Fiftydriver
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To all,
Last week I posted saying I got the barrel fitted for the 224 AM. Well, after a long week of work in the shop, I kind of forgot about the little rocket until today when I was fitting a few muzzle brakes and noticed the stock sitting in the rack where I had left it for the bedding to cure.
Got the brakes fitted and then decided to take a couple hours and clean up the bedding, engrave the barrel and matte finish the barrel and do the final assembly, trigger tune and scope mounting.
Here are a few pics.
Has been pretty cold here last little bit, 0 degrees for the high most days. This next week is supposed to heat up to the 30-40 degree range so maybe I can get the barrel break in finished and get some range testing done so I can hammer some yotes soon.
I guess its time to give some of the reasons behind designing this round and our goals that we wanted to offer the hunter.
Mainly the idea was to design a one rifle system that the serious yote hunter could use for all types of hunting situations that may arrise in the field hunting yotes.
I have always found that a heavy bullet did less pent damage to a yote then a light bullet driven extremely fast. If the shot is solid with a light bullet they work great, if it is on the fringes, you have a gaping hole in the pelt.
A heavy controled expansion bullet will generally do less pelt damage because it is first of all not traveling so fast and the bullet will not expand violently.
This round was again a combination of Richard Graves and myself to see how far we could push the performance envelope.
I wanted to design a round that couldbe used at close range for calling as well as for shots out to the 1/2 mile mark or even to a full 1000 yards effectively on game up tothe size of pronghorn and smaller deer but especially yotes.
TO do this we needed a very special bullet design. One that was stout enough to handle close range impacts but also one with a BC high enough for long range shooting with low wind drift.
I will admit most of the work in this project was with the design of the bullets that will be used in this new wildcat. Typically, 80 gr bullets were about as heavy as has been used to any large degree in the 22 cal rounds. There are a few 90 gr pills floating around but mostly they are designed for velocities in the 2500-2800 fps range for match shooting.
We needed something totally different so Richard designed two beautiful bullets for thos project. The 100 and 107 gr ULD RBBTs. Built on heavier jackets so that they would survive the 1-7 twist first of all and then the high velocity potential of the 224 AM.
From the results of the closed point Wildcat Bullets on big game, Richard decided to use this same meplat design on these bullets. Not to eliminate expansion but to delay it on close range impacts at high velocity.
My easy part came with drawing up the reamer print. I originally wanted to use the Rem SAUM case and neck it down to 22 cal but it was clear that the popularity of these rounds may soon result in a hard time finding parent cases so the WSM case was used instead.
Now the case capacity of the WSM fireformed to the AM configuration is probably more then needed for these bullets but I figured I would stick to the theme of the other AMs, more has got to be better right /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif!!
Our goal is a rifle/cartridge combo that is light and fast enough for a calling rifle, with a bullet that will handle close range impacts without excessive pelt damage. On the same hand, be perfectly at home reaching out and hammering a call shy dog at 600 yards with no problems at all.
If the performance of the little 224 AM reaches our predictions it will easily do both. Time will tell if the theory holds any water!!!
Details on the rifle are:
Fully accurized Rem 700 SA
H-S Precision Varmint stock, Tan with Black web
Rifles Basix trigger set to 2 lbs for cold weather hunting
27" Lilja #6 contour 1-7 twist 3groove barrel
Holland Comp Recoil Lug
Burris one piece base and Signature rings
Weaver 4.5-14 Tactical Mil Dot
Depending on what Santa bring to the shop, there will probably an H-S Precision 10 round Detachable Magazine system fitted soon as well. A nice feature on a calling rifle in my opinion. Load her up and generally no need to carry other ammo.
This spring the rifle will be teflon coated so all is a matching flat Black finish, much better then matte stainless for a calling rifle.
If I ever get another pronghorn permit, this rifle will be the one used on that hunt as well as I feel it will perform exceptionally well for that purpose as well.
Will hopefully be posting range results soon, and hopefully they will be worth reporting on!!!
Good Shooting!!
Kirby Allen(50)
Last week I posted saying I got the barrel fitted for the 224 AM. Well, after a long week of work in the shop, I kind of forgot about the little rocket until today when I was fitting a few muzzle brakes and noticed the stock sitting in the rack where I had left it for the bedding to cure.
Got the brakes fitted and then decided to take a couple hours and clean up the bedding, engrave the barrel and matte finish the barrel and do the final assembly, trigger tune and scope mounting.
Here are a few pics.
Has been pretty cold here last little bit, 0 degrees for the high most days. This next week is supposed to heat up to the 30-40 degree range so maybe I can get the barrel break in finished and get some range testing done so I can hammer some yotes soon.
I guess its time to give some of the reasons behind designing this round and our goals that we wanted to offer the hunter.
Mainly the idea was to design a one rifle system that the serious yote hunter could use for all types of hunting situations that may arrise in the field hunting yotes.
I have always found that a heavy bullet did less pent damage to a yote then a light bullet driven extremely fast. If the shot is solid with a light bullet they work great, if it is on the fringes, you have a gaping hole in the pelt.
A heavy controled expansion bullet will generally do less pelt damage because it is first of all not traveling so fast and the bullet will not expand violently.
This round was again a combination of Richard Graves and myself to see how far we could push the performance envelope.
I wanted to design a round that couldbe used at close range for calling as well as for shots out to the 1/2 mile mark or even to a full 1000 yards effectively on game up tothe size of pronghorn and smaller deer but especially yotes.
TO do this we needed a very special bullet design. One that was stout enough to handle close range impacts but also one with a BC high enough for long range shooting with low wind drift.
I will admit most of the work in this project was with the design of the bullets that will be used in this new wildcat. Typically, 80 gr bullets were about as heavy as has been used to any large degree in the 22 cal rounds. There are a few 90 gr pills floating around but mostly they are designed for velocities in the 2500-2800 fps range for match shooting.
We needed something totally different so Richard designed two beautiful bullets for thos project. The 100 and 107 gr ULD RBBTs. Built on heavier jackets so that they would survive the 1-7 twist first of all and then the high velocity potential of the 224 AM.
From the results of the closed point Wildcat Bullets on big game, Richard decided to use this same meplat design on these bullets. Not to eliminate expansion but to delay it on close range impacts at high velocity.
My easy part came with drawing up the reamer print. I originally wanted to use the Rem SAUM case and neck it down to 22 cal but it was clear that the popularity of these rounds may soon result in a hard time finding parent cases so the WSM case was used instead.
Now the case capacity of the WSM fireformed to the AM configuration is probably more then needed for these bullets but I figured I would stick to the theme of the other AMs, more has got to be better right /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif!!
Our goal is a rifle/cartridge combo that is light and fast enough for a calling rifle, with a bullet that will handle close range impacts without excessive pelt damage. On the same hand, be perfectly at home reaching out and hammering a call shy dog at 600 yards with no problems at all.
If the performance of the little 224 AM reaches our predictions it will easily do both. Time will tell if the theory holds any water!!!
Details on the rifle are:
Fully accurized Rem 700 SA
H-S Precision Varmint stock, Tan with Black web
Rifles Basix trigger set to 2 lbs for cold weather hunting
27" Lilja #6 contour 1-7 twist 3groove barrel
Holland Comp Recoil Lug
Burris one piece base and Signature rings
Weaver 4.5-14 Tactical Mil Dot
Depending on what Santa bring to the shop, there will probably an H-S Precision 10 round Detachable Magazine system fitted soon as well. A nice feature on a calling rifle in my opinion. Load her up and generally no need to carry other ammo.
This spring the rifle will be teflon coated so all is a matching flat Black finish, much better then matte stainless for a calling rifle.
If I ever get another pronghorn permit, this rifle will be the one used on that hunt as well as I feel it will perform exceptionally well for that purpose as well.
Will hopefully be posting range results soon, and hopefully they will be worth reporting on!!!
Good Shooting!!
Kirby Allen(50)
