wringing out the 700 vls

ok, this rifle is not brand new... i bought it new back in may? i think, but time has been really limited, so i haven't had a chance to really put it thru its paces...

anyway, the equipment list:

rem 700 vls in 308 (26" heavy barrel, blue, laminated stock). i bedded the rifle and floated the barrel. the base is a one-piece 20 moa ken farrel, also bedded. rings are by warne (lows) and the scope is a swift 6-24x50. the rifle is also sporting a tubb titanium firing pin.

i just wrapped up range work this morning w/ this rifle, doing load development, testing the scope, and evaluating the firing pin's accuracy.

the firing pin: the claim is that it makes your rifle more accurate, and reduces lock-time. the lock-time claim is why i decided to buy it. w/o sophisticated timing devices i have no way of proving if lock-time has been reduced. it sure feels like it has been, but i have no proof other than 'feel'.

----- as far as accuracy goes, i think the pin has helped a little here, too, but not much. the bad thing is, i suspect that this pin is responsible for flyers. before the pin went in, i was getting around .8-.9" for 5 shots at 200 yards. now i am getting around .5-.6" at 200 for 5 shots. i managed 2 groups today that went .3 - but i am also getting flyers now that will open some groups up to the 2" range. i need to do a little more chasing before i know for sure what is causing these flyers, but that is my theory.

the base: this thing is really heavy. far and away the heaviest base i have felt (and this includes badger and nightforce), and that is saying something. it also sits high enough on the rifle that my 50mm objective scope w/ paralax adj on the outside clears the barrel in low rings (and actually looks quite nice).

the rings: i really like warne rings. but they are quite heavy, so i don't put them on weight-sensitive rifles (read: big game hunting rifles). they do great on my varminters and walking varminters, though.

the scope: swift 6-24x50 ao. the resolution on it is pretty good, but usable magnification stops at 20x. beyond that the image is so blurred that it begins to give me a headache. i was able to resolve 257 caliber bullet holes at 200 yards - the 308 holes were pretty easy. the other rifle i had out today (25-06) was wearing a leupold vari x-2. it could resolve the 308 holes, but couldn't really spot the 257's (about what you'd expect w/ half the magnification).

----- the ao on the swift is useless. i was shooting at 200 yards, so i set it for 200 and expected to fine tune it a little to make it right... not the way it worked in practice. the scope was so blurry w/ all settings that it was useless. once i had it cranked to infinity, i was able to use it. the swift scope is holding zero nicely, and the turrets (1/4 moa) adjust pretty close to 1/4 moa.

the rifle itself is very accurate, and is doing quite well w/ varget powder. the groups stay small across the spectrum of charge weights i tested, with the velocity just going up w/ heavier charges. the only other powder i tested was rl-15, and it did pretty good, but the velocities weren't quite as uniform as the varget was, sooo i picked up an 8lb can of varget (matching lot, of course). (one of the groups i fired today had a sd of 4 - u-n-i-f-o-r-m.

battery was dead in the digicam, and i forgot to charge the spares, so no pics. if somebody really wants pics, i can post them, otherwise we'll go w/o and have a thread that loads a little faster.

i'm leaving bright and early in the morning for a dog shoot. will be back saturday morning sometime, so i'll have a more complete test of the optics in by then. i am actually not looking forward to doing a lot of shooting thru this scope... while doing development work, it was giving me a little eye-strain. i imagine that by the end of the first day of shooting i'll have 'scope-eye' and will really limit my time behind this rifle. hope not, but we'll see.

gotta go gear-up for dogs!

i went w/ the 168 hornady a-max.

when i first went to set this rifle up, i found it was a true 12 twist rifle. thinking (erroneously) that it wouldn't handle the 175's, i backed down to 168's, hoping i could get enough velocity to stay supersonic out to 1000 yards - overcoming the bc deficiency w/ pure velocity (as funny as that sounds when talking about a 308 win). as it turns out, this rifle will handle at least 180's, but by the time i found that out, i was halfway thru development, and didn't want to start over in the middle of 'dog season. at any rate, 1000 yards is probably not going to be possible as the rifle sits now. i just don't think the scope has the ability to see to 1000. will find out soon.

so, 168 a-max's it is, and they are shooting real nice. don't think there's any need to test matchkings out. my next range day i'm going to set the chrony up at 100 yards to find out what the bc actually is.