I'm going to put the report for all of these rifles in one thread. With the tags, any individual rifle's record can be found here.

I think I'll start with the order in which I shot them, which means the 8mm-08 is first.

I set the target at 40 yards for zeroing the scope(s) on all the rifles that needed zeroing. Since I was zeroing the 8mm-08, I decided to use the two Hornady 125s to get zeroed. Here's the picture:


You can see the two annotated "125 Horn" holes.

The first shot was tough to extract and the primer was seriously flattened. (2988 f/s)

The second shot I had to beat the bolt (charging handle) open and the primer pocket was 'blown'. (3069 f/s) Hmm... ("Beating" the bolt open is not as big a deal on an AR as it is on a turn-bolt action because the charging handle doesn't have the leverage - by a long shot - that a rotating bolt handle has.) That was all of the 125s, so there was no consideration of shooting another.

I loaded a 136-grain ANVB. Didn't even hit the paper. (3012 f/s) Hmm... Difficult extraction and flattened primer.

Shot another. Didn't hit the paper - 18" wide and 30" high - at 40 yd. (3041 f/s). Grr... No more of those.

Loaded the ones I was really interested in; the Speer 200-grain Hot-Cor. Lowest charge of 48.5 grains of Reloder-17. QuickLOAD predicted muzzle velocity of 2566 f/s. You can see the point of impact at 40 yd. It's between the two 125-grain bullet holes. MV = 2406 f/s, BUT... flattened primer and tough extraction.

Upon very close examination of the last three cases I noticed a VERY slight indication of constriction at the case mouth; about a sixteenth of an inch. The case mouth was getting jammed into the lands. :angry: When cutting the chamber, and when setting headspace, I dropped a case into the chamber. PLENTY of room. When testing the fit of reloaded ammo, it was necessary to chamber a round using the AR's action. In other words, the bolt is driven forward by the recoil spring. There is no "feel" to it like you get with a bolt action bolt-fed round. That tiny little bit of jamming wasn't detectable. I'll have to lengthen the neck of the chamber by about 0.100-ish. Grr.... Shooting THAT rifle was over for the day.

Next up was the new Riedl in .17 Remington. http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18545
I was looking forward to shooting this rifle. First order of business was to get the scope bore-sighted. Hmm... It was about 20" high. I had to use up ALL of the elevation in the scope to bring it down to about 3" high at 40 yd. :frown It was about 3" right. I had to use up ALL of the windage to get it centered - almost. :frown. Since I was "close" to the point of aim, I decided to shoot it to see what it could do and get some MVs. Here's what those five shots looked like:


Note a couple of things:
1) Nothing to write home about as far as group size goes AT 40 YARDS.
2) Notice the "schmutz" near every hole. That's not paper tear or shadow, that's some kind of carbon deposit. ???
3) Notice the KEY-HOLES of shot numbers 1 and 3! AT 40 YARDS from a bullet doing on average 4045 f/s! The 'schmutz' worries me and the key-holing REALLY worries me. One explanation is that the rifling is so shallow or WORN that the bullets are "stripping" through it. That's bad.

There are some other "issues" with the Riedl.
1) If you don't throw the kocking lever ALL the way forward, the action doesn't kock even though you can chamber a round. The first shot I almost broke my finger trying to squeeze the trigger when it was loaded, but not kocked.
2) The spent case is not ejected, it is extracted. Therefore, you have to stick your finger in under the ocular bell of the 'scope to get your fingernail on the rim to remove the cartridge.
3) When removing the cartridge with your fingernail, the rear of the cartridge is pushed down into the hollow rearward of the block and catches on the rear of the action. You have to raise the block just a leetle bit in order to get the head over the hollow, but not so much that you bind the case in the chamber.
Instead of using your finger to extract the bullet, you can tip the muzzle up and let the case fall out, trying to hold the rifle and catch the falling case.

Not real happy with that rifle right now.

The end of shooting that rifle for today.:frown

Next rifle, the .358 Steyr. (Read this thread http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18475&page=2 and particularly post number 15.)

I was quite optimistic about shooting this rifle. I had loaded some Speer 220-grain Flat Nosed bullets ahead of 60.6 grains of Accurate 4064. First shot went fine. (2747 f/s - QL predicted: 2706 f/s.) Rotated bolt and extracted case. No case came out. COME ON! Fine. Close bolt and try to grab case again. No soap. FINE. I brought a cleaning rod for just such an occurrence. With the rifle in the Lead Sled I went to the muzzle ans inserted the cleaning rod. I had to fiddle it past the MagnetoSpeed and wasn't looking at the breech. The rod stopped. I slid it back and forth a couple of times 'knocking' it into the case head. Something didn't sound right. I looked at the breech. The bolt was open and the head of the case was in the bolt. It had been all along. There had been complete head separation. (Did you guys down in Australia feel it. According to the experts, the world should have ended or at least myself and everyone else at the rifle range should have been killed.) A few swear words were employed at this point. Try as I might, I couldn't extract the rest of the case. Done shooting that rifle for the day. Could very well be forever. There is a small chance that that particular piece of brass was ready to separate from all of the earlier "issues" with this rifle. It certainly wasn't virgin brass. I have to think about it. I MIGHT try ONE MORE TIME with this rifle, or I might just take a hammer to it. I have to sleep on it.

Next rifle.

The next rifle was the .17 Predator. Ahhh... Finally. Something that WORKED! I had been swapping 'scopes around and the Predator had a different 'scope on it from when I had shot it last, so I needed to get it sighted in. Went just like it is supposed to! Thank Goodness! I was beginning to feel snake-bit! Got it "on target" at 40 and produced these MVs - 4135, 4177, and 4128. I was smilin' Jack!

The Anschutz Model 54 .22 Hornet was one of the rifles I was playing musical 'scopes with, so it needed to be sigted in as well. I had brought 4 different cartridges for the Hornet:
1) Hornady 35-grain factory ammo,
2) My cast bullet reloads,
3) My reloads of some HPs sakorick sent me, and
4) Some 40-grain Prvi Partizan factory ammo.

I started with the Hornady factory ammo because it shot so well. MVs were 3024, 3024, and 3013 f/s. Here's what they looked like at 40 yd.


That was it for shooting at 40 yd. I moved the target to 100.

There was no reason to shoot anything but the Anschutz and the Predator. So I 'teed' the Anschutz up and fired 6 rounds. 3006, 3026, 3004, 3008, 3004, and 3021. For an average for the 10 shots of 3014 f/s and a standard deviation of only ~9 f/s.


Nothing to 'write home about', but not bad. I have no "explanations" for the spread. It simply is what it is.

I got the rest (5) of the HPs out. Sheesh. Here's the "good" news: 3166, 3219, 3238, 3240, 3270, 3205, 3291, 3211, and 3302 for an average of 3238 f/s and a standard deviation of ~44 f/s. Here's the "group":


Even without the "high flier" that's a pathetic "group". Certainly more of a pattern. More 'reloaded' humility coming. The cast bullets.

Their velocities were: 1431, 1440, 1224, 1375, and 1416 for an average of 1377 f/s with a standard deviation of ~89 f/s. Here's what they looked like:


And that's only three of the the five shots. The other two were lower AND LOWER on the target. I hate cast bullets.

Last for the Hornet were the as-yet-untried PPU factory 40-grainers. Here's their 5-shot (and one called flier), group at 100:


The MVs were: 2619, 2631, 2646, 2641, 2617, and 2574 for an average of 2621 f/s with a standard deviation of 26 f/s. The one flier - number 6 - is a 'called' flier. The Anschutz has a set trigger and I set the trigger then got distracted. When I came back to shooting I couldn't remember if I had set the trigger or not. I raised my head to 'think about it' and set the hair trigger off. I'm surprised it even hit paper. It wouldn't have if it hadn't been in the Lead Sled. Number 5 is just "off". No explanation.

I saved the Predator for last. I had a couple of rounds of different loads (the previous "fast" stuff) that I wanted to shoot separately. Then I started shooting the new loads of 19.9 grains of I4227. After I fired the first three of the "new" stuff, I had to break to let people go down range. By the time that was over, the afternoon wind had come up. Here are the two "hot shots" and the first three of the "rest" of them.


The "hot" ones were 4397 and 4325. The other three in this picture are 4128, 4125, and 4122. (Not bad spread, huh!) I shot the rest of the Predator ammo, and I thought I took a picture of it, but apparently not. I have the targets, so I'll take that picture tomorrow and post it. As I said, the wind had picked up, and the group spread out to about 2" wide and about 1" high. The overall average MV for the I4227 load was 4184 f/s with a standard deviation of ~55 f/s. I'm kinda likin' that load. I might have to 'fiddle' with it a bit.

The last picture tomorrow.

Paul

PS - The MagnetoSpeed didn't miss a SINGLE SHOT!

Paul

PPS - None of the Predator shots were taken from the Lead Sled. All were taken off the bipod only.

Paul

All that with the added salt of having to pay to use the range!

You got some work to do, mind you the chamber on the 808 was a 'three stage affair'.

Reidel....hmmmm time for viht N133.

Pred and hornet save the day, sort of...

AS promised, here's the picture of the larger 11-shot final group.


I appreciate that it doesn't look particularly good for 100 yd, but the wind really was picking up as the shot string progressed, and possibly, the barrel was heating too. This was 16 shots with no waiting for cooling in between. Because of the earlier shots that were going right where I was aiming them and because I watched this group 'walk' to the right with the wind and maybe heating, I'm "OK" with this. I'm confident that at least the first 5 to 10 shots will be pretty close to where I aim them. Also, I'm not very experienced with I4227 powder. If it is a 'dirty' powder, it has been my experience that the .172" bore tends to lose precision as it gets dirty.

Paul

PS - Oh yeah, the vertical spread on the cast bullets was 20.5". :frown did I mention that I hate cast bullets.

Paul

I had a look at the Riedl barrel, and I can see rifling of course. It appears to me to me VERY shallow, but then the rifling on 'regular' .17s is pretty darn shallow. Another thought occurred to me; maybe the barrel bore diameter is a bit 'large'. Say .173 or .174. I'm going to have to slug the bore I think.

Paul

That was a rough way to spend a day at the range. Too bad about the Steyrerer. I know the troubles you've had with that one.

I know how frustrating load development can be. I went through a good bit of hair pulling punctuated by colourful language with the 26-06 recently.

One suggestion old friend? Get rid of that dadgum bipod!!! You know the problems I've had with them. Crossed stick are the only way to go.

RJ

Thanks for the sympathy, RJ.

A lot of my problems were 'self-inflicted'. To wit:

I'm thinking/hoping that the Steyr problem was "old" brass. I'm gonna load some virgin brass up and give it one more go. BUT... if that is "unproductive", I swear I'm done with this thing! I HATE giving up on anything, but sometimes it's just out of one's control.

joe_bloggs had a suggestion on the Riedl problems: Might have been snagging the MagnetoSpeed (MS) just enough to "wobble" the bullets. Also might account for that really weird schmutz associated with every hole. I'm going to take some shots without the MS attached.

Looking back over my reloading records I see that the powder that produced those amazing (for me anyway) groups with the Predator http://thehunterslife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18184 was I3031, and the charge for the best group was 26.0 grains. I should have used that load. I'm not unhappy with what the Predator did, but using the I3031 would have been wiser. I just have A LOT of I4227 on hand, and not a lot of I3031.

The AR was also "operator error". Just goes to show that no matter how many times a HEADSPACE gauge fits, one should always cast a newly cut chamber to get measurements on ALL of the dimensions. The good news of course is that the fix is almost trivial. (However, considerable uncertainty remains about what the !@#$%^&* is up with the ANVBs!)

I'm probably through with messing around with cast bullets. I have NEVER gotten them to shoot straight in ANY rifle I have tried them in, and that has been AT LEAST 10 different rifles in 10 different cartridges. I hate them.

The Anschutz is just 'nice'. Great factory ammo available. (But I have to admit that I just don't like to pay for ammo.) Nice rifle. I'd like to get after "gophers" with it. Maybe I'll have a chance to do that some time. In the mean time, I'll go looking for snowshoe hares and foxes.

So, while it was frustrating, it's always more frustrating when the causes remain unknown and there is no idea about how to determine the cause.
At least for the 8mm-08 the 'fix' is obvious.
The Reidl question is resolved trivially by removing the MS AND by either 'fiddling' with the scope/mount or replacing it/them.
The .358 Steyr gets ONE more 'shot'.
The Hornet is 'fine' just the way it is, as is the Predator, but I will be working on the I3031 load for it.

Paul

Here's a picture of the AR-10 8mm-08 cases showing the "crimping". The 16th of an inch was a good guess as they turn out to be ~65 thousandths.



The crimp is about 0.010". Neck diameter = 0.358"; "crimp" = 0.348".

Unfired cases are 2.003" to 2.010" long. Fired cases are 2.024" to 2.040" long. I am quite certain that ALL of the stretching occurred at the rear (head) of the cartridge.

Paul

And just for completeness, the other end:





Unfired cartridge head diameters were a consistent 0.468". The head diameter of the above cases was 0.479" for the four without head separation crack, and 0.480" for the one with the blown primer and "incipient" head separation.

Paul

Come to think of it, the ground did hake here yesterday, but I attributed it to a large over-burden shot at work. It had to have been the fact you had a case head separation.

Those are some serious pressure signs on those primers!!! Doesn't help that the chamber is a mite short. Like you said, ream it out another 6/10's or so and try again.

Too bad my deck is so far away.



The old pick-in-nick table has been "repaired" and is "rock solid" now . . . . . and  . . . . . . . the range time is free.

RJ

QuoteToo bad my deck is so far away.

AMEN to that brother!

Paul

That's a rough day at the range. I would have to resist the temptation to wrap one of them around a tree. I'm disappointed in the Riedl for you.

Thanks for the sympathy, HB. I have calmed down a bit and after talking with j0e_bl0ggs, I THINK the tumbling problem is probably due to very lightly skimming the MagnetoSpeed. I'll test that today by simply firing without the MS attached. That should clarify that matter one way or the other.

The scope issue is probably simply resolved by replacing the mount. It might be a "20-minute mount" (20 minutes of an angle), used for long-range shooting.  That's about how much too high it was. Although I've never heard of anyone shooting a .17 Rem at a range that needed 20 minutes of elevation at the receiver because that's usually for ranges that start at 800 and go up. The Burris mount has windage adjustment in the base for both front and rear rings, so that is trivially resolved.

"Unresolvable" issues are:
1) Poor design for cartridge removal. Extraction only, no ejection, and therefore it is difficult to get a cartridge or spent case out of the action beneath the scope ocular.
2) The requirement to push cocking lever past where a cartridge can be inserted in the chamber in order to ensure that the action is kocked. In other words, if you don't push the kocking lever all the way to its forward-most stop, you can load a cartridge and close the action and still not have the action kocked.

The above are fundamental design flaws in my opinion. They're not "deal killers" however, because no one buys a single shot, falling block hunting rifle with "quick back-up shots" in mind. In this rifle's case, there's certainly no such thing as a "quick backup shot". (And since the company is no longer in business, "deal killer" is a moot point.) Once you acknowledge the kocking lever idiosyncrasy it's not a 'challenge' to remember to do that.

These are just more reasons I have to respect today's firearms manufacturers. I may dislike (to put it mildly) their egregious marketing tactics, but putting a firearm - especially a repeater of any sort -  together suitable for commercial sale, is a BIG DEAL. I have nothing but respect for all of those that are capable of doing that and making a commercial success of it.

I'll get this all sorted out. With the possible exception of the .358 Steyr. That one is beginning to be a real problem. :frown

Paul

I have wrestled and wrestled with what to make the AR-10 into other than .308 Win/7.62 NATO. I thought I had settled on 8mm-08, but after crunching numbers all day, I am once again leaning steeply toward the 8x284 Win. Having decided to build the gun as a non-semi-auto/non-gas-operated rifle, 'feeding' is not quite the issue that it is for semi-auto operation. The big limiting factor is the blasted magazine length. Cartridge cannot be longer than 2.8".

I'm seriously considering the 8x57 cartridge. (One reason is there is no chambering necessary if I use a milsurp take-off.) Of course the 2.8" COAL means the bullet gets seated 'deeply' in the 57 mm case. But... with the 6mm longer case, (.308 Win/7.62 NATO is 51mm), I can actually get more powder in the x57 case even after 'deep' seating. There's a little to be gained there. However, the .284 Win case is both shorter AND has greater capacity than the 8x57. The 8x284 has a case capacity of 67.0 grains and the 8x57 62.5 grains. The 8x57 case is 2.244" long (57mm ), and the .284 Win case is 2.165" long (55mm). It's a heckuva lot easier to get 8x57 brass than it is .284 Win brass, even when I can use 6.5x284 brass as well.

I have a barrel already chambered in 8x284 and fit to the AR-10 from when I first started this fiasco - I mean 'adventure' - so I'm making some ammo as we speak. Actually, I'm considering using the thing as a single-shot, meaning no feeding from the mag which in turn means I could use a LONGER COAL. I think I'll 'fiddle' with that and see how realistically practical that is.


News at 11.

Paul

How about not machining the magwell to begin with?

The magwell is pre-machined in an 80% receiver. The only things that need to be machined are the through holes and the Fire Control Cavity. "They" sell single shot 80% receivers that simply don't have magwells. https://www.google.com/search?q=80%25+single+shot+receiver&espv=2&biw=1536&bih=718&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CCkQsARqFQoTCOK3mqnxrscCFc6ZiAodmxsHfQ Of course since there is less metal needed for the receiver AND you don't have to mill the nonexistent magwell, the "single shot" versions COST A LOT MORE! THAT'S REALLY ANNOYING.

Paul