Fiftydriver
Official LRH Sponsor
Those of you who have been here on LRH from the early days will likely remember a personal rifle of mine that i made myself for a dedicated extreme range rifle really back before the craze hit the industry. This was a monster of a rifle using a BAT 10" single shot receiver, 45" Lilja straight cylinder 1.750" diameter barrel with one of my muzzle brakes and all sitting in a McMillan 50 LBR stock. The stock was finished in 75% black 25% red and the entire barreled receiver was cerakote finished in flat black. Nicknamed the big rifle Black Sunshine.
this 50 lb monster was chambered in my then new 338 Allen Magnum wildcat and shooting custom Wildcat Bullets, aluminum tipped 265 gr missiles at 3550 fps. The combo offered legit supersonic velocity out to 2 miles back when that was simply unheard of. The rifle was extremely accurate but did have its issues and i learned a great deal building, testing and shooting that rifle.
in 2007, i used that rifle to make a kill on a rockchuck at a witnessed and measure confirmed 2370 yards which was the longest recorded varmint kill for that year and that held for many years after but has since been passed. Anyway, that event made the rifle kind of famous.
over the years i have had customers want versions of Black Sunshine built and i was able to recently build and test one of these. The rifle is one of my Raptor LRSS models chambered in my 7mm Allen Magnum. This specific rifle uses a 34" Bartlein custom Raptor contour barrel which is 4" longer then my standard Raptor LRSS barrels. Because of the added length of the barrel we also went with the longer A5 Supermag stock. these long heavy barrels are exactly what my Raptor receivers are designed for, handles it with no stress at all.
the stock is again 75% black, 25% red and barreled receiver coated in flat black, stunning rifle.
pictures really do not do this rifle justice, they rarely do. Customer wanted to top this rifle with a NF 8-32x 56mm with moar-t reticle.
throated this rifle to use the 195 gr berger EH and using RL33 she topped out at 3485 fps. Just shy of 3500 fps with a 195 gr 7mm bullet!!
Still, wanting to get as much case life as possible out of this monster, decided to THROTTLE BACK to an average of 3405 fps which is a quite mild load pressure wise. This is about as fast as i have driven the 195 gr berger, in fact i am pretty sure this is as fast as this bullet has been driven so i was a bit curious how it would handle these stresses.
yesterday morning i was able to head up to the range and get some bullets in the air for the first time. I normally accuracy test my Raptor LRSS rifles at 1000-1100 yards but with this one, i wanted to push it a bit more so set up at 1520 yards. Took a few shots to get the big NF scope pointed in the right direction and then had to let the barrel cool which is tricky with an all black rifle in direct sunlight.
while cooling i ran the numbers to develop the drop chart and once done with A 300 yard zero, i looked up on the chart for dial up for 1520 yards, turned the turret back that amount and set the zero stop and installed the cap.
Started the drop chart test at 390 yards by dialing up off the chart and taking a single shot. Impact was easy to spot as there is very little recoil with this rifle. Impact was exactly 1 moa high, windage perfect. then tested at 758 yards, same thing, dial up, take one shot and record impact location, again, exactly 1 moa high, perfect windage. Moved out to 935, 1210 and again at 1520 yards with exactly the same results at all ranges. At 1510 yards i added a second shot which landed within 3-4" of the first.
seeing this gave me full confidence in the rifles consistency, in the drop chart as well. Just needed to make a scope zero adjustment so took 1 moa out of the scope, reset the zero stop and let the rifle cool again. Just to confirm, to another test shot at 758, 935 and 1210 yards. This time all three shots landed within 1/4 to 1/3 moa of point of aim.
always amazing to be able to make fine tune adjustments and see those exact impact movements down range even at 1200 yard class range. By this time the heat had arrived and this all black rifle was really soaking up the late August Montana sun!!
very happy with the performance of this Mini Black Sunshine. Going to make the new owner very happy. There are very few rifles out there that will run with this level of ballistic performance and in a rifle thats in the 17 lb class range and with really Zero recoil to speak of!! In addition, this is a repeater with three round capacity in the belly!!
this 50 lb monster was chambered in my then new 338 Allen Magnum wildcat and shooting custom Wildcat Bullets, aluminum tipped 265 gr missiles at 3550 fps. The combo offered legit supersonic velocity out to 2 miles back when that was simply unheard of. The rifle was extremely accurate but did have its issues and i learned a great deal building, testing and shooting that rifle.
in 2007, i used that rifle to make a kill on a rockchuck at a witnessed and measure confirmed 2370 yards which was the longest recorded varmint kill for that year and that held for many years after but has since been passed. Anyway, that event made the rifle kind of famous.
over the years i have had customers want versions of Black Sunshine built and i was able to recently build and test one of these. The rifle is one of my Raptor LRSS models chambered in my 7mm Allen Magnum. This specific rifle uses a 34" Bartlein custom Raptor contour barrel which is 4" longer then my standard Raptor LRSS barrels. Because of the added length of the barrel we also went with the longer A5 Supermag stock. these long heavy barrels are exactly what my Raptor receivers are designed for, handles it with no stress at all.
the stock is again 75% black, 25% red and barreled receiver coated in flat black, stunning rifle.
pictures really do not do this rifle justice, they rarely do. Customer wanted to top this rifle with a NF 8-32x 56mm with moar-t reticle.
throated this rifle to use the 195 gr berger EH and using RL33 she topped out at 3485 fps. Just shy of 3500 fps with a 195 gr 7mm bullet!!
Still, wanting to get as much case life as possible out of this monster, decided to THROTTLE BACK to an average of 3405 fps which is a quite mild load pressure wise. This is about as fast as i have driven the 195 gr berger, in fact i am pretty sure this is as fast as this bullet has been driven so i was a bit curious how it would handle these stresses.
yesterday morning i was able to head up to the range and get some bullets in the air for the first time. I normally accuracy test my Raptor LRSS rifles at 1000-1100 yards but with this one, i wanted to push it a bit more so set up at 1520 yards. Took a few shots to get the big NF scope pointed in the right direction and then had to let the barrel cool which is tricky with an all black rifle in direct sunlight.
while cooling i ran the numbers to develop the drop chart and once done with A 300 yard zero, i looked up on the chart for dial up for 1520 yards, turned the turret back that amount and set the zero stop and installed the cap.
Started the drop chart test at 390 yards by dialing up off the chart and taking a single shot. Impact was easy to spot as there is very little recoil with this rifle. Impact was exactly 1 moa high, windage perfect. then tested at 758 yards, same thing, dial up, take one shot and record impact location, again, exactly 1 moa high, perfect windage. Moved out to 935, 1210 and again at 1520 yards with exactly the same results at all ranges. At 1510 yards i added a second shot which landed within 3-4" of the first.
seeing this gave me full confidence in the rifles consistency, in the drop chart as well. Just needed to make a scope zero adjustment so took 1 moa out of the scope, reset the zero stop and let the rifle cool again. Just to confirm, to another test shot at 758, 935 and 1210 yards. This time all three shots landed within 1/4 to 1/3 moa of point of aim.
always amazing to be able to make fine tune adjustments and see those exact impact movements down range even at 1200 yard class range. By this time the heat had arrived and this all black rifle was really soaking up the late August Montana sun!!
very happy with the performance of this Mini Black Sunshine. Going to make the new owner very happy. There are very few rifles out there that will run with this level of ballistic performance and in a rifle thats in the 17 lb class range and with really Zero recoil to speak of!! In addition, this is a repeater with three round capacity in the belly!!
