kinetic prattle

At the request of a friend I reposted this from a post I made in 2014 on a forum we used. It was posted over several weeks of nickel and diming the project so I have edited it to remove all the extraneous commentary from the forum:

This project is way over-due but I am gone a lot and I have to work on things every few months as I can. I chose to call this project the Green Beanie (they will understand why) in tribute to the two men who have made it possible. Matt is a local retired guy who has a gunsmith shop up the road and gives me free run of the place to do things I don't have tools for at home. Mike is a friend, brother in arms, and an artist with metal: more to follow on that when I post the complete project. I don't get to see him as freely as I would like but he has been inspirational as a man and artisan. My wife bought me a Boyd’s Tacticool stock for my rimfire trainer an Christmas or two back. I really like the stock and bought one for this SML. The more I shoot the Tacticool the more I realize it is not quite right for me. The grip is too much and could stand some more taper from tang to wrist. The forearm is beaver-tailed and too fat for a psuedo-sporter. The Tacticool barrel channel is for a Varmint/Sendero channel and as a result left a unsightly gap around my barrel. I used a modified Douglas 5A contour on this gun so I taped the barrel and full-length bedded the gun so that when the tape was removed I had .040" of float from the recoil lug forward. To reduce the forearm I used a plane and cut the beavertail down parallel to the top edge of the forearm and all hard edges were radiused. Using the McMillan ADJ GameScout I am smitten with, I sketched the reduction in the stock tang/wrist area and began to work it down with a rasp (not a great tool for laminate as it is very "chippy"). I changed over to a cabinet maker file and orbital sander. The comb is too low to allow for a good cheek-weld using a 20MOA off-set base and low Night Force rings so I molded, cut-down, and sanded a cheek-piece from Multi-Cam Kydex with an American flag to keep in tradition with the rifle's theme. Once I had it close to completion I mounted it on the stock and drilled the hardware holes though the Kydex and into the stock. I am not anywhere near done but it was time to take a coffee break and eat second breakfast. I still need to clean up the bedding as well as epoxy in the cheek-piece bushings, QD Push-button inserts, and bi-pod m1913 rail bushings. When all the prep-work is done I will primer the stock, cut the stencils, and paint the entire stock to match the cheek-piece. Was this the easiest way to get what I wanted? Absolutely not. Ordering another GameScout would have been much easier but some of us are diseased. Tacticool stripped of textured black paint, drilled for hardware, bedded, and ready for shaping (note: you can see where the stock has cross-pins and you can't see it but at the bottom of the pistol-grip there is another plug where they epoxy a pin into the grip just like you should in wood vertical grip stock which checked off one item from my to-do list):

The bedding before clean up (the overflow was allowed so I had proud material to allow for the reshaping of the grip and to allow for a better fit of the ejection port cutout in the stock as it left a lot to be desired). The stock was ordered as an ADL since they don't offer a 40-X inlet and they only do a 700ML in a thumbhole so the mag box cutout was filled with cutdown carbon arrows (which I have broken while stump shooting with my longbow) and everything epoxied in place:

Rough sketch of grip reduction to occur and holes for cheeck-piece hardware (the comb on the Tacticool is too low for a 20MOA base with low NF rings):

Kydex cheek-piece (only .080" thick so as not to remove eye far from center-line of comb):

Tacticool in relation to GameScout which it is going to resemble soon:

You can see little pock marks where the trigger pin holes were filled to prevent a mechanical lock. They are ugly so I cut them out. Honestly, I don't know that it is necessary but it looks better. Since I didn't have Matt’s mill I used my drill press with drill press vise and a router bit. I line up where I want the recesses and use the depth stop on the press to make as uniform a cut as possible. I make a small cut, again and again, to the desired depth so that the bit doesn't walk:

I mentioned I wrapped the barrel with tape and full length bedded it to fill the barrel channel which was a gross mismatch for my contour. You can keep good tight wraps on the barrel shank and straight taper but the radius just forward of the breech gets little wrinkles and there are fine lines where the wraps of tape meet along the length of the barrel. So I put two wraps of tape the entire length of the barrel and took a strip of 150 grit aluminum oxide cloth, tightened the action down and cut back the barrel channel bedding just enough to remove blemishes then prepped it for paint. I also removed the proud bedding material along the top stock line where the ejection port cutout formerly was a poor fit:

Grip Reduction complete and blended with the angle of the tang:

I decided not to dish out the "thumb flute" (if you will but it is not a flute in the traditional sense but it is not the wrist either) as it looks awfully thin once the grip/wrist reduction was finished. Thumb-holes are thinner I believe but they remind me of an H-brace in a fence and I think they probably distribute the recoil force better. Regardless, I stopped once it felt good enough to quit.

I also epoxied in the brass bushings for the cheek-piece hardware. I use Loc-Tite 5-minute epoxy for things like this. They use a 10x32 machine screw and are available through Brownells:

A few weeks back I received my breech plug lapping tool. Today, while I was waiting on some epoxy to set, I worked the BP shoulder over. I used three different cameras trying to get a good picture. This is the best I got for my efforts and shows an evenly polished shoulder:

I off-set it to the upper portion of the stock because if you don't the gun will tend to tip away from you when slung because the barreled action and optic make them top heavy:

I learned that the hard way when I ordered them pre-installed on the McMillan:

The forward insert is 13" ahead of the trigger-guard and lines up with where the insert in the M1913 rail on bottom goes for the bi-pod mount:

It's time to paint the stock on the Green Beanie. I masked the bedding, recoil pad, and plugged the threaded inserts for the cheek-piece so we don't get paint anywhere I don't want it. I then used a paint and primer color that is a grey/tan/slate color with a slight pink hue. It is a good base color for a Multi-Cam type pattern:

While it is drying I took a piece of wax paper and taped it so that the taped over lapped and drew my stencils:

Once the primer/paint combo dried I faded a flat tan into it in patches. I don't know that you can tell in the picture:

To create light spots I lay in the decals and then paint over them in a dark brown as they should be grouped together:

The blue decals will be dark chocolate colored and are paired with the grey/tan color from the picture above. I just did the reveal on the match rifle skins and they are sitting next to the Green Beanie stock. My dark brown paint wasn't playing nice with the plastic of the skins so I am going to have to go back and add it in but the Green Beanie should finish up similar to those skins.

I am going to let the brown dry overnight and tomorrow I will do the last two coats. To get the mid fade you need a light loam green and a red brown color. The goal is about a 50-50 coverage running in stripes that have some fade to them. I run them at a diagonal so that when I come back for the next coat I can run the other direction (criss-cross) to achieve a non-polarizing effect:

Now that we have a micro detail in light grey/tan and dark brown and macro detail in loam green and red brown we need larger pattern stencils. Macro detail in place over mid fade:

And final fade is tan, olive drab green, and another weird but slightly brighter loam green:

All decals removed you have something that looks similar to Multi-Cam. It just needs to sit in the garage a while to ensure that the paint is completely dry and tack free:

The Green Beanie is finished. Quick Re-Cap: Remington 700ML with Hunter Bolt Nose Kit PT&G .187" stainless lug McGowen CM .442/.451", 1-24″ twist barrel in a modified Douglas 5A contour crowned at 23", threaded for a muzzle-break Trigger is blueprinted factory and adjusted to 2.25# All CM parts are finished in Graphite Black Cerakote Scope base is Murphy Ti 10 MOA (Devcon bedded, screws siliconed and torqued to 25 in*lbs) Boyd's Tacticool (modified and pillar/glass bedded)

Quick load test shows a preference for 300gn bullet:

Every year new optical companies pop up and guys buy from them. Nobody would ever grow to be a great company without support from shooters but a lot of companies make really mediocre stuff. Just because a company is little known does not mean that they do not, or cannot, make good scopes though. Compared to large companies like Leupold, Nikon, Nightforce, etc SWFA is what I would call a little guy. SWFA has been around for a number of years but I would guess most shooters and hunters have not heard of them. They are primarily a a distributor of other companies’ wares but they also have their own line of optics that are called the Super Sniper (affectionately know by their fans as Super Chicken due to the logo) that will hang with any scope out there.

Every year on Black Friday SWFA runs a sale where at a minimum they mark down their optics. Their fixed power scopes are always the best deal and can be bundled with rings, sunshade, and a bubble level at no cost. The variables and HD variables don’t have the option to bundle but you do save some money on them. This past fall I came into possession of one of each of the following through purchase or loan from someone else who took advantage of the Black Friday sale: 6x42mm with Mil-Quad reticle, 3-15x42mm FFP with Mil-Quad, and 5-20x50mm HD FFP with Mil-Quad. Admittedly, all three are very different but all are good to very good buys. After having several months of these scopes sitting around because my life is super busy, I got out and tested all three.

Top to bottom: SS 6x42mm MQ, SS 3-15x42mm FFP MQ, SS 5-20x50mm HD FFP MQ

Test Platform:

All of the optics were tested using one of my match rifles because nothing replaces a live fire: bullets don’t lie! This rifle is a Remington 700 action with Benchmark HV barrel that is chambered in .308 Win Palma 95 with a 1-10″ twist. The stock is a Manners Composite Stocks T6A with the Mini-Chassis System which is remarkably stable and repeatable. This rifle is extremely accurate and precise so is a great platform for testing rifle sights. All shooting was done an Atlas bipod and Red Tac 1/2-Pint rear bag. All ammunition was loaded with 175gn Sierra Match King bullets. 

What really matters:

My opinion of the purpose of and requirements for a rifle sight differ from some folks. A rifle scope is a rifle sight first and foremost and an optical instrument second. I care far more about mechanical soundness than I do brilliant optics. If I need to look at something with optics that allow me to discern fine detail I will use an binocular or spotting scope; both are exactly the right place to spend your money on a great glass. Rifle scopes are not for viewing things, they are for shooting things and it is entirely possible to shoot with 1MoA precision using iron sights at 1000yds so I don’t buy that I need super high definition glass in my rifle sight. I just need to be able to resolve enough detail to shoot well and where that usually requires a better set of lenses and engineering is with high magnification. That does not particularly concern me because I rarely shoot with anything over 12x even at  1000yds. I am not saying you do not want or need good glass in a rifle scope but it is not the most important thing by a long shot. On to what counts.

As stated, I am a mechanical reliability, precision, and accuracy type guy. The first thing I will do after zeroing a new rifle sight is shoot a “Tall Target Test” to calibrate the accuracy of my adjustments and to test the ability of the system to return to zero. If a sight cannot return to zero I will not use it. I prefer to use rifle sights that have adjustments that are within 2% of perfect but any decent ballistic calculator will allow for a correction factor.

I shoot these tests a few ways: a group at every 1MRAD, a group at every 5MRAD, or a single group at 15MRAD. If in MoA I would do every 5MoA, every 10MoA, or a single group at 30MoA. I start at my zero shoot two, dial up and shoot, then dial back to zero and shoot again. I had three scopes to test so I elected to shoot every 5MRAD.

The rifle range at my gun club is spot on at every distance beyond 100yds but when they rebuilt the berms a couple of years ago the dropped the berm at 100yds on center and the target boards at 93yds. All of these scopes that I have on hand are MRAD so each milliradian is equal to 3.348″ instead of the 3.600″ it would be equal to at 100yds.

In all three scopes the most error showed up in the first 5MRAD and decreased as I dialed out which I guess is what you want if you have to deal with error. The error is easily corrected for with your ballistic app and equally important is that all three scopes returned to zero although with the two standard scopes each had a round out of group when shooting return to zero. It always possible it was my fault but it looks like the same precision all the way up the tall target with those two scopes. I used a military surplus M118LR for the first two scopes and when I got the HD in my hands a couple of weeks later I was using my handloads for an upcoming match. In sum, I have no reservations about using any of these scopes based on this test.

Features common to all:

The tube length on all three scopes is between 5.75 and 6 inches so you can set up your rings to span nearly the entire tube for support but will have enough rail that you can move the scope fore or aft by .5 to 75 inches to get eye-relief properly positioned. Each has a minimum of 3.5″ of eye-relief (6x42mm) to a maximum of 4.2″ (3-15x42mm) which is an important consideration if using them on a heavily recoiling rifle.  Eye relief is decent but is fairly critical; that is to say the “eyebox” is a little tight if you like the modern lingo that dumbs it down. The scope tube diameter for all is 30mm and each scope has between 30 and 40MRAD of adjustment (about 104 to 140MoA) which is a lot.

SWFA SS 6x42mm with Mil-Quad:

Overall, this is a very decent optic that sells for around $300 dollars. Mine was bundled with rings, a bubble level, and a sunshade. The rings are a 6-screw ring made from aluminum and appear to be very nearly identical to the Burris MTAC rings. They are light and they are functional but I do not expect them to be as rugged as a steel ring or a Nightforce aluminum ring with titanium crossbolt (SWFA recommends 40 in-lbs compared to 65 in-lbs with NF if that is any indication). They are a bulky too but  pretty is as pretty does unless it is a really svelte rifle and then looks count too. This scope is dedicated to a .22LR training rifle so I am positive the rings will be just fine. I probably would not use these rings on a big gun.

The scope itself his a little on the heavy side. It weighs in at 20oz or so: about a quarter pound more than a similar sized Leupold but about a quarter pound less than a Bushnell LRHS. For a hunting rig it is a pretty good weight. I would say it is Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears all around: not too heavy, not too light, just right.

The elevation and windage knobs are cheap looking but give your 5MRAD per revolution, are easy to read, and are positive. I would prefer a little lower profile turret for elevation and a capped windage knob as I always hold windage with my reticle. Those are just preferences though and I think that they are quite good for a $300 scope.

The glass is good but not exceptional and I noticed some distortion at the edges. I would say it has a “sweet spot” that is 2/3 or 3/4 of the entire field of view and just suffers distortion at the edges. Again, I am not using a rifle scope for viewing and the distortion would never affect my shooting since the entire usable portion of the reticle is in the clear portion of the field of view. The ocular is a fast focus style and the parallax adjustment is on the ocular housing as well instead of on the side or objective lens. It is not as easy to use as a side focus but is easier to use than an adjustable objective. The parallax adjustment is a little tight and it does not take much movement at all to make a large change.

The Mil-Quad reticle is different from scope to scope model from SWFA. The MQ reticle in the 6x is a little heavier than the reticle in other models but is still very usable. I actually prefer the solid diamonds of the 6x to the hollow diamonds of the two variables in this test. It has plenty of hold-over if you need it, small enough wind holds to be precise, and the heavy inverted plex works well for closer shooting.

As a whole this is a very nearly ideal hunting scope. The glass is good, the adjustments are good, the reticle is good, and it is not too heavy. It offers enough magnification to shoot to at least 600yds which covers 99.9% of deer hunting. Considering the cost and the bundle available I can’t imagine needing anything else.

SWFA SS 3-15x42mm FFP with Mil-Quad:

Compared to the fixed power scopes I am not sure this one is worth $300 dollars more but is still a good scope. The fact that this scope is not offered with any bundles on sale fortifies my opinion; that is, if you need rings and a level, or a sunshade. That said, compare features and cost to just about any other optic like a Leupold VX-6 and I think you get a lot.

It is on the heavy side: 24oz just like the Bushnell LRHS but nowhere near the quality of glass or adjustments. The knobs are the same cheap looking knobs that are on the fixed power Super Sniper but they are positive and repeatable. It shares the fast-focus eye-piece of the fixed power but it has a side-focus parallax adjustment. The glass has almost no distortion at the edge of the field of view but you can see in the picture there is a tiny bit of chromatic aberration (that little “halo” you see at the top of the white target board). I have heard some guys cry about CA in an optic but I have never found it to be a distraction when shooting.

The reticle is a little thinner than on the 6x and the diamonds are hollow with a dot in the center. They don’t have the FFP version depicted on their website but this is a fair representation:

For a $600 dollar rifle scope I think this a pretty good buy.

SWFA SS 5-20x50mm FFP HD with Mil-Quad:

The HD version of the Super Sniper seems to be an altogether different animal than the standard scopes. It just looks different: the elevation and windage knobs are more refined looking and feel more crisp, the diopter adjustment is a locking configuration compared to a fast-focus, and the lenses are all HD as the name implies.

Locking diopter:

Lower profile turrets that are very nearly like a Bushnell DMR/HDMR/ERS/XRS:

I thought the turrets resembled the turrets on a Bushnell DMR except that they do not have a locking feature. They are really quite good. Also, if you dial your elevation the turrets on the HD offer 10MRAD per revolution compared to the 5MRAD you get from the standard line. That makes it harder to get lost in your knob which is the most common error I see with guys who dial elevation.

The parallax knob is stiff but pretty accurate for the yardages listed (compared to the 6x or 3-15x42mm) out to 600m and from there out the infinity setting works. I thought the glass was good throughout the power range with no discernible degradation in image quality. There is still a little CA in this scope but again it is not a big deal to me.

The reticle is the third variant of the Mil-Quad in as many scopes:

Conclusion:

In the past couple of days in particular and in the previous months I have seen where a number of guys have double loaded their smokeless muzzle-loader. I have seen it on a muzzle-loader board and received texts about it from guys who have read about it. Some got lucky and only bulged a barrel or escaped an exploding rifle without injury. Others went to the hospital for surgery.This is not a first nor it will it be a last but I have heard about it more frequently as of late. I want to discuss how this happens, what happens as a result, and how to prevent it because I was only issued two eyes, one face, two hands, and one life and want to maintain all of them as long as I can.

As a case study we will look at one of the recent survivors. He is a bench-rest shooter and self proclaimed expert for nearly anything rifled that fires a single projectile. His version of the story:

Last Tuesday I was shooting Deep Purple with my new Sightron 8x32x56 scope.  I proceeded to fire about six shots getting the POI just right! BTW, I love the scope and the reticle.  The click adjustments are very positive and audible.  So, having it zeroed "dead nuts on" at 100 yards with the 300 gr. SST type blem using a 6/65.8 Clays/H-4198 duplex, I decided to move out to 300 yards.  So using the second hash mark (which would have put me 4" high at 100) I fired a shot.  That shot hit 7" low and a couple inches to the right. Now here comes the fuzzy part..............I evidentially took the gun to my "loading station" ( the next bench) and loaded it.   Then put it right back up on the lead sled.  So now I am sitting behind the gun looking thru the scope, playing with the dials, checking which hash mark I would need to be on at 300.  Then I put the second hash mark back on the bull and saw that the center dot was situated in a rock above the target........so, I decided to "dial the dot to the bullet hit and see how many MOA I needed if I did not use the hash marks.  I then returned it back to the 100 yard zero and decided I would bridge the third and fourth hash marks.  This procedure took maybe five to ten minutes of playing around.  When I finished, I took the gun back to the loading station and loaded it---------------------------------------------------------THE SECOND TIME!  Another 72 gr. of powder and another 300 gr. bullet   Do Not need to hear about the witness marks!  They only work when you have reason to look at them!  In my mind, the gun had been fired and I needed to load it!   Well, you think CYCLOPS is a powerful gun?  672 grains of bullets and powder exited the muzzle at 3484 fps.  I knew right off what happened  as I saw the little wisp of smoke come from around the bolt. The module swelled  a bout .027" and was semi-stuck on the bolt.  I was able to just tap it off.   The primer was still in and very flattened.  I ran a patch down the bore and could feel the bulge about 4" forward of the recoil lug.  I tried to load another charge and bullet but the bullet got dead loose when it got to the powder column.  Even being a duplex, it would not ignite so I put it up for the day and shot my other rifle. Deep Purple was 29 1/2" long and now its 26" long.  I am getting good at doing these HIS plugs!   Like I said, witness marks only work if you look at them.  Lets just say that the fact my barrel was 1.250  in the area of the bulge, there was no safety issue.  Had it been a sendero or lesser contour, ...........who knows.  

How did this happen? He broke a sequence, did not have fail safes in place, and did not use (or look at if he had one) a witness mark. After firing his gun he loaded it, put it back on his lead sled to figure out how many “hashmarks”  (MoA was the word he was looking for but he never understood the Mil-Dot either) of hold over he needed to shoot a longer target than the one he just fired. Personally, I would have looked it up on my phone while I was behind the gun and ready to shoot. He then went back to his loading station and double loaded it because in his mind he had fired it. He also stated that a witness mark was not important. My imagination is not powerful enough to fire a rifle and you do need a witness mark. He was right about only one thing, a witness mark only does you service if you look at it. As a testament, this is the second barrel he has bulged. Over the years I have learned that when you lose respect for something dangerous it will usually remind you why it is dangerous whether it is guns, alcohol, or your pet tiger. Luckily, his gun did not come unglued, all that happened was a bulged barrel but doing that twice in a lifetime is twice too much since it can absolutely be prevented.

Additionally, if this happens to you my personal opinion is that barrel is compromised and needs to become a tomato state. His solution was to cut back past the bulge in the barrel and reinstall. That’s not a good idea as steel has a plastic limit and a double load is probably pretty close to getting you there which means it is more susceptible to future failure. Just because a structure doesn’t fail immediately does not mean it’s not prone to doing so from being weak and over stressed; just look at the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. It was under built, over stressed, and already had cracks. It was totally fine until it wasn’t and then it fell in the Mississippi. I am not going to continue to run 50-60Kpsi through a barrel I know had an integrity compromise.

You may be asking, “So what?”, this has never happened to me. Point is it can and will when you take it for granted. I used the example I did because lots of people look at the bench-rest crowd as the epitome of rifle shooting (I don’t but they have driven advancements in equipment that have benefited everyone) and a guy who has shot 15K rounds of SML down range should have a process down. As I was told by a mentor at work in regard to negligent discharges: there are two types of guys who use guns (use them everyday, not casual hobbyist shooters), the one who have had a negligent discharge and those who will. The casual shooter is always a little afraid of a gun because they don’t spend enough time with it to ever master it. I can see it at the range all the time, that little creeping lack of confidence that causes them to give things and extra look. The guy who lives with a gun does not do that. The problem is that eventually confidence will override competence and you will fall back on your lowest level of training. It is never quite as crushing for the casual shooter because that lowest level of training (or confidence) is never very high. Either way, it normally turns you into a very safe shooter because you become hyper-aware. A double load is the same way, you have either had one or you are waiting on your turn but you should do everything in the world to ensure your number doesn’t come up.

I do not think that Smokeless Muzzle-Loaders are the right choice for a casual hunter and there are a few essential rules to avoid a double-load if you decide the SML is for you:

1. Shoot alone or if you have others on the range ask them to give you a minute of uninterrupted attention to your task. If they cannot give you that courtesy stop what you are doing immediately and resume what you are doing when they go away.

2. Treat every gun as if it loaded. Do it every single time you touch it even if you have no doubt. Have a process that ensures your safety by proving or disproving that it is loaded. The first thing I do when I pull my SML out of the case is remove the bolt. The bolt does not go back in until the rifle is loaded. I do the same thing when I fire it: bolt comes out and does not go back in until it is loaded. The reason I do this first is that with the bolt removed I can point the rifle skyward and see light through the vent orifice in the breech-plug. If I have to walk away from the rifle for any reason, the first thing I do is pick it up and point it skyward looking for that light. This is the equivalent of conducting a press-check or clearing a center-fire gun. You do that every time you pick up a rifle, shotgun, or pistol. Right? Do it with your SML.

3. Come up with some sort of sequence and organization that supports your sequence. I pull my bolt from the rifle and place it on the far right side of the bench as I am looking at it. As soon as I pull the bolt out of the gun I turn it upright and place my funnel in my break and place the ramrod in the barrel so that the T-handle is sitting flush with the top of my break (this serves as my unloaded witness-mark). I am now ready to start a load procedure.

For me everything is bagged separately: bullets, powder, primers, wads, etc. I have a box for expended powder vials and primers/primer modules. I lay them out on the bench in the order they are loaded: powder, wads (if used), bullets, then primers. I then pull out one of each for the shot to be conducted and lay them in the same order used. I never load by grabbing stuff out of bags as I need it.

Now that my rifle is in a no-fail safe condition and my load is staged I am ready to make the rifle ready to fire. I remove my ramrod from the barrel and take control of my rifle. I uncap the powder vial, pour my powder through my funnel, then replace the cap on the vial and place it in the expended box. If I am using a wad, I place it in the funnel and ram it home on top of the powder column. Next, I pull my funnel from the break and wedge my bullet in the end that sits against the muzzle then reinsert it into the break and turn it until the bullet indexes to the rifling and the bullet seats in the muzzle. Lastly, I use my ramrod to push the bullet home through the funnel until it makes a positive stop with the powder and my witness-mark is flush with the top of my funnel. I remove the ramrod and funnel then place the rifle into my bench-rest setup (if I’m using it) or place it on bi-pod if shooting prone. I take my bolt and insert the primer/primer module and move into my shooting position. The last thing I do is place the primed bolt into the rifle and place it into battery. This sequence ensures that everything that should have been removed is removed and everything that belongs is in place.

If for any reason I have to stop mid-sequence I place the ramrod back in the barrel before I step away from the rifle. When I come back to the rifle I immediately look at the ramrod. If it is not sitting flush with the top of my break it means something is in the barrel or your bullet is not fully seated (which also causes bulged barrels). I will then remove the rod and point the rifle skyward to confirm there is either light or no light and reference that to what I have left on my loading table. At that point I am safe to go back into my loading sequence where I left off.

As soon as I fire my shot and ensure good follow through, I open the bolt and remove it. I take it back to the table, remove the primer and place it in the expended box, then place the bolt back on the far right side of the table as I’m facing it. I then retrieve my rifle and start the sequence over gain.

Some bedding jobs are bad. It is totally possible to induce stress into a bedding job even if it looks clean. It is also possible to functionally bed a gun but your work looks like hot garbage. Having seen what right looks like it is time to share what should not be accepted as quality work from a gunsmith.

This is a stock bedded by Soltis Rifles on a full custom build that ran the customer about $5000 which as I have said before is entirely too much for a rifle built on a Remington 700 action. The stock has pillar bedding which is a little hard to see because the gunsmith painted over the bedding. I personally would not do that because you already have a 100% metal to epoxy fit. Why would you paint over it, changing that fit, and possibly allowing paint to build up in the recoil lug recess? Anyhow, it was functional and it shot fine but it looks awful.

To me the biggest issues in this picture are that when the magazine well was opened up to accept the Surgeon bottom metal it was obviously done with a Dremel or other rotary hand tool and that the bedding is sloppy. If you look at that mag well cut it is as wavy as can be where it was just hogged out.

You can also see a large void in the bedding beside the front pillar as well as a large portion on the top of the pillars. This occurred because there was not enough epoxy applied to completely fill out the footprint (other reasons for voids are improper mixing and application). What I find especially appalling about this is the guy had to have seen it when he pulled it apart and then painted the camouflage pattern over it. When you mess up work and you are charging a customer for it, it is your responsibility to fix it. That stock should have been re-bedded.

You can also see the barrel pad was just allowed to run into the channel, uncontrolled, and no attempt to clean it up was made. I’ve already beat that horse to death. It is still wrong.

I have already said it at least once but, Dremel makes ugly really fast. This is a prime example of what Dremel work looks like and that is unacceptable on a $5000 rifle; or any rifle unless you do it at home and you are cool with the way it looks. Good gunsmiths do not do inlet work with a Dremel. I cannot say for sure why that Dremel work was done, or when it was done, since everything else was painted over. Either way, it looks like hell.

The next bedding job is from Bad Bull who originally bedded the gun and the forearm bedding by Hankins Custom Rifles who converted the ignition system (you can see it on his YouTube channel if you look up “Bad Bull Muzzleloader Conversion”) for a friend of mine because the 2-piece plug system from Bad Bull is poorly designed and gas cuts quickly. That gas cutting destroys the plug, will eventually cut the barrel, and caused accuracy and precision to go out the window.This hybrid became known as the “Bad-Hakins” because of several years of repair time and additional cost between the two gun shops for a gun that he was never happy with due to poor workmanship.

What we have here is a prime example of voids and un-dammed epoxy. There also appears to be Dremel work (albeit better Dremel work than the example above). You can see the original bedding from Bad Bull underneath the action. What you can’t see is it does not run the full length of the action; it is a spot bed of the receiver ring and the tang. I cannot say that does not work but it is only half a bedding job. From what I could tell, it was functional but it looked like an amateur did it and if you look just ahead of the pillar you can see where it looks like a Dremel got away from someone. Hankins bedded the barrel channel and installed a ramrod when he did the barrel work. You can tell it is a dissimilar material (Devcon vs a straight epoxy) but given the whole situation I do not really care; you do not always have something to match or may not know what it is in order so that you can match it although you will have a good idea if you do a lot of bedding. A complete bedding job is the only way to guarantee true continuity.

What I would care about if I had paid for this service (from Bad Bull or Hankins) is the way that it looks which is a reflection of the effort and attention to detail put into the work. Compared to what we know is right we have a lot of deficiencies here. There was no measure in place front, middle, or rear to control flow of the Devcon. This necessarily means you have to mechanically clean it up (mill, scrapers, Dremel, etc) or just leave it as is which is what happened and looks unfinished. If you look at the barrel pad, just ahead of the recoil lug, you can see a long line of voids which resulted from improper application of epoxy.

In this detail shot you can very plainly  see how the epoxy was allowed to run were compression pushed it and that no attempt to clean it up was made. Now, here is where you must look closely. Direct your attention to the hole for the ramrod, then look to the upper right and upper left of that hole. You can see two darker oval shapes. Those are vents in the forearm. Go back to the video and look at the stock. Vents, right? NOT ANY MORE! They are plugged with Devcon that you could actually see from the outside of the stock. That Devcon should never have been allowed to flow into those vents. Instead it was just slathered over the ramrod tube and the barreled action bolted in to form it. If there are any questions, that is not the right way to do that.

Here you can tell that some Devcon was cut away, likely to allow the ramrod to pass freely into the tube that was bedded into the tip but I don’t know for sure. You can tell though just like the other views that no attempt was made to control the flow of Devcon nor was an attempt made to ensure it was even or finished. It just has a wavy look like the edges of a smashed Peanut Butter and Jelly samich.

The right way to have fixed this forearm (or any forearm you want to fill) would have been to completely fill it so that it matched from lug to tip. If you do this you are going to add weight to the forearm. Acraglas will add less weight than an epoxy with metal in it like Devcon I only use Devcon where compression is high since that is its greatest advantage over something like Acraglas. The way you keep weight down with any fill job though is to add Hi-Bond Q-Cell micro-spheres to the epoxy mix to reduce the density. Then you come back in and fix your inlet just like you would on a brand new stock. In the case of a barrel channel you wrap the barrel in tape to give you the float you want then when you pop the barreled action loose you come back in clean up the channel. By the time you come back in with emery cloth to clean up the inlet very little of the epoxy is left and it is a mirror image of the barrel contour. That is to say, it looks well finished.

This is not traditional bedding as discussed above but there is a point I am going to make about pride, customer service, and workmanship. This is a Manners T4A with Mini-Chassis.

Since we know what needs to be fixed from the last installment we will move onto what right looks like. This is not a how too (I can do that later), just an explanation of what you should keep and what should be returned if you have someone ship you garbage work. As stated before, an ugly bedding job may be functional but when you are paying at least $225 for the service from a professional the the job should look like it was professionally executed. What I mean by this is that everything should be tightly finished, without blemishes/voids, and should be straight lines or semi-circles; there was no mention of squiggly lines, arcs, etc because there is no place for them in fit, finish, or function.

The picture below shows a McMillan stock bedded with Devcon 10110 Steel Putty ready for clean up. A couple of things to note: 1) Flat pillars were used to avoid point loading and the bedding completely filled the void up to where the pillar sits tangent to the action. 2) The skin of the bedding is a good, tight, smooth fit because the substrate was properly fit prior to bedding which allowed for even thickness all around. 3) The barrel pad ahead of the recoil lug is blocked off for a finished appearance. You can see lines that run perpendicular to the barrel channel. Those were made by placing a strip of Gorilla tape under the barrel, sticky side toward the barrel channel. A second pieces gets wrapped around the barrel to oppose the one in the channel. This is done so as to create a fracture line where the bedding material can be easily cut and trimmed to give a finished look instead of an uncontrolled puddle look. Uncontrolled puddles are one of my biggest peeves from people who charge for bedding jobs. It looks unfinished and reflects their professional pride.

This is a Boyd’s stock I reshaped and bedded with Pro-Bed 2000 using brown dye to match the camo paint job I intended to apply. 1)Working top to bottom you can see a barrel channel that mirrors the barrel contour and this stock has .060″ of clearance even though it is relatively slim for an SML: rifle with scope weighs under 10#. 2)When you get to the barrel pad you can see how the tape I mentioned above was employed to create a flow stop and a clean line where the bedding stopped. 3)The biggest difference in this bedding job is the use of a straight glass epoxy compared to a steel epoxy and the use of radiused pillars instead of flat pillars. If you have radiused pillars installed look at the two high sides and see if they are flattened at all. If they are, you have improperly machined pillars that point load and it could have been avoided if they had been test fit and lapped. 4) All show-lines and and clean up cuts are either straight or semi-circle. Nothing was left unfinished or trimmed in such a way as to look like I was drinking beer and running a Dremel (friends don’t let friends Dremel gun stocks because they make ugly happen really fast).

This is another McMillan but this one used radiused pillars like the one just above and Brownell’s ACRAGLAS GEL. If you want a smooth, shiny, glass like surface in your bedding you want ACRAGLAS GEL. Nothing finishes as well. The takeaways: 1) The barrel channel closely follows the barrel contour but I didn’t use a barrel pad because you don’t really need to. 2) There is no uncontrolled overflow and there are no voids. 3) All clean up cuts are neat and straight.

Last but not least, a final McMillan with Pro-Bed 2000 but I went back to flat pillars because they are easier to make. 1) Closely fit barrel channel that follows contour with .050″ float. 2) The barrel pad was controlled and trimmed for a neat finish. 3) Epoxy dyed to match paint job and absolutely no voids in the bedding. 4) All clean up cuts are straight and neat.

If you have a blind magazine or a single shot your front pillar can be a stand alone point of attachment instead of hanging an exterior escutcheon like some smiths glue on. It avoids the weird button look if you countersink a pillar instead and fit it flush with the contour of the stock belly.

When properly executed a bedding job looks like it belongs to the rifle. It closes up any gaps that the in-let suffered but is even because you removed the unevenness before you applied epoxy. It matches the color scheme and offers clean transitions. A well finished stock is a happy stock.

I almost labeled this section the ugly but that is not really what this is. An ugly bedding job can be functional, so it is not really bad except that it is unacceptable, especially from a “professional”. A stock that doesn’t fit your metal is ugly but, worse, it is bad. A rifle will never shoot to its full potential if the stock to metal fit is not perfectly stress free. 

Never assume even the best stocks, whether factory supplied or aftermarket, are actually ready to go drop-in inlets no matter how they are marketed. With the exception of V-block chassis like the Manners Mini-Chassis (which I think is the cat’s meow but even then I have had to have them fixed a little) I will bed everything to ensure it has a good fit. Now I have to qualify that statement because even as a little boy doing something just because I was told to was never a good enough reason. What we are looking for here is, “Where is the stress in this system?” Without the answer to that question your bedding will never be as good as it should be because it will either not be properly centered, bedding will not be even and uniform, or you will induce stress into your bedding because you failed to eliminate it when you started jamming epoxy in the stock and bolted it down.

When you first buy a rifle the first thing you should be doing (new or used) is disassembling it, cleaning it, properly reassembling it, then testing function. Honestly, if you bought it at a store you should have identified a lot of this before purchase. If you bought it online you should be giving it a once over before filling out your 4473 and taking it home. If there is any bind you will feel it. If there is uneven or off-center inlet you will usually see it (barrel channel is most common). Sometimes an inlet is so crooked it shouldn’t be fixed, the stock should be returned but sometimes you can work around minor errors. If the inlet is off you will often have a hard time getting action screws into the  action threads easily without finagling. You will also have to finagle the action into alignment if the in-letting is too large which is just as bad (unless you have ordered over-sized inlet for the purpose of epoxy bedding) as too tight in regard to performance potential. When you take it apart and when you put it together you are getting your first snapshot of how well the stock fits your barreled action.

Leveling the stock is like leveling sights and is where I start for general snapshot:

Level shows McMillan installed pillars are not straight and is the reason assembly was difficult:

I say I want the snap shot because it helps me figure out where to go next. I will usually deal with a barrel channel first because I am either going to free-float it or I am going to full-length bed it. Either way, I am taking material out of it. I am taking material out in either case (and from around the action when I get there) for the sake of uniformity and to relieve any torque the forearm may impart on the action by means of contact with the barrel. Free-floating it up front allows me a more honest assessment of how the action fits the stock in-letting.

I generally do this with emery cloth if the barrel channel is pretty close to where it needs to be. If there is a lot of work to be done I will use a cutting tool made for barrel channels (that you use like a plane), next clean it up with scrapers, then go to emery cloth. If I am working with a gun that already has a finish on it I tape the barrel with at least two layers of masking tape to prevent damage to the metal finish. As I remove material, I may add layers of tape to increase the diameter of the barrel channel until I have the amount of clearance I want.  When using the emery cloth you must be careful to pull straight up and down and not at an angle or you will round off the top of your forearm inlet. I keep snugging up the action until it is sitting tight in the stock and the barrel has the desired clearance.

Some guys don’t like big gaps but I want enough to ensure there will be absolutely no contact with the barrel during normal use. I put that number at .050-.060″ ,as a minimum, and more is not wrong if you have enough forearm to support it and don’t mind the way it looks. Tom Manners of Manners’ Composite Stocks shoots for .100″ of clearance and on a beefy stock I think that is pretty ideal. I have never had an issue with a Manners’ barrel channel hitting the barrel no matter what I was shooting off of from bipod, to rested over logs and rocks, to steel or concrete barricades. Either way, that dollar bill you have seen guys slide between their barrel and stock to test float does not mean jack. It is nowhere near enough float regardless if you intend to leave it full-floated or full-length bed it.

Once I am certain that my barrel is not in contact with my forearm and that I have no other glaring issues, I will wrap the barrel with tape at the shank and the tip of the forearm to center it in the barrel channel. I coat the action with in-let black (a transfer ink) and bolt the gun into the stock and tighten it down. If your stock is dark, use in-let gold (or bright lipstick just don’t get caught). When I remove the action screws and pop the action out of the stock it leaves a black footprint in the stock in-letting where there is actually stock to action contact.

McMillan KS stock with in-let black showing actual contact with action:

Often you will see that there is very little, and uneven contact, as seen in the McMillan stock above. I then remove those black spots just like a stock maker would with a wood stock blank. I re-apply the in-let black and bolt the gun together again then repeat until I have even contact. Why go to the trouble you may ask? I want my bedding material to have an even thickness all the way around and that cannot happen if you have high spots in the substrate you wish to apply bedding compound to. If you allow the fit to remain unchanged you will induce stress when you bolt that stock on. It’s like trying to make a flat table with warped lumber; it might look flat and straight but there is a slight bow that is fighting to return to its original shape.

Stock with evenly floated barrel, action substrate fitted, and ready for epoxy:

Some folks have peddled bedding blocks as the solution to all bedding issues. Other people have bought that story and perpetuated that fallacy. I recently bought a left-hand Remington 700 Varmint as a donor to build  my dad a Smokeless Muzzle-Loader. The 700 Varmint (and its long action brother, the Sendero) came from the factory with H-S precision stocks which have a molded in aluminum bedding block. The issue with the type of hemispherical bedding block used by H-S Precision and Bell & Carlson is they are surfaced (vice V-block which suck the action down into a wedge) but do not provide full contact. I am not saying that the blocks are not accurately made, just that they do not adequately fit the actions (the notable exception being the KMW IMB that uses a hemispherical interference fit).

The problem is that a lot of factory actions are slightly warped from heat treat processes. Polishing/finishing compounds the problem. Newer actions are often tumble polished and come out more even. Older actions were hand polished on a wheel/belt which left them a little more inconsistent in surface dimension (one reason the rear bridge often needs bedded in regard to a scope base). As a result, action to bedding block contact is severely compromised.

If you look at the H-S Precision bedding block below you will see there are exactly five points of contact where the inlet ink transferred: front receiver ring either side of the action screw (1&2), left side between mag well and trigger well (3), at the tang on the right sight, top by trigger well (4), and the left side of the tang where the guy who painted the stock ran a heavy coat of paint over the tang portion of the block (5).

It is also clear that contact is uneven and disproportionate from side to side if you look below at the close up of the front receiver ring.  The left side makes contact for half and inch and the right side makes contact at single, small point. The recoil lug well also shows that the lug makes about 50% contact which means that either the receiver face or block is out of square.

A quick glance at the barrel channel showed that the barrel was not centered. Since the bedding block is molded into the stock you cannot really realign the bedding. I know I said you want more clearance than a dollar bill but if a dollar will not pass the channel then you most certainly need to remove material. I could not get a slip of paper to go past the tip of the forearm. A quick wrap of the barrel in tape and a five-minute job with emery cloth cleaned up the barrel channel enough to allow me to evaluate the factory barrel (had to decide if I was selling it or keeping it for a trainer action) but does not have a full .010″ float. I will fix that when I get the muzzle-loader barrel installed however, floating the factory barrel took groups from a little over three inches to half that with cheap plinking ammo.

When I first became interested in rifles (seriously interested in rifles where it kept me awake at night) I was about twelve years old and long range hunting was just becoming an emerging interest in the shooting world. Some guys had been at it for a few years but it was finally making the news stands in outdoor publications. Precision rifles were a product of voodoo magic that only came together with precision metal work, pillar/glass bedding, custom hand-loads, and animal sacrifice. Only a couple of these witches could get it done with predictable success: David Miller, Kenny Jarrett, Speedy Gonzalez, etc. That legend persisted for five years or so, perpetuated by gun writers, until more and more small custom companies broke into that scene. It became more common to see the sub-MoA unicorn. Then the DIY guys figured out that you could actually make a lot of factory guns shoot really well with a little bit of work instead of forking over $3000 for a custom gun: trigger job, bedding job, proper scope mounting, and good ammo. Of all these fixes, the one that requires the most practice and attention to detail is bedding and happens to be one I often see botched by home hobbyist and hack gunsmiths. Bedding is a particular rifle  passion of mine and one that infuriates me when I see it done poorly, especially when some poor fella paid a premium for the service (since the going rate starts at about $250 for a pillar/glass job). With some background on why we bed, what right looks like, and (more importantly) what wrong looks like you can avoid some of the pain myself and others have endured.

I had my first two guns bedded when I worked in gun shop during high school. The first was a Remington 700 BDL 7mm Rem Mag. The second was a Remington Custom Shop rifle called the Custom KS; imagine a “custom gun” that comes in an un-bedded McMillan stock (before they switched to Bell & Carlson when they were bought by Freedom Group). The Custom KS was bedded by our resident gunsmith who said he would float and bed the rifle and I let him since guys in the shop raved about his work. I only paid $90 for the service (employ discount) and got back a gun that was spot bedded at the recoil lug and tang. I remember pulling the stock off of the gun to clean it up and seeing un-dyed epoxy bedding that just ran where compression pushed it. It was ugly and looked unprofessional despite the fact that it was probably functional. The gun never shot well and it went down the road. Either way, that was the last bedding he did for me; he truly was a master of fitting recoil pads and I haven’t seen better pad jobs since but that didn’t help me at all. Luckily you only have to be a teenager once because you don’t always learn a lesson the first time.

At the recommendation of another co-worker I tried another guy (gun store owner, “gunsmith”, and competitive shooter) up the road in Ft Worth. The 700 BDL was to be pillar bedded but when I got it back it had one pillar up front, glassed (again with un-dyed epoxy) into a spot bed of the recoil lug. There was no pillar or glass bedding at the rear and the “smith” dismissed it as not necessary. He had no intention of fixing it and as an 18-year old kid I didn’t fight him on it since he had to know what he was doing.  At that point I determined that the convenience of a local guy was not an advantage, it was a gamble at best. I like things to be done properly, just once. The first time.

I decided that mailing out work to reputable smiths was the only sure way to ensure I got back a good product. I also decided it was time to learn to do it myself and began to bed every stock I could get my hands on until I got it down pat. What I’ve learned is what to do and what not to do. I have also, by virtue of learning to bed well, learned never to accept second rate work from smiths because “reputable” (read recommended) smiths will sometimes turn out less than stellar work. Always consider the source because that can eliminate some heartburn in your life when somebody with low standards or little experience with quality guns vouches for some guy who likes to put guns together but actually does poor quality work. True professionals and craftsmen do not turn out junk. If you pay for bedding (much less an entire rifle) use someone who has a great reputation anywhere rifle people meet and talk guns because custom rifles are too expensive to take risks. Those names sound like: Long Rifles Inc, John Beanland, Eddie Fosnaugh, Nat Lambeth, Alex Sitman, Joel Russo, etc. It doesn’t have to be those exact guys (although each of them is phenomenal in regard to workmanship and customer service) but I’m not looking for a part-time-gun guy to charge me hundreds to thousands of dollars for slipshod work. Been there, done that, not going back for seconds.

So far we have determined that developing a load with the lowest standard deviation in muzzle velocity is important since with “no wind” models it translates to fewer high or low misses. We have also determined that under ideal conditions 100fps may be worth as much as a small boost in ballistic coefficient; at least that is the party line in some SML circles that “know” a lot about long range shooting. Up until now we have modeled ideal conditions. That is to say, bluebird skies and no winds. Unfortunately, in my experience, those conditions never present themselves to me during the late fall and winter. It is usually cold and windy where I have hunted so we are about to take our chosen loads head to head with the conditions they will face when it counts.

Wind is the great equalizer. It is hard for everyone to deal with and it is the only thing that we can’t account for with a good ballistic solver because it is the only thing we cannot say for sure that we actually know. We can use a laser range finder and know the range within +/- 5yds which is not a huge deal. We can use our phone or Kestrel to get all the atmospherics (temperature, barometric pressure, and humidity). With those we we can calculate the deterministic variable of drop. Since we know we don’t carry enough velocity to shoot much beyond 400yds with the light bullets and about 500yds with the better heavy stuff we don’t have to worry much about spin drift or Coriolis. Both are very minimal to imperceptible at those distances. Wind on the other hand makes all the difference in the world and your phone or Kestrel  cannot give you a definitive answer as to what the wind is doing, just what the wind is doing exactly where you are.

Winds are like fluids. They ebb and flow. They roll over the ground, speeding up, slowing down, pushing up, pushing down. They swirl. They gust. Winds have gradients that are higher above the ground than they are at the ground. It takes a lot of practice to get a handle on them on a flat range with good indicators like flags and the funny little flowery, spinning things BR guys use. It is even harder to master in the field where your indicators are are natural effects (grass, trees, dust, etc) and perception (feel) or mirage.

There are two ways to ensure success while shooting in the wind. The first, and best, is to shoot in the wind often. Never shy away from the range because it is windy. You will not shoot the little groups you enjoy shooting but it is like I said about shooting groups compared to MoA targets: Who cares? The goal is to make good, centered, repeatable hits on demand. That only happens by shooting in difficult conditions until difficult becomes routine. That will take a lot of practice and a .22LR or a .223 Rem will be a good way to sort it out since the cost of SML bullets and the price you will pay in recoil may be prohibitive. That said, find a way to shoot in the wind as often as you can.

The other approach is to improve your gear. You pick a bullet that offers you the least amount of drift at your maximum range, in the worst conditions you expect. While it is absolutely true you cannot buy skill you can buy bullets that improve your odds despite your skill level. Velocity cannot always best wind despite that common myth. That is what we propose to determine with these WEZ analyses.

We will give ourselves the benefit of the best rifle and load combo we could muster as well as an accurate laser rangefinder. Assume we have a rifle capable of .5MoA groups on demand (although that is only likely with 3-5shot groups, not the 10-shots we tested), an MV with a standard deviation of 7fps (so if you are a Smooth guy you need a Veggie Wad), and we know the range because we own a quality range finder. One gun will have a 275gn MH at 2900fps, one a 300gn MH at 2800fps, and one will have a 344gn BOMB at 2750fps (my personal LR load although it can be pushed faster).

We will rotate these guns between three shooters in medium difficult wind conditions: one a casual shooter (LO confidence) who can guess wind at +/-4mph, one a regular enthusiast who gets out often but doesn’t have a lot of experience or training (MED confidence) who can guess wind at +/-2mph, and one who shoots a lot in competition and/or has very good training (HI confidence) who can call wind at +/- 1mph. This is representative of what I see on SML forums based on what I glean from range reports. Having worked in a gunshop and range for close to 10 years prior to joining the Army I think this is a fair representation of shooters in general.

That said, the greatest enemy for most shooters is they don’t know what they don’t know. I cannot tell you how often I hear some guy asking about shooting deer at 500yds when he has never even shot a piece of paper at 300yds. If you are shooting a .300WM or something similar that is not overly difficult even for a guy without a lot of training but we are shooting low to fairly low BC bullets at slower velocities which means knowing wind effects becomes very critical.

Consider our first scenario where our rifle shoots a 275gn MH (or similar) bullet over 78gn of IMR4198 at roughly 2900fps and produces 1MoA or better groups every time it goes out. We are deer hunting a field we hunt ever year, from a comfortable blind with a solid rest. A good buck steps out of a treeline into the beanfield at 455m/497yds. We know how far it is because we have hunted here for years but we check it with the range finder anyway. We again confirm against our drop chart and see this is the absolute furthest shot we should be taking based on what we got from our phone’s app.

Here’s the rub: our phone says winds are at 5mph (Kestrel’s don’t measure wind inside of a blind) but that is at the local airfield so we take an educated guess based on what we see around us.

Shooter #1 (Regular Joe)

Shooter# 2 (Range Regular)

Shooter#3 (Rifle Junky)

That is a significant difference in success based on ability to read wind. It would stand to reason that spending more time at the range with someone who can teach you would be the best course of action to ensure higher success. The most probable course of action though is that we will try to buy success by improving equipment (probably a bigger scope but shouldn’t be). Let’s say that we take a friend’s advice and try a better bullet even though it will be a little slower and will kick a little more. If we had had the better bullet things would have looked a lot more like this:

300gn MH (or similar) over 73gn H4198 for 2800fps all else equal to the last scenario.

Shooter #1

Shooter #2

Shooter #3

We now have two out of three shooters inside of our 90% threshold by a simple upgrade in a bullet. It was not as apparent in the previous blogs because there was no wind. We also were showing max ranges for each combination before and how each bullet reacted to changes in velocity deviation and form. Now when we combine them and pit them against each other it all comes together.

Finally, lets say that three shooters have known each other for a while and while the two junior shooters have not had the range time to get as good as Shooter #3 but have at least mimicked his choice of gear because of the advantages he says it offers and had it at the onset of this story.

344gn BOMB over 90gn of IMR3031 for 2750fps, all else being equal:

Shooter #1

Shooter #2

Shooter #3

The heavier, harder kicking, higher BC is clearly the champion. It beat out the speed demon 275gn bullet as well as the welter weight 300gn bullet. It didn’t make the average joe a long range expert but it moved him up a lot closer to 70% than the nearly 60% he started out with using the light and fast bullet. The big boy also got there with more velocity and energy and in the hands of the two better shooters could have been used further.

Last time we studied the effects of muzzle velocity deviations and their importance to hit probability. In regards to sheer hit probability we saw that a single digit SD (like what is seen in good handloads) gained us an additional 100yds over an SD of 15fps (like good factory ammo). I also said that a low BC bullet will be more affected by velocity deviations than a higher BC bullet. Using the same AB Analytics WEZ we will compare bullets to determine what the payoff is.

We will make the same assumptions as before: shooter and rifle can shoot within 1MoA, has a Kestrel to record atmospherics, can read wind (or has no wind), and knows precisely the range to the target.

To keep this as apple to apples as possible we will use Parker bullets since Bob makes more styles of bullets in more weights than anyone else in his Ballistic Extreme (BE) and Match Hunter (MH) lines. Having shot quite a few of them over the years I know the BC’s are pretty optimistic but we will take them at face value for the purpose of this test. We will consider the 275gn BE, 275gn MH, 300gn BE, and 300gn MH. All velocities were pulled from pressure traces and we will model 7fps and 15fps SD’s for all.

The 275gn BE is a very popular bullet among guys who shoot muzzle-loaders. I think it is probably the most popular bullet out there for guys who are serious about muzzle-loaders because they tend to shoot well and kill well. They can be shot fast and the recoil is not bad. The problem is they are about as aerodynamic as a shoe-box. Until the 275MH came out several custom builders advocated them as the ultimate long range SML bullet capable of dispatching deer to 500yds.That is someone trying to sell you a product instead of success. The truth is it only retains enough velocity to be effective to 410yds under PERFECT conditions and past about 300yds gets blown really badly in the wind. The 300gn version is identical in form, just slightly longer and heavier and only gets to 382yds with 1800fps. Neither has ever been a long range proposition despite what anyone has claimed.

275gn BE, MV 2900fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 732yds

275gn BE, MV 2900fps, SD 15fps, 79% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

300gn BE, MV 2800fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 732yds

300gn BE, MV 2800fps, SD 15fps, 78.4% hit probability under ideal conditions  at same range

The MH line of bullets is significantly more aerodynamic than the BE and are a superior design for increasing desirable flight characteristics. According to AB Lab’s research for every caliber length increase in the nose of a bullet you reduce drag by some 19%. That is to say that just changing shape can make a huge difference in aerodynamic performance. The 275gn MH carries that 1800fps to 465yds (50yds increase) and 300gn MH to 492yds (110yds increase).

275gn MH, MV 2900fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 765yds

275gn MH, MV 2900fps, SD 15fps, 80.9% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

300gn MH, MV 2800fps, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 765yds

300gn MH, MV 2800fps, SD 15fps, 79.8% hit probability under ideal conditions at same range

This has been an extremely busy year for me (having been gone a lot or working 18-hour days) and I have not been able to continue this study of Smooth-Form and Full-Form shooting that I started back in May. It is pretty apropos that this is Labor Day weekend because I just finished a huge bullet order for Arrowhead Sporting Goods, I have four days off from my real job, and I can just sit here and write up a continuation of this analysis. If you have not had a chance to read the case studies of  Smooth-Form vs Wads and Smooth-Form vs Full-Form give them a once over so that you can follow along. With hunting season quickly approaching I wanted to give you something a with a little more gravity than a bar graph on which to base your choices.

To start with this will be a completely conceptual approach based on modeling. Leading into the live fire portion of this test I shot a pound of powder and $100 worth of bullets in a couple of range sessions. Prior to that I shot close to 500 bullets ($1000) down range and gave away half that many for R&D to develop the BOMB and M-BOMB. That is not sustainable for me (or any small shop) at the moment. Enter Bryan Litz and Applied Ballistics, LLC (AB).

Bryan is the Chief Ballistician at Berger Bullets, a competitive shooter, and founder of the Applied Ballistics Laboratory. If you have not read his books you should because they are modern advancements on older works by Rinker and Mann. Bryan also has written the most advanced and accurate ballistic solvers around. I received his AB Analytics Package for my birthday last week and have been running the Weapon Employment Zone (WEZ) analysis for everything I own to ensure I have set myself up for the highest chances of success in every combination I shoot from the field of competition the hunting fields. The WEZ will be the tool we use to compare down range results of Smooth-Form and Full-Form shooting based on the findings from the aforementioned studies.

The WEZ is a modeling program that allows us to choose from several confidence levels (parameters for uncertainty) in regards to the shooter’s ability to judge wind, estimate range, or zero the rifle as well as the rifle’s precision and velocity deviation. We will continue this study over several weeks where we look at the shooter and various bullets but today we are only concerned with the gun and load. We will assume we are talking about a very good shooter who can properly zero, has a range finder, and can read wind very well (or we can have a no wind day). I understand there will say that this is just a model and isn’t real. That is undeniably true but Bryan has live fired a lot of ammo to test the modeling and they line up. I compared it to my competiton guns data and it pretty well matches my records as well. Even if you don’t buy that, modeling 1,000 shots with our chosen parameters stills saves you and I a lot of money and provides the necessary information to make better informed decisions about what we shoot and how we shoot it.

For the purpose of analyzing Smooth-Form vs Full-Form in the WEZ I am primarily concerned with velocity deviations since that is what the major take-away from the prior study was although I have also found that Full-Form tends to give better precision as well. We will also look at the two in regard to precision but it does not have as large effect on hit percentage as what you might believe. Plus, Smooth-Form can give really good precision but 100yds groups do not mean much in regard to long range shooting once you get inside of the 1MoA benchmark.

To start the comparison we are going to say we can shoot within the capability of the gun/load combination and have a Kestrel for atmospherics, can read read wind (although we will model winds at 0mph), and know precisely how far the target is. The same bullet was shot in all trials so there is no advantage between loads except the precision and velocities recorded. To isolate the effect of velocity deviation we are going to use the best precision recorded for all 10-shots which was right at 1MoA.

Since we are not using these rifles for score shooting or benchrest nobody cares about the MoA of the group at range in regard to hunting. If you do you are not thinking right except to determine the max range your raw precision affords your a fight chance at a first round hit. The vitals do not change size with range. Since most of us are deer hunters we will model the target as a 10″ circle since that is about the size of a whitetail’s vital area. All we are concerned with is a high percentage chance of making a first-round lethal hit. All range inputs for the WEZ are metric as it is intended for the military but all will be converted to yards in the caption. I will consider 90% to be our threshold for success and that anything below 90% we will have enough self control to pass on the shot since this is a living, breathing creature we intend to shoot at.

Also, before we even get started I am not advocating that anyone shoot this far using an SML. As discussed in the the bullet design and penetration entries we know that bullets need about 1800fps for reliable expansion. Our best load here hits the 1800fps barrier around 448yds. Although all examples here carry the prescribed 1000 ft-lbs of energy much farther than 448yds they don’t have the requisite velocity to ensure proper bullet performance. I am only demonstrating the importance of pursuing low deviations for the purpose of increasing hit probability.

Smooth-Form/No-Wad: Avg MV 2687, SD 15fps, 90% hit probability under Ideal conditions 656yds

Smooth-Form/Wool-Wad: Avg MV 2678, SD 16fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 646yds

Smooth-Form/Veggie-Wad: Avg MV 2691, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 749yds

Full-Form/No-Wad: Avg MV 2707, SD 7fps, 90% hit probability under ideal conditions 751yds

One of the things everyone in the precision rifle world deals with is dimensional tolerance. Most of the fixes are well known: actions are trued, match grade barrels installed, high dollar optics mounted, rings lapped, stocks bedded, etc. One thing that has been overlooked for years is the fit of a scope base to its receiver. It may seem odd to think that a scope base may need to be fit to a receiver but it is a fact. All receivers have some dimensional difference on their circumference but round rear bridges (newer Savage or custom like Stiller/Pierce/etc) seem to be better than actions with flatter bridges (Rem 700 or Win 70).The same way that a stock is the platform for the barreled action so the base is the platform for your optical sight. A scope base will benefit from epoxy bedding as much as a rifle stock will.

The idea had never occurred to me until a few years ago. I spent my high-school and college years (late 90s to early 2000′s) working in a gun shop where I mounted hundreds of scopes. Back then nearly everyone used either Leupold or Weaver mounts and often as not they were two piece bases. If you did not have scope alignment bars (almost nobody did back then) you would have no idea that a scope mounting system had issues until you bore-sighted or zeroed and didn’t have adequate elevation or windage adjustment.

Our solution (supported by Brownell’s selling shim packs) was to shim bases to adjust elevation issues and to use Leupold windage adjustable bases (or the dreaded Millett ringsif a customer insisted on something cheap) . Shimming was a viable solution but one I never liked. I knew there had to be a better solution.

During this same period of time I met a guy who was a mechanical engineer and hobbyist gunsmith. He used a reamer to cut his rings into alignment. To me this was a better way to deal with things like uneven bases than shimming was or  mounting holes out of alignment by means of windage adjustable bases. It still did not deal with putting things back into alignment though.

The other thing this guy was adamant about was that when you bedded a rifle into a stock that you did it with the scope mounted since there was apt to be stress on your action due to some level of misalignment stress due to your  mounting system. I assumed this was probably most important if you did not ream your rings since that should remove all stress but there is a limit to how much you can ream and lap mounts. I still did not have a one-hundred percent solution but what I was beginning to to really put together was to eliminate stress in your system if you want success.

Around the time I was seventeen I began bedding my own rifles because I was not happy with the bedding jobs I had paid for from a couple of gunsmiths. The bedding was functional but they didn’t use pillars and their finish detail was poor; their should not be any unfinished edges to include being able to see where it flowed in the barrel channel because that is half-assed sloppy work. The more bedding I did the more I learned you could do with epoxy. I decided it could replace shims on rifle bases if I did it right.

I played with bedding the 2-piece Leupold and Talley bases I was using at the time. It could be done but it was a lot of work. You needed scope alignment bars to determine which base needed to move and then you needed a long bar to bridge the two pieces in order to bed the pair. A 1-piece base made things much simpler. I was also of the opinion (still am) that a 1-piece base also adds some rigidity to your receiver.

Back then I would sell a 1-piece Leupold base if at all possible but as “tactical” guns, gear, shooting, etc. has become increasingly popular a few really good pieces of equipment have become available to civilian shooters. The piece that is most important in regard to rifle hardware is the one-piece M-1913 or Picatinny rail. This rail allows for industry standard dimensions and does not require rings to be twisted into dovetails or be lined up using opposing screws. Instead quality rings are machined as matched pairs. As a result you have what is potentially the system with the least induced stress.

To guarantee that stress is eliminated you bed it for the best platform for your rifle sight. If you just slop epoxy under the base and tighten it down you did about as much for your system as those stock bedding jobs I mentioned. What we are concerned with is where and how to bed a scope base.

The first thing I want to know is which end of my action is the end that needs fixed. Given that the barrel tenon is in your front receiver ring that is where I start. I place my base on the receiver and put the front screw in and tighten it down. That screw should secure your base to your receiver to the point where it will not wiggle. If the base wiggles it is too long and needs to be shortened so that it is not bottoming out before it secures the scope base; this important not just to the base but if that hole goes clear through the receiver (as it often does) you do not want to mash the threads on your barrel tenon.

Once I have ensured that screw is of proper length I will tighten down both screws on the front of the base. More often than not (unless your receiver and base are perfect mates) the rear bridge is where you will find you have a gap. Sometimes you can see daylight between the base and rear bridge. Other times you can just barely tell their is a gap but it is there. You can make that determination using paper or feeler gauges if you cannot see it.

If I can see no light or easily slip a feeler gauge under that base at the rear bridge (one of the the things they got right with the Remington 700 RR actions) I will install the rear screws and remove the front screws then reassess. I find the front has the gap far less often due to the way the rear bridges are ground and the fact that many actions these days are the same diameter front and rear.

Once I determine which end needs epoxy I plug the mounting holes with modeling clay. I do not use screws on that end because you do not want to compress the epoxy and the front will take care of the alignment.

I also plug the screw holes in the base. I do not want a mechanical lock above all else but I also do not like to clean up epoxy that has flowed into those counter-bored holes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Use some sort of straight edge plane the clay flush with both the surface of the rear bridge and the scope base. Bolt down the other end of the base. Before you tighten the front end push the base all the way forward. If the base has a recoil lug (Seekins, Badger, Nightforce) the lug will engage the front receiver ring. If not the front mount screw holes will engage the screws. Either way, you get a positive stop that will stop the base from working forward (due to inertia) under recoil and will keep thing aligned on axis. With the base secured, tape off the receiver around the base to make clean-up easier.

Remove the base and coat the sides of the base and the metal of the receiver with a release agent (I like Brownells aerosol but any of the paste wax varieties work fine too). Mix up a two-part epoxy with high compression strength (Devcon, Steel-Bed, or even JB Weld) and spread a thin layer on the end of the base to be bedded. Install the screws on the opposite end of the base, press forward, hold, and tighten. Any excess epoxy will slowly flow out from the base while the rest settles into a stress free base. After a little while the excess epoxy will begin to firm up but will still be a little gummy. You can take a toothpick and trace the edge of the base and it will neatly cut away. Let the base harden for 24-hours before removing the base which will have two neat little reference marks for your mounting holes.

I have now been shooting Hankins Ignition System (as seen in Semi-Custom, Path 2: Centerfire) for a little over a year after it came back from repair work. His system is the only truly proprietary system out there since you must use his primer modules vice being able to make a module by cutting down a brass case from a center-fire cartridge. This is not a comparison to a 209 system based on ballistic efficiency or superiority, just things to note after extensive use with a lesser known system than the Savage plugged guns out there; a ballistic comparison is coming though. After some five-hundred rounds fired through this breach plug and module with no cleaning the following are my findings:

1. The HIS worked 100% of the time with no hang-fires, misfires, or failures to fire. That is how a breach plug system is supposed to work so, while reliable, is not unique in this facet.

2. The modules were acquired at different times; the second half of the modules came as a trade for a 209 shotgun primer breach plug he owed me but couldn’t make work. Some of them have a very different feel to the primer pocket than others; sort of like a loose primer pocket in a rifle case (which means they get scrapped). After cleaning them in a sonic cleaner with a case cleaning solution of water/vinegar/dish-soap (which I took from 6mmbr.com) you can see that not all batches of brass are the same (react differently to cleaning solution) and could contribute to the difference I mentioned above. So, you will notice the difference in primer seating which feels like loose pockets but I cannot tell that there is any kind of gas cutting on my bolt face like you get with a center-fire gun with loose pockets (again due to how a bushing acts as a pressure snubber).

3. The modules are durable thus far. Each has 10 firings on it. Considering that each module costs $6 it absolutely should last 10-firings since a .338 Lapua rifle case costs about $2.58 and will last 10-firings and bears the entire chamber pressure of a firing which a HIS module does not. For that matter a piece of Lake City 7.62 brass which costs forty-three cents new, and a fraction of that if bought once-fired, will last eight to ten firings. So long and short is you shouldn’t have to replace them but if you do they are grossly overpriced at $6 each.

4. The plug will give up consistent ignition and velocity even when heavily fouled. After some 500-shots it had a massive build up of carbon. After soaking in solvent for a week some of it the fouling came loose. The rest was very stubborn. Tumbling in stainless steel media still did not remove all of it but that was largely due to the fact that orifices at both ends of the plug are just large enough to let the stainless pins wedge inside instead of tumbling like they do in a rifle case; that is to say you can only tumble the outside of that plug. I removed the stuck media with a pick and had to use drill bits to ream the carbon out. I stay away from any sort of cleaner that needs a neutralizer because I have never been able to remove my bushing in the HIS plug and Jeff states on his website that if you do it voids your warranty (perhaps it is press fit so he is worried that pressing or hammering it will crack it since Tungsten is hard but brittle). Using a cleaner that needs to be neutralized could lead to a corrosion issue in the space around the the plug.

5. Any module system is more work than a 209 primer system. You must prime a module and de-prime a module every time you wish to shoot compared to shotgun primer system which must only be inserted into your bolt or plug and fired. It could be too that my Peirce action is particularly hard to load compared to a Remington bolt but I have used a HIS on a Remington action as well and did not find loading it any easier; perhaps I have Simple Jack hands. I have trouble loading the module into the bolt face with the bolt still in the receiver so I pull my bolt out to re-prime as it is much faster for me. It loads easily with the bolt in hand. I’ve not had to do that with 209 guns. YMMV.

I get e-mails all the time about bullet performance in regards to everything from bullet sizing, to ballistic coefficients, and bullet expansion. I try to answer everything to the best of my ability based on either actual testing or my best educated guess (which I always say is a guess if I have to do it). I test, if possible, to solve the inquiries if I have not done so already but there is a finite amount of time I have available to me. Luckily, inquiring minds also want to know and are willing to share their findings. Dave in Iowa sent me the results of his penetration test using Kinetic Performance LLC 302gn BOMB and 300gn M-BOMB so guys could see what they look like after impact. 

The bullets were launched by 78gn of BH209 from a CVA Optima. With his chronograph twelve yards from the muzzle (to protect it from sabot strikes) it registered right at 1900fps. A little backward math means the muzzle velocity is in the neighborhood of 1924fps which is representative of what you can expect these guns to do from any modern substitute blackpowder. That velocity would be representative of factory Savage ML-II with an MV of 2400fps shooting between  200 and 300 yards or a .45 SML with an MV of 2800fps shooting between 350 and 450 yards.

CVA Optima, 78 gr by weight of BH 209 302 gr BOMB with MMP orange 458 sabot shot from Caldwell Magnum Fieldpod:

The jugs were filled with water and placed at 100yds with a 2x6 board as a backstop in case the bullets passed through the jugs.

The jacket from the 302gn BOMB was recovered in the 2nd and 3rd jug (which is where the core separated and is twice the thickness of a deer's thoracic cavity) and the core passed through all jugs and the 2" thick wood backer but was not recovered. That means that the 213gn core just kept on going. The jacket also looks a lot like the only one recovered from a deer killed with the BOMB; all others have been complete pass throughs: 

Dave’s results pretty much mimic what we saw from Jeff Fisk last fall. As I mentioned above, this test is about what one could expect from a Savage ML-II or .45 sabotless gun using lots of BH209 and an MV of 2400fps would do at 200 to 300yds. Jeff shot this brute that field dressed at 231lbs through both shoulders at 236yds using a 302gn BOMB where impact velocity would have been about 1900fps:

Bullet entrance through shoulder blade:

Exit wound through off-side shoulder blade. Jacket caught under skin and separated hide from body all the way up the neck to the head. Bullet core exited the body and was not recovered as jug tested showed:

Jacket as recovered from buck:

The 300gn M-BOMB went through all jugs and the backer and the last time the spotter saw it was when it hit the 200yds berm. 

Unhappy with the fact that the BOMB’s core and the M-BOMB were not recovered Dave conducted the test again but added a high density plastic bale behind the board to catch the bullets as they passed through. 

This time the jacket passed through all jugs and stuck in the backer board. The core was found 4 inches into the bale. Total retained weight 278.7gn which is 92.3 percent of original weight;one ear of the pedal was broke off.

The second BOMB is shown with all pedals with the core with a total retained weight of 299.9gn or 99.3 percent of original weight. The pedals were found in jugs #3 and #4, and the core was 5 inches into the bale. 

Same set up as before, but was shooting the 300 gr M-BOMB with the MMP 458 sabots. One went thru 4 big jugs and 6.5 inches into the bale; the tip was the only thing missing, weight was 292.8gn for 96.9 percent. The next bullet opened up a little going thru 6 jugs and hitting at the base of the 2 x 6 and the backer board. 

Edit: 20 minutes after I posted this Dave killed a deer with the M-BOMB and e-mailed me the results.

Keith,  

Down by where I hunt, a farmer has a tree farm, and he gets special deer tags, so was able to do a hair test with the Optima, shooting the 300 gr Mono's 110 gr of BH 209, shooting out of a pop up blind, 83*. Saw the deer at 158 yards, watched it come thru the field and jump the fence onto our property, 132 yards, double lung ran 32 yards.Went to where I had shot him and found parts of the lungs 4 foot away from where I had hit him. The pictures are marked entrance 1 and 2, exit 1 and 2, and lungs. After we started to clean him up, took the pic of the lungs, there was nothing left of them. Then I noticed the size of the exit hole inside of chest cavity, looked like the bullet had tumbled, The bullet hole looks like it went thru the exit hole side ways.

Dave

Entrance 1

Entrance 2

Exit 1

Exit 2

Lungs

Precision rifle shooting is one of the fastest growing segments of shooting sports. When it first became of interest to the recreational shooter and hunter all of the expertise was in the military. Civilians copied the guns, equipment, and techniques used by military marksmen. As the sport began to grow the sponsored/professional shooters accelerated and innovated at a rate that took them to the top of the food chain. As a result the military found the roles reversed and began going to civilian run schools to really learn and refine the technical skills. Millions of dollars have been poured into technological advancements to increase the capabilities of these men and their equipment in the toughest shooting environments in the world. Sometimes though it is failure that births necessity, the mother of invention. During 2014 in Jalalabad a missed shot opportunity, due to short time and looking down at an armband for data, led to the eventual founding of Prater Precision and the Sniper Data Board which is a game changer for snipers, competitive shooters, and long range hunters alike.

I started shooting competitively in 2011 and that is where I really started learning to streamline my shooting equipment; shooting against the clock is good for that. My partner and I used quarterback style play-maker armbands (like those made by Nike/UnderArmour/etc and sold in sporting goods stores) to have quick access to our hold overs and other shooting solutions that we wrote on slips of paper. These armbands are far and away the most popular solution to carrying ballistic data you will see in rifle matches like the Precison Rifle Series, Designated Marksman Matches, and various other practical rifle matches. You can get a black athletic version reasonably cheap or you can buy one at twice the cost in MultiCam, Coyote Brown, Ranger Green, etc. because it is “tactical”. The problem with them is you have to wear them and because of that you might not have it on your arm when you need it (or under a coat since they won’t stretch infinitely). They are hot so you can sweat through them and onto your data card, they rotate, and more importantly you cannot see them easily without breaking your shooting position (not such a big deal prone or from a shooting bench but is huge from alternate shooting positions). Enter Prater Precision.

I first saw the prototype Sniper Data Board in the summer of 2015 when I was working as a range officer for a Precision Rifle Series Match sponsored by Accuracy International and hosted by Woody’s Hunting and Rifle Club in New Hill, North Carolina. I saw a guy shooting a rifle on my stage who had his data on a fold out, clip on contraption, and he was able to transition and shoot targets really fast. I thought it was brilliant but a Google search when I got home revealed nothing. Later that fall I was proofing a match for some friends when Chad pulls out his gun and it all came back to me. This was the guy with the thing.

That is when I got my first real look at the Sniper Data Board. At the time it was the only one in existence and Chad was in the process of refining the prototype while using his money to patent and protect the product. Since then Prater Precision has come into existence, the design finalized, and the product released at another match I worked two weeks ago. I saw quite a few guys shooting them that day and Prater Precison gave away a pair at the end of the match to two shooters at random. I bought three: one for me and two for friends who wanted them.

Below is the Sniper Data Board which is, according to the Prater Precison:

PRECISION MACHINED FROM 6061 AIRCRAFT-GRADE ALUMINUM AND PROTECTED BY MIL-SPEC TYPE III ANODIZING, THE SNIPER DATA BOARD IS A COLLAPSIBLE LIGHTWEIGHT SOLUTION FOR YOUR MOUNTING REQUIREMENTS. MANUFACTURED AND ASSEMBLED IN THE UNITED STATES WITH ALL BERRY COMPLIANT MATERIALS.

Each kit comes professionally packaged with the rail mount, the multi-position data board, the weatherproof storage pocket sewn with hook tape, and a strip of adhesive pile tape (commonly known in concert as Velcro). Like any good product a shooter buys it also comes with a Prater Precision decal because I stick them all over my reloading bench and gun cases.

Once you determine exactly how you wish to orient your data board you secure your screws with Blue Lock-Tite (I used Vibra-Tite) and apply the adhesive pile tape so you can secure your weather proof data card pocket. You could apply the pile over the entire board but I chose to leave them exposed in case I chose to rotate my board’s orientation at any point.

Once you are all set you just clamp it onto your scope rail (or spotting scope rail) and adjust the vertical screw to your desired tension on the board’s pivot point so that you can easily collapse it for carry but it won’t pivot under recoil. Below is a point of view picture from my match rifle confirming zero and a quick data confirmation on the 500yds range at Woody’s prior to the RO match this past Friday morning.

By late winter I had the concept in hand  (picture at top of page) and by early spring I had the first test batch in my possession for preliminary testing: 25 x boattail and 125 x flatbase. I kept the boattail and 25 of the flatbase, the rest were mailed out in 25 count boxes to testers who were experienced in shooting monolithics or who were experienced shooting sabotless with Blackhorn209. All were .458″ since all the testers primarily shoot Full-Form.

First run of the Monolithic B.O.M.B off the Swiss lathe:

The first thing I discovered was that these copper bullets were not the nightmare to size that I had heard from other shooters using other solid copper bullets. That meant the choice of copper already showed an advantage. On the flip side, I had to adjust my sizing die 8.75-ish notches tighter. The Hankins die does not have fine graduations like the Swinglock die so you have to estimate or scribe your die if you ever need something in between that you intend to reference again. The usual setting I use for the cup and core bullets was painted green so I knew where to return to. Without that sizing adjustment there was no prayer of those bullets going down the barrel. That is why you pull your plug and size bullets then test fit them at the house. If you don’t you get to the range and they might not load.

Flat Base and Boat-Tail versions of the Monolithic B.O.M.B. Full-Formed after test sizing:

Where I ran into an issue right up front was I had been shooting a bunch of IMR3031 along with jacketed bullets for the past year. I chose to clean the barrel prior to switching over to H4198 and the mono bullet. My test fit at the house was spot on for a clean barrel. After two foulers into the berm and a 3-shot group I found the next bullet had to be hammered down using a rubber mallet. I shot it and hammered down two more (seen below is the target with the first two groups shot with these bullets). If you reference the target it supports my claim that as seating pressure increases it is less controllable and precision suffers (not much in this case but happened nonetheless).

Boat-Tail at 100yds from my gun:

I jumped in the truck and sped away to the house where I again pulled the plug and tightened up the die until I had an appropriate fit for the dirty bore that allowed for one hand of seating pressure. I sized three more bullets, threw my charges, re-primed my modules and headed back to the range since I had an hour of light left. Since the M-BOMB had shot so well at 100yds I could not call it quits until I had shot them to 300yds. I got to the range with enough time to go paint a piece of steel and hammer out a group in the cold, windy evening as the light failed.

Boat-Tail at 300yds from my gun:

Having seen the night before that the boat-tail M-BOMB was stellar when Full-Formed I felt certain that the flat base would be too but Full-Forming the flat base had to wait. With a six week work trip coming up I had limited time so I decided to draw some down to .452″ and smooth size them since I hadn’t gotten .452″ bullets for testing. I chose the flat-base over the boat-tail because conventional wisdom is that you cannot shoot boat-tail bullets Smooth Form. Since I did not have a ton of the boat-tail nor did I have a surplus of time I took the safe bet. Maybe I’ll test that theory later.

I Smooth-Formed them and they tumbled when I shot them so I determined that as soft as these were compared to other copper bullets they were not soft enough for smooth form. It is possible also that running a .458 bullet through a .454 sizer, then a .452 sizer, and finally a Swinglock Smooth-Form die work hardened the bullet to a point where it was too hard for use as a land rider. I decided to anneal them and try again. Fifteen minutes on the electric stove, set to high, softened them up (but did not jettison the tip which annealing with a torch will do as one tester found out which supports the idea they work pneumatically) and quenching them in a cup of Apple Cider Vinegar cut the oxidation right off. Some guys do not bother cleaning them after annealing but I don’t like to put anything that looks like that through my dies or barrel. A quick spin in a piece of bronze wool and they looked brand new. Don’t worry, the .452 version will come pre-annealed using inert gas so you will have a soft and clean bullet for Smooth-Form without having to do any of the work.

A copper bullet will slightly shrink when you anneal it so it came out slightly undersized with my current setting on my Swinglock Smooth-Form die. I didn’t want to adjust the die since I only intended to Smooth Form a few so for the first (and probably only) time in my life I used a pair of files to knurl the annealed bullets up a touch in diameter until I had the proper fit. Some guys do this regularly and it works. I would caution  if you do this, ensure you use high quality files or you could end up with slivers of teeth from the file embedded in your bullets and that will ruin a barrel (happened to a couple of guys I know).

Flat-Base annealed, drawn down to .452, and shot Smooth-Form in my gun:

I Full-Form sized the remainder of the flat base bullets for testing precision and drops to confirm or deny what computer modeling had predicted for ballistic coefficient. They sat for the next eight weeks, unused while I was gone, and were shot when I got back. Apparently a copper bullet will spring back just a touch over time just like a cup and core bullet will. After two months they were just enough larger that they went from one hand loading to two hands. I recommend, regardless of bullet, that you size them only as you need them to fill your shooting needs. I did not bother resizing them because I could load them consistently enough to feel good about it and was getting pretty good precision.

Flat-Base at 100yds from my gun:

Flat-Base at 300yds from my gun:

My buddy Carlos did quite a bit of testing of the M-BOMB as well. Carlos is a long time SML shooter and does a lot of internet muzzle-loader business for Ed’s Gunshop in Vass, NC.  He used two separate rifles for the testing: one gun had a 1-18″ twist like my gun and the other gun was a 1-22″ which is more common for a .45 SML. In either case he met with great success using the M-BOMB and had results compiled for me as soon as I got home from my training.

Flat-Base at 100yds from Carlos’ Gun #1:

Flat Base at 100yds from Carlos’ Gun #2:

Flat Base at 300yds from Carlos’ gun:

With everything having panned out so far Carlos, Rob, and I hit the range to test some 415gn BOMB bullets and to test powder sensitivity with the new M-BOMB. The bore was freshly cleaned so Carlos shot a fouler then we started the test. Using 81gn, 85gn, and 90gn of IMR3031 with the M-BOMB showed very little change in the point of impact across the 150fps change suggesting that the bullet is fairly insensitive to changes in powder charges. This was mirrored in my gun also which showed very little POI shift between boat-tail and flat-base versions of the M-BOMB.

Powder Sensitivity Test:

Knowing there are a number of copper bullets already on the market we needed to nail down what we could improve on. If we could not produce something substantially better then this would never get off the ground. The two stand out points as far as I was concerned were all the standard offerings either had low ballistic coefficients  (or low ballistic coefficients combined with plastic tips) and were difficult to obtain good precision with due to sizing and difficult obturation.

Ballistic coefficient is not the universal answer to bullet design but shaping a bullet like a shoe box doesn’t help either unless the goal is to run a solid lengthwise through some dangerous beasty like buffalo, elephant, etc.The issue with low ballistic coefficient is that it causes a bullet to be shot at the highest velocity possible in order to sustain sufficient velocity and energy; possible with smokeless powder. If you cannot send a relatively light copper bullet as fast as possible (i.e. with Blackpowder, Pyrodex, T7, BH209) you must self limit your effective range which something many hunters are unwilling to do (setting limits applies to smokeless powder guns too if you find yourself wondering but I have a whole other write up on that). Boosting ballistic coefficient does not magically make you a long range shooter but it does help you out with drop, drift, and retained velocity with resultant energy and momentum.

The plastic tipped bullets on the market don’t greatly improve ballistic coefficient so the increased expansion potential is for nought considering they don’t get there with any increased energy. They are plastic tips on shoe box shaped bullets. It is sort of like putting a hat on a pig. I would argue the tip is for expansion because all these bullets arrive on target with relatively low velocities.

Furthermore, and very specific to techniques used with sabotless muzzle-loading, a bullet with plastic tip cannot be annealed without cutting off the tip which leaves a gaping hole in a now blunt tip. Annealing may not always be necessary with monolithic bullets but I know from talking to a lot of guys who shoot them--both Smooth and Full Form--that it is common practice. I am fairly certain it is because other manufacturers use a harder copper; either due to work hardening or alloy composition. This causes difficult sizing and difficulty in obtaining precision or accuracy.

With those deficiencies identified I came up with five criteria I thought were important all of which Peregrine had solutions for:

1. No plastic tip would be used.

2. Boost ballistic coefficient by about 50% to keep velocity and energy high.

3. The bullet still had to be able to expand with relatively low impact velocity.

4. The bullet had to offer good precision or it was worthless.

5. The bullet could weigh no more than 300gn.

Peregrine Bullets had already solved my refusal to employ a plastic tip. In general I don’t like tips on bullets because I have dealt primarily with swaged bullets where the potential for runout increases. Spin one of the aluminum tipped bullets on a dial indicator sometime and measure runout. I chose not to use a plastic tip on the original BOMB for this reason even though when I polled shooters many voted for it. Because we were using copper Alliwyn was able to get me to use a brass tip as he felt it was necessary to get no fail expansion. The tips and bullets would be CNC cut to minimize runout and the tips would be shorter than tips on other bullets so as not to magnify the effects of any runout. Peregrine has also made their name on this bullet design. Peregrine Monolithics are the only mono bullets in the world with an international patent on pneumatic expansion (sort of shoots holes in the in “air void” theory I’ve heard from some guys lately).

The other four criteria were attacked jointly through choice of material and bullet design. Soft red copper is Peregrine’s choice of material instead of rolled copper in order to ensure easier obturation upon firing and reliable expansion on impact. These soft copper bullets eliminate the need to anneal and have performed flawlessly in impact media as low as 1600fps and as fast at 3400fps.  A minimum bearing length surface of .400″ was maintained to help keep the bullet from having a chance to yaw or pitch while in the barrel and relief bands were machined to reduce pressure and sizing effort. The nose profile was selected to ensure adequate stability balanced with aerodynamic efficiency. This design allowed for a 300gn bullet we felt good about since a bullet that is much lighter is next to worthless and anything heavier and you won’t get most guys to shoot it.