First foray into the world of Centrefire Benchrest
Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2012 3:09 pm
Late last year, I stumped up the cash for one of TrevorT's rifles, a Shane Clancy custom-built Savage 12 benchrest rifle in 6x47LAP. This would be my first foray into the world of centrefire benchrest. I'm rather competitive in the rimfire space, so I wanted a rifle that I could compete with, rather than learn to shoot with.
Trevor gave me a good deal, I sent down the cash, and then spent some 18 hours driving down to Albury from Sydney to pick up the rifle and do the transfer, driving home the same day. Let's just say, it was a _very_ long day for me...
Just before Christmas, I sent an order off to BRT for the necessary bits and pieces to reload for this rifle, and had a lot of fun wrapping and then unwrapping all the goodies.
It wasn't until this week that I actually did something about playing with this rifle - I've spent far too long on the XBox playing Battlefield 3 *sigh*. So I went to the LGS and bought some AR2209 and some CCI BR4 primers (as they had no CCI 450 magnum primers).
Trev made life pretty easy for me, and sent through the "special sauce", plus a few complete rounds for me to get headspace and OAL measurements off. The other night, I loaded up 30 rounds of 6x47LAP using Berger 105VLD's, and last night went off to St Marys to try my luck.
The first shot was a bit wild, as the scope was set up for 300m shooting (?), but I was only shooting at 50m. Quite a few clicks to bring the POI down and a bit right, and I put two shots on the 10-ring at 12 o-clock, with both shots overlapped. I was shooting onto a rimfire 50m prone target rifle card, so the 10-ring is 10mm across.
A couple of clicks down, and fired shot 4 - right through the middle. Shot 5 in shot 4's hole. Shot 6 through shot 4's hole, for one neat round hole. Woah! Hello!
The next shot was a misfire. Click! Eh?? The primer is indented, but no boom (and I checked before seating the bullet that the case was full). more about this in a sec...
I then spent the next hour having fun and shooting the next 23 shots mostly inside the 10-ring on the remaining targets, with an occasional shot being "thrown" by my bench technique. "Thrown" as in touching, but sitting on the 10-ring.
I know this is only 50m, but it's indicative of the accuracy of this rifle that almost all the shots printed exactly where I was aiming, with round after round going through the previous shot's hole.
The recoil is more than a 22LR bench rifle, but hardly felt at all. I was worried that I'd get a weatherby eyebrow with my first shot, but it was nothing, so I relaxed and had loads of fun after that.
I'm now looking forward to going out to Silverdale to shoot at 200m, and see what this rifle can really do.
I'll take some photos of the groups when I get home.
Trevor gave me a good deal, I sent down the cash, and then spent some 18 hours driving down to Albury from Sydney to pick up the rifle and do the transfer, driving home the same day. Let's just say, it was a _very_ long day for me...
Just before Christmas, I sent an order off to BRT for the necessary bits and pieces to reload for this rifle, and had a lot of fun wrapping and then unwrapping all the goodies.
It wasn't until this week that I actually did something about playing with this rifle - I've spent far too long on the XBox playing Battlefield 3 *sigh*. So I went to the LGS and bought some AR2209 and some CCI BR4 primers (as they had no CCI 450 magnum primers).
Trev made life pretty easy for me, and sent through the "special sauce", plus a few complete rounds for me to get headspace and OAL measurements off. The other night, I loaded up 30 rounds of 6x47LAP using Berger 105VLD's, and last night went off to St Marys to try my luck.
The first shot was a bit wild, as the scope was set up for 300m shooting (?), but I was only shooting at 50m. Quite a few clicks to bring the POI down and a bit right, and I put two shots on the 10-ring at 12 o-clock, with both shots overlapped. I was shooting onto a rimfire 50m prone target rifle card, so the 10-ring is 10mm across.
A couple of clicks down, and fired shot 4 - right through the middle. Shot 5 in shot 4's hole. Shot 6 through shot 4's hole, for one neat round hole. Woah! Hello!
The next shot was a misfire. Click! Eh?? The primer is indented, but no boom (and I checked before seating the bullet that the case was full). more about this in a sec...
I then spent the next hour having fun and shooting the next 23 shots mostly inside the 10-ring on the remaining targets, with an occasional shot being "thrown" by my bench technique. "Thrown" as in touching, but sitting on the 10-ring.
I know this is only 50m, but it's indicative of the accuracy of this rifle that almost all the shots printed exactly where I was aiming, with round after round going through the previous shot's hole.
The recoil is more than a 22LR bench rifle, but hardly felt at all. I was worried that I'd get a weatherby eyebrow with my first shot, but it was nothing, so I relaxed and had loads of fun after that.
I'm now looking forward to going out to Silverdale to shoot at 200m, and see what this rifle can really do.
I'll take some photos of the groups when I get home.
Seriously thats some pretty good going there, dont you think you would get bored just seeing those little holes appear in the same spot