It's completely stock, so I get ZERO credit for it. I've done nothing to it except dial the trigger down to ~18 ounces, add a LimbSaver DeResonator (which I find helps about every rifle I've put it on) and mount a Mueller 8.5-25×50 Eraticator. But it doesn't seem to know how to miss.
I broke it in with Hornady factory ammo at a public range and, once I thought it was ready for testing, I moved to a 200-yard lane. I discovered my spotting scope couldn't read 20-caliber holes in a plain paper target from that distance so I just kept shooting without adjusting. When the RSO called "Three minutes remaining in this relay", I dumped my last four 32-grain Noslers down range at the same bulls-eye.
So imagine my surprise when got to the target and discovered those four little holes were in a tight little group, like they were standing on top of each other, all touching. The target had a 1" grid on it so I knew immediately that that 4-shot string was well under 1". In fact, it measured 11/16ths, which works out to about .35 MOA. I nearly swallowed my tongue.
When the farmers started cutting hay late this summer, I went out on a couple of afternoons on whistle pig safari. Shooting 32 grain factory loads, I took five hogs with eight shots. Okay, I'm out of practice, and one or two of the "misses" might have been crawl-offs, but the blue ribbon winner was a 320-yard, laser ranged shot ...through the brain bucket. And, yes, it was a called head shot. I squeezed the trigger and he stood on his face and put up the flag. I was in awe.
Obviously, neither I nor this rifle had any quibble with Hornady factory ammo, particularly since it's supposed to be impossible to match factory performance ...but I had to try. I can never pass on a challenge ...or free beer. And especially because I've been loading for rifle all of about three months now, I'm not just too stupid to know what it is I can't do, I'm too stupid to know what it is I shouldn't even try.
At any rate, self-sufficiency in general is a good thing, and you never know when being able to make your own bullets just might be a career-enhancing move, so over the last year or so I've been buying all the stuff a reloader needs, one piece at a time. For the last couple of months, I've been collecting reloading data and making sure I had the right powder and bullets and whatnot. A couple of weeks ago I loaded my first batch of bullets.
They were tungsten-coated (by me), 32-grain Noslers. For no other reason than it has a reputation for producing some very high velocities (and I wanted all of that I could get), I decided on BL-C(2) powder. BL-C(2) doesn't have the greatest reputation for accuracy but I was banking on my miracle rifle being able to make the best of any propellant (maybe even that non-dairy coffee creamer stuff).
I shot the first hand-loaded rounds a couple of weekends ago but, frankly, I stopped shooting because the chronograph results mystified me. I crossed 4200 fps with just a 30.2 grain load, which put me less than 25 fps from the unassailable Hornady factory MV of 4225 fps and I was still a full half a grain below the published max load! Not only that but the tungsten-coated bullet should have been docking me 50 fps or so, so presumably I already could have been shooting naked bullets with the same charge and besting Hornady by 25 fps.
The spent casings weren't showing any signs of excessive pressure but it just didn't suit me that they were showing that much speed with no rational explanation. Plus, I wasn't comfortable with the primer seating depth I was using, which I was concerned was interfering with my ability to read pressure signs (a problem I since have corrected). So I switched to working on another gun for a while. The speeds it showed were within 10-15 fps of what I was expecting so today I went back to the range with the .204.
I thought to chrono a Hornady factory load first to see how it measured up -- that should tell me whether my chrono was flat busted or maybe just schizo -- but I decided I'd better shoot a few tungsten-coated hand loads first to condition the barrel. Like a lot of the WS2 crowd, I run a patch wet with Lock-Ease graphite through the barrel after cleaning to accelerate the re-conditioning process. And I didn't want to shoot a naked bullet through the graphite for fear it would leave the barrel less prepared for the tungsten-coated stuff.
So I started with 30.4 grains, 3/10ths below the published max. 10 feet from the muzzle, as always, it clocked 4041 fps. Hey, now that's more like it. Dunno if there was something wrong with the chrono setup that day my .204s were "too fast to be true" or what but this is more realistic.
The SD and ES of that first string of five left me shaking my head but, hey, I'm a reloading rookie. Hopefully they'll get better. And from the second string on, they did.
By now you're probably either snoozing or asking, what's all this got to do with reloading? Just this.
I fired seven strings of five rounds each at 100 yards, starting at 30.4 grains of BL-C(2), each string with 0.10 grains more than the previous. Average group size for all seven strings was .896". The third group included a flyer -- the only one in seven strings -- that expanded that group from 15/32nds to 1 1/2". Excluding that single flyer (hey, I'm a rookie, don't I get a Mulligan?), average size for all seven groups would shrink to .609". Dunno 'bout you but them sounds like varmint gun numbers to me.
Excluding that single flier, the largest pattern in the seven groups was 1 1/8th inch, and that was the first string, which included the cold bore shot. The group at 31 grains -- 0.3 grains over the max -- was 5/8ths of an inch. The best group was at 30.6 grains. Average MV for that string was 3082 fps. The group measured 3/8ths of an inch. That's 0.375 MOA, which is pretty close to the 4-shot .34 MOA I'd got at 200 yards with factory ammo.
A Holy sheep-shirt moment in the making
Five rounds at 100 yards in 3/8ths of an inch
I got my first hint of excess pressure -- very slight cratering -- at 30.9 grains, 0.2 grains over "max". The cratering was pretty pronounced at 31 grains, which made me happy that that was my hottest load.
The cratered primer from a 31.0 grain load
Those are great numbers but I want to do better. I'm ~55 fps below the factory claims @max so I know there has to be more speed out there ...somewhere and I want it!
[Unabashed bragging]But any way you look at it, this is one helluva rifle. [/Unabashed bragging] It's like it just doesn't know how to miss.
Load data:
Brass: Twice fired Hornady, full length resized
Bullet: WS2-coated 32-grain Nosler
Primer: Federal match small rifle
COL: 2.34" (generous head space, limited by magazine length)
Powder: BL-C(2)
My max load: 31.0 (WS2-coated bullet)
My max MV: 4174 fps
Published max load: 30.7 (naked bullet)
Accuracy nodes: 30.2 gr, 31.0 gr