems silly to me because if the barrel loosens or tightens at all, the zero will change. To me, the thing a switch barrel rifle needs is tool less assembly and disassembly. If you need a barrel vise and action...

Exotic car rental seems to be more of a big city thing and a rental company probably wouldn't like the mountain lion on the back or the dogs in the passenger seat... I'm pretty sure it's not a rental.

I built up a 338 RUM. It's a heavy gun with a 30" barrel but it also has an Area419 Sidewinder brake and so far, shooting factory ammo, it seems to kick softer than a .308. It's my ELR gun, should be good for 2,000+ yards so unless you are super sensitive to recoil, you can still go long.

I just bought an American Rifle Company Barloc with a Nucleus style recoil lug. I cut my 1 piece scope rail to interface with the nub on the recoil lug and bedded the rail to the action and the lug to the rail. You don't have to do the bedding but it puts my recoil lug in exactly the same spot...