Wildcat Bullets best accuracy...Kirby and others

[Guest]

I finally got some wildcat bullets from Richard and now I want to make sure my rifle is up to the challange. Rifle is stock except for some trigger work. I am in the process of adding some weight to the stock and some steel bars in the forend to eliminate any chance of the synthic stock bending and touching the barrel. Can I bed this rifle and should I or is there something else I can do to get the best accuracy out of this gun? Thanks.
Harv

 

[daveosok]

What type of rifle is it?
If you have a gunsmith who is local you can have him recrown the muzzle for a rather cheap price.
I bedded my syn stocked rifle to keep it from twisting and contacting the barrel. You can also free float it.
Clean it so that no copper fouling is left in the barrel.
Kirby will have you and answer too, just thought id give ya what I would do.

 

[Fiftydriver]

Harv,

All the points Dave mentioned are good points. Cutting a fresh match grade crown on your muzzle will often do wonders for your groups.

Other things to look at are bolt lug contact. THey should me baring evenly and in a perfect world at 100% contact. This will not be the case with a factory rifle but they should bare evenly at least. If they do not you will get inconsistancy at higher pressure loads.

Trigger pulls are also critical. Not in that they make a rifle accurate or inaccurate but they allow you to pilot them much better if you have a quality trigger pull. It does not have to be excessively light either. I actually use a 2 3/4 lb pull on all my big game rifle designed for hunting out to the half mile mark.

I do this because I use them in cold weather and my fingers are not as sensitive compared to warmer shooting conditions. For extreme range shooting I do drop trigger weight to a bit under 1/2 lb but these triggers are on dedicated extreme range rifles.

To be flat out honest with you, if you have an injection molded stock which is basically high density plastic, I would recommend investing in a quality aftermarket stock either in composite or laminate wood.

Bedding jobs in these plastic stocks may hold for now but eventually they will break free of the stock. This generally happens in cold weather which is generally a real bad time for it to happen because around here that means big game season.

I would recommend something from Boyds for a Laminated wood stock and either Pillar bed the rifle yourself or have a smith do it for you.

Once the rifle is bedded, float the barrel channel to insure there is no stock contact with the barrel. Keep in mind that as a factory barrel, it is not uncommon for them to shoot better with a little up pressure at the tip of the forend. This is generally because the factory machining is not what we would call match grade stuff and the barrel will vibrate irregullarly if totally freefloated.

TO solve this, after bedding the receiver, put two strips of thick electricians tape on the bottom of the receiver in front and back of each action screw. Then mix up some bedding compound such as marine tex and put a dab in the barrel channel about an inch behind the end of the forend. set the receiver in and engage the rear action screw first, this is very important. Hold the barrel up slightly as you do this. When the rear action screw is just shy of tightening up, start the front action screw still keeping the barrel held up out of the barrel channel.

Once you get the front action screw started, go back to teh rear and tighten it until it is snug. Then go to the front again and tighten it to snug. As you do this allow the barrel to be pulled down into the barrel channel.

There is no need to really tighten the screws down tight. Just get them tight enough to hold teh receiver securely in the stock.

Make sure nothing pushes down on the barrel as the bedding compound is setting up. Make sure you use release agent as well on the barrel!!!

Once the stock has set up for 24 hours, pull the receiver screws and pull the barreled action out of the stock. Set the stock aside for another two days to allow it to cure fully.

After that, take a dremmel tool with a small ball cutter about 1/8" wide and cut out a groove in barrel support pad in the bottom of the barrel channel. Make this around 1/4" wide, depending on your barrel contour. If its a #4 or less cut this groove only 1/8 to 3/16 wide.

Then clean up the rest of the support pad. What we want is a strip on both sides of the barrel channel roughly 1" long and trimmed down so that you can just barely not see the pad from above when the barrel is in place.

Pull the tape off the bottom of the receiver and install the barreled action and tighten down to the recommended specs.

What you have just done is made a V-pad that not only will provide slight up pressure on the factory barrel which will help control inconsistant vibrations patterns but it also will give the barrel some side support as well which will help even more.

This is only done after testing with a floated barrel, you may not need to mess with this at all.

What Wildcat bullets are you trying?

Hope this helps some.

Good Shooting!!

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys. The rifle is a Tikka M695 stainless synthic 270 win. I'll check with my smith on price of recrown. The gun usually shoots good but the flyers are what keeps me from taking those long shots on game. I know the stock is a *** but I don't want to spend too much on this gun. Saving for one of your 270 Allen Mags, Kirby. Maby, someday, hopefully, if I can get it by the wife, etc. I emailed Richard, told him what my needs are, and we came up with a 130g fbhp non bonded bullet. They look great. Excellent guy to work with. Just wanted to tune up the gun a little before testing the new pills. The barrel is freefloated but I think the forend sometimes touches the barrel when field shooting. The steel rods, epoxied into the forarm should help with that.
Harv

 

[royinidaho]

Harv,

I'm just a little bit behind you in that I'm about to order some of the probably same wildcat bullets that you ordered. 277 140gr. Don't know if they're bonded or not, forgot to ask. Doesn't make much difference anyway. Not looking for terminal performance quite yet.

Depending on bullet bearing surface it should move out at about 3200 fps as does the Hornady 140 SPBT which is super accurate.

Would appreciate sharing experiences.

Am shooting a Mauser action and 27" 1-10 twist Lilja barrel.

Kirby has an AM in my price range now, but I'm skeer'd

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Fiftydriver]

Roy,

What do you mean your Skeer'd. The first time you rip a 140 gr pill down range at 3750 fps you will fall in love. I actually prefer the 169.5 gr pill at an honest 3400 fps. A .740 bullet at that velocity is almost like an ballistic sexual event /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif!!

Good Shooting, just give me the word and you will have your creaming 270. Did I mention I ordered the 1-8 tooling from Dan Lilja!!!

Good Shooting!!

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[Guest]

Kirby, what does it take to get one of your AM's into Canada? Are you done testing the 270 AM? What are we looking at for $?
Harv

 

[Fiftydriver]

Harv,

We would have to go through an exporter to get you a rifle. If your interested I can look into the details.

Drop me an e-mail at:

[email protected]

and I will get you some price information on the 270 Allen Mag.

I will be heading up to Canada here the first week in April to test the 257 and 270 Allen Mag out on some Corsican rams so I will report the results. Bullets tested will be the 156 gr ULD in 257 loaded to 3350 fps and the 169.5 gr ULD in 270 loaded to 3400 fps.

We are looking to take hopefully three rams with these two rounds so we should get lots of pics and data to report.

Good Shooting!!

Kirby Allen(50)

 

[royinidaho]

Kirby,

It ain't the rifle I'm skeer'd of......

It kind of the wanna, gotta, do I needa thing.

The price you quoted me last was right on the mark. Then a decent scope, dies etc and I'm shootin'

Just a bit non-committal at the moment....

Good luck on those rams......

 

[Mysticplayer]

Harv, to answer your question about importing a rifle, it is really quite simple. Dispite hating the C68 laws, it does create one positive thing. We are all considered 'dealers', at least from a personal importation point of view.

If you want a rifle from Fiftydriver, get the serial number and all data, register it with CFC, fill out a form from DFAIT, they will send you the Cdn govt approved copies in a couple of weeks, send that down to Fiftydriver, he fills out State Dept forms, wait for 3 to 4 weeks for approval, get approval, and he sends the rifle to you. You have it verified by a CFC verifier, entered into the database, you own a new rifle.

costs will depends on what people want to charge. Except for postage/courier, the Cdn side is all free. The State Dept forms are free to fill but companies charge something. If you have a gun built, you can work that out with Fiftydriver.

The time to get all the paperwork done is about the same as having a gun built, so start early and the paperwork might be done when the barrel is test fired.

Second option would be to get a reamer and cut a barrel up here. Doubt that will get Fiftydriver's approval but is a viable plan.

The dies and such can come up with the rifle. Just needs to be included as part of the export forms.

Hope this helps...
Jerry