The rifle came with 100 pcs of R-P once-fired brass, un-prepped and with an unknown primer, probably the WSR with its thin cup. I just wanted to load a bunch of cases up with suitable powders and bullets to get the fired brass in order to properly prep it and prime it with Remington 7-1/2's; my standard primer for this case. So this initial range outing was mostly "poking about" to find a baseline to proceed from further.
Here's the finished rifle on the bench during range testing this week:
And my super-sophisticated (not!) range setup in the boonies:
After zeroing, the first group shot with the Nosler 40gr Varmageddon Tipped and A2200 was encouraging, but shows more work is in order. No where near BR-quality grouping, but shows I may be on the right path:
A look downrange at my 'private outback range':
The targets are self-explanatory, but this one below was shot with my load for my CZ 527 221FB, set up for magazine feeding. Unfortunately, it was shot with RL-7, which right now is as scarce as chicken lips. With a bit of dinking about with seating depth and maybe tweak the charge, it may be 'the one' for the Cooper.....we'll see:
What looks to be "the load" using A2200, but also needs tweaking with powder weight and seating depth. I'll load the next tests in properly prepared R-P brass and the primer of choice (7-1/2), then when the load is found, I'll load up 200 rounds in Lapua and Norma/Nosler cases to really see the potential of the little rifle:
Lots more work to do before rat season rolls around in a couple more months, but the rifle looks promising. A parting shot on the bench....not much need for barrel cooling, as like the sweet 20VT, not much powder is burned so a guy can really have fun in a hot rat patch.
Still got a long way to go, but as soon as the brass is out of the tumbler, it's back to the bench in the quest for "The Load". Skippy is still sleeping, but little does he know that there's a new sheriff in town for when he wakes up.
Bill K 
