Phew! What a weekend! Here's a picture...not the greatest I know. More details coming soon...
You'll notice that's not an ag composites stock per my build sheet. Bur upon receiving the barrels, I found out agc is delayed...so impatience got the better of me, and I ordered a Magpul 700l and their proprietary bottom metal and magazine. Not a huge fan. Didn't figure I would be, but I shot 80 rounds of 26 nosler this weekend, and so it's served it's purpose so far.
I've never had a new rifle, but "break in" seemed short. I don't know how to guage this, other than copper fouling seemed minimal and cleaned up quickly. I shot 2 rounds and cleaned, 2 rounds and cleaned then a ladder of 21 rounds and cleaned. I'm sure this is a contentious subject and not one I care to dwell on too long other than I felt it was time to shoot and stop cleaning.
Velocities are hard to guage at this point as things seem to be speeding up but I'm narrowing the SD/ES to acceptable ranges. I've narrowed in on a load of US 869 that seems fairly consistent across a number of projectiles in the 120 to 125 grn range.
Groups are not what I'd hoped for. I'm talking 2 MOA at best so far. On some I'll get 2 holes touching and a flier. Sometimes I'll put 5 into a 2MOA group and sometimes I'll struggle to get 3 into 3 inches. Now, I did find that the scope mount screws had loosened up at one point. Once fixed though, I didn't see a huge difference. I do think that the cooper rounds I'm testing like speed and a long jump. So I do feel I'm making progress. But groups seem erratic. I feel like the stock may have some roll to play in the fliers, and I do feel like I'm not seating rounds with enough jump. And obviously I'm limited in bullets selection.
This brings me to what another member alluded to during my build process and it essentially boils down to the limitations of a SAAMI chamber and the boundaries of seating depth on one end and the lands on the other. The fact that this rifle is intended to shoot monolithic bullets compounds this issue. Solid copper bullets gain length as they try to approach traditional bullets weights. If I seat for more jump I'm too far into the case, and if I get proper seating depth I'm too close to the lands. Again, a member here was leading me to water on this subject but I wasn't thirsty. Freebore baby, I THINK I'm talking about freebore. BUT, I do think this barrel is a shooter and I think there is a load out there for me. If there is, I'll find it...
Is freebore something that can be extended at this stage? How does one derive that number?
...anyway...
I'm looking for some excel spreadsheet templates to plot the weekend's data on, open to suggestions, otherwise I'll build something simple this week and share that. In the mean time I'm going to twist on the 28 nosler barrel and try to get that "break in" process started.
Any advice appreciated, "I told you so's" accepted. Comforting words needed...*sniff* I realize now that building custom rifles can cure self esteem.
