243ai issues

[jaybic]

I sent them dummy rounds, fifty 87gr vmax bullets, 20 sized cases(unprimed) a couple targets I shot with it(3 rounds thru one hole and then very next week the same load in a 5 shot group that was about 1.5 inches and no two were touching(lousy) and a couple targets shot with my Krieger tubed 700 in .308(I didn't mention the barrel brand to him) to show him that while I am not Tony Boyer, I can get them to close to where I want most of the time.

Hart will be firing the rifle(they did last time as well but only before painting and not after. There is no paint in the barrel channel or on the bedding surface. The other thing I am unsure of is that the barrel is bedded about a inch forward of the recoil lug so I don't know if baking the paint on caused the bedding to shift or rise and touch the barrel at that spot or if it would make any difference at all but he did say he has been bedding that way for 30 years so its seems hard to blame that bedding method.

what I do know is that on my Savage rifles and my 308(all excellent shooters by my standards) I can slide a dollar bill all the way to the recoil lug so I KNOW nothing is touching the barrel. This new rifle is not that way so naturally I want to think its an issue but that flies in the face of 30 years of doing it that way from Hart and I would thing that if it were an issue, Hart would have heard about it and changed his methods by now.....

anyway, thanks again,

Jamie

 

[jaybic]

Well,

Its been a while and last year I had quite a time with this gun, my custom 243ai...(now wearing a Mcmillan A3 stock and a 5.5x22 nxs)....and its demons are still present.....It ended up going back to Hart for them to work with it themselves but they ran out of time and just ended up putting a brand new 8 twist tube on it....aaannnndd......I promptly fireformed 100 brand new WW cases and lost almost 1/2 of them to split necks......and it is still very finicke about what it will shoot.....

I am getting the occassional 1/2 in group with the 87 vmax and 41grs of varget at .20 off at 3231 fps(does this seem slow to any of you?)...I am trying to get the 105 amax to shoot and using 48.5 grs of retumbo, have 1 ok group(5 under a quarter but it still seems pretty picky to me....

I bought a pawn shop savage 22-250, had it and another retubed savage both turned into 22-250ai(the pawn shop gun is just for fireforming) and loaded up some left over 52 bergers and H380 and both guns will put 5 under a dime.....I just dont understand how I have near 7000.00 in this gun and it gets beat up by the production savages......It appears it will have to go back again due to excessive headspace by Hart themselves(there is no crush fit at all on brand new brass) and lots of misfires and split necks....

I am getting to the point that the Hart tube is going to come off and be replaced(only has mabe 150 rounds on it) by something from someone else...my local smith chambered up both of my 250ai rifles and not one lost case and some of that brass was shot god knows how many times as a regular 250....one brux tube and one stock tube....He tube my .308 with Krieger and it shoots great....

sorry to be long winded and rant fellas but I built my dream rifle and threw the checkbook in the trash can to do it and it still is not performing in my mind, for that kind of money I should be able to use home made gun powder and rocks for bullets and get better accuracy than the normal .75 to 1.5 (occassional .5 with only 1 load out of many tried) that I am getting....I have other rifles that will shoot almost anything combination that you put in them....I dont get it at all....

Anyway, thanks for your time and have a good season this fall fellas,

Jamie

P.S. I have a brand new, still in the box, 6mm Hart tube, 27inch #5 douglas taper, fluted stainless steel barrel that I would like to part with....its the one the original gunsmith stuck me with and I dont need it so if anyone is interested, PM me...I paid 440.00 it and can provide pics and a receipt showing when I got it....

 

[westcliffe01]

I bought a Savage model 12 LPV, shot about 100 rounds through it (it would not group 95gr Berger VLD's through the 1:9.25 twist barrel). So I plunked down $339 on a Shilen 26" varmint contour 1:8 twist barrel (select match) and fitted it myself with a "proper" 243Win AI headspace gauge from Manson Reamers. Sold the original fluted barrel for $180 so only had out of pocket expense for $189 including the ackley headspace gauge.

So far, all I have fired is my fireforming load (41gr of H100V behind a 95gr Berger VLD). It has been a consistent 1/2 MOA rifle without any further load development. I figure that when I have enough fireformed cases, I will develop a full power 95gr load as well as a 105gr load. Since it has been super reliable with the fireforming loads, I figure I will just continue to work with that as my coyote hunting load until I am out of unformed brass... Based on drop testing the MV of my fireforming load is about 3200fps. If anything, it is even faster in summer since H100V is not one of the "extreme" powders and I have noticed it shooting about 1MOA high in the recent super hot conditions here in MI, that being at 320 yards...

Yes, the fire forming is a hassle, but once again, it seems that quality is more consistent on turnkey "drop in" barrels than is the case with a lot of gunsmith chambered barrels. When the gunsmiths work is more expensive than the prefit barrel, I think there is less risk for me to continue working the prefit route. My experiences with Thomson (one of the ICON rifles) and Remingtons make me avoid those platforms due to the lack of prefit barrels.