AusVarmint

Well the second 600yd match for Townsville has been completed today with a field of 10 shooters which included John M who was up from Mackay and Woob who was a first time shooter with us at this distance. Each week we shoot this match the numbers seem to be increasing which is great to see and shows the 600 as a match that will take off if you start to shoot it

The weather was the typical heavy mirage which made seeing your sighters pretty hard along with a switching tail breeze that caught a few of the shooters out and was reflected in some of the scores.

Results for the day:

LG Score

1st - Tony Z - 205 which equals the range and LG record
2nd - Eric G - 199
3rd - Alan N - 193

LG Group Agg

1st - Tony Z - 3.188"
2nd - Eric G - 4.462"
3rd - Alan N - 4.767"

For HG shooters today only JR was there however he had to retire hurt after his first two cards as the dreaded lurgy has got a hold at the moment so he went home not looking the best. Hope you feel better soon.... maybe a few coronas will help

Tony Z congratulations on the score you definitely worked hard to get that one today and to all the other shooters thanks for turning up it is good to see you all there.

Well done Tony and everyone that had a go .. aJR bad luck nothing worse than missing a match

Good to see the numbers going up.

cheers
Rinso

Challenging conditions, especially as one old bastard has forgotten how to shoot from a bench rest with a 2oz trigger; no. I'm NOT gong to reveal my mess...
congratulations to the blokes who did all the good stuff, and thanks for not putting the shit on me, although I deserved it.
Cheers,
ol' wooby

Thanks go to Alan and Don along with the others with their setting up of the match. I was late. Again. A real credit to all involved as there are still no target frames operating, so all sighting is done on sighter sheets and lots of eyes looking through spotting scopes. It was a major achievment to complete that in our mirage today.
Well done to Eric who just fireformed cases for his 7/9.3x62 yesterday. He is finally rid of that 284 garbage so there will be a ceremonial dumping of the cases at the Gustavson household no doubt.

As for the match, there were a lot of very good almost groups that i saw out there today. Lots of four and ones like my own four in the x ring at 1.020" and the fifth sat 2" wide in the 9 ring carpark. The guns are all capable, but the feedback off the flags is not getting through. So it may be down to new flag designs again. For those down Mexico way starting up 600 this year, put a good amount of thought in the wind flags as they are what gives you the groups and scores, not barrels, cartridges or high BC bullets. The NRA range flags are only just basic and once wet from the rain, you may aswell stick your dick out on the bench.

The real reason JR went home early is because John Mac showed him his latest action he built recently. Jeff was horrified that someone could do such beautiful machine work on a hearing aid needing stinking rimfire and not something that goes boom. Jeffrey, you really don't have any decorum Good luck to John and Bob down at Rocky for the State Rimfire Hunter tiltles next weekend. I would love to be there but that course on self dentistry just takes up so much of my time.

Tony Z.

self dentistry is far and away less painful than rimfire

cheers
Rinso

I would agree Rinso.
Yesterday we shot our club Hunter, and at 50 m i shot a 244.7 with the piece of crap going vertical on the mirage and change in air density. The mirage was bad but there was very light winds, yet we all lost shots high and low in the 9 ring. As you know, a 244 in any major match is get the rope and look for the beam in the shed stuff. Then at 100 yards later in the afternoon when the wind picked up, i shot a 248.3 giving me a GA of 492.10. Only a rimfire can produce that sort of result.
On a clear still day at a 100 yards, a dingo farts in the gully and the pill lands in the 6 ring, and then it blows hard like yesterday afternoon and you miss two ten rings. Just no rhyme nor reason. If you can shoot 248 at 100, then 50 should be 250xx every time. Fucking pieces of crap.

If we were shooting centrefire at 100 yards instead of rimfire at 50m yesterday, and my 30 BR couldn't net a 250.xx, i'd burn it at the benchline. And fuel the fire with the rimfire while i was at it.

Tony Z

Tony Z wrote:The NRA range flags are only just basic and once wet from the rain, you may aswell stick your dick out on the bench.

You mean thats not a preferred method of wind indication? Even if you spit on the end first?

Now I know where I've been going wrong.

hi Tony got home safe and sound 7.00pm monday
thanks for the kind words about my rimfire action i know JR would like me to proof fire it with one of his 30 redneck shells but i will decline the offer
had another look at my second set of targets and you were correct the cluster of 8 shots went 2.745 with less than 2 inch vertical -- too bad the driver can't read the flags at your range -- can't blame the rifle and ammo combination its just the nut bebind the butt -- i don't think i will change any thing untill i learn to read the conditions better
please thank all the townsville guys for a great shoot hope to see you again soon

john mc

Good on ya fellas

Jeez that was close Al......TZ near took the record off you at the second shoot ....I reckon you should take a few points off him for being late Good to see the competition is there.

TZ....the 7x62....I have been playing case capacities trying to 'invent' something different for a new LG caliber. I hope you haven't given it a 35 deg shoulder and shortened it 100 thou ...have you ? thats sorta been one of my options and I really don't want to rewrite any history here.....

KY

No Kenny, you're safe there. 40 degree and both the 7mm and 30 cal version are full length. If you can, keep the neck .340" or longer. Definetely helps with erosion as does the 5 degree included angle we use in the throat. I would agree a hundred thou shorter in the 7 mil is a good thing as the case is right on the border of overbore. My 7 mil case is about 70 grains H2O, yours should work out to about 65-66 or about 284 size without the rubbish brass.

Tony Z.

TZ,

Cool, it's all probably for nix at the end...but what the hell..it's fun playing with it all.

I am unsure just how much neck will be left but was using a weatherby neck length as a guide..kinda ...gawd that case has got an ugly shoulder..I was pretty much imagining the shoulder/neck junction would shorten up about the .100" with the angle change and blowing the taper off it a bit..Having a 71gn capacity standard, I was hoping to end up with similar and not lose too much...maybe it will be just too hard and I would be better off copying yours

I was looking at the 257 Wby case for awhile and the 376 Styer.....both in 7mm where to get decent brass has killed them off but

Anyway I will soldier on a bit and when I have something definate I will be in touch.
I might even start a thread about it...bit risky but

KY

Hi Kenny

Yeah it was close but TZ had all the easy conditions...... you know little wind, low mirage

Actually he had to work quite hard in the conditions so it would have been full credit to him if he could have pipped me and the competition is fantastic!! You know that when you turn up to play if you are not on your game then you going to cop a dusting which can be seen from the scores from the weekend. The leaders of the pack last time were left behind this week

Also with regards to case capacity mine goes 73.4gns H2O....... maybe you should just go a 30

Kenny, since you brought up that you had looked at a couple of the Mag cases for 7mm, i did a recycle bin restore of the grey matter earlier on today.
JR and i both ran mini mag 7 mils for quite a number of years until we saw the light and went 30 cal . Anyway JR went with the 6.5/350 Rem mag brass with their 2.170" cases and i went with the full 2.5" 7 Rem mag, then a shorter version at 2.25" and then finally 2.0". It was a toss up between the last two as to which was the better. The biggest limitation with any of these mini mags back then was brass life span. And we did try them all except for RWS.
If i was to do it over again, the only way i would do it would be with RWS brass, either 300 Win or 7 mag and form cases from them. The 2.25" case i used and the case JR used were about borderline overbore for the 7 mils, but both worked best with a guts full of 2209 which retrospectively was good because of the dramas we have had with humidity and slow burn rate powders. Ian Lampl did a mini mag 7 based on Rigby brass brought back to 2" and he also had very good results with 52-55 grains of 2209. 168 SMKs were pretty universal except i went off on another tangent with the very good 162 Amax batches in the early days. Not the Amax with the alloy insert, the newer polymer type.
Now JR will tell you that with what we knew, or rather didn't know back then, his 7 mini mag shot some of the smallest elevation at 1K we have seen till more recently. I reckon if this gun was still with Jeff, it would hold a number of the LG records. The down side again was the amount of work he had to do to keep the brass up to the gun aswell as the ever dwindling supply of that breed of cases.
Back then we looked at things differently to what we do now. Now a 6 or 25 is just a toy, though many would hold another view. The 6.5s should be in the hands of all our competition and the 7s and 30s are the choice for any serious contender. I agree that a 30 LG may be a little too much recoil for some and to keep that recoil down the projectile choice is often not the 200 or 220 SMK. Peter Henry has used both the big 30 cal pills in his 30/338 LG and does do well with it. Alan uses the 175s as does Bob Luther and they are a real force to reckon with on any day

So you're now left with the 7 mm. The pills to pick from for tight groups are with the 168 SMK and if you can find a good batch of 162 Amax like i used on the weekend they offer a .630 real world BC. The 168 Berger is very good but has an inflated BC that is just marginly better than the 168 SMK.
The 175 SMK is a hit and miss bullet that i have yet to work out what twist rate it should use. I have fired them on the same day in 9, 9.5, 10 and 11 twists and there was no difference in grouping, or lack of it at 500 M. What i do know about them is that they work reasonably well at 2800-2825 fps in a 9.5 twist. Three different batches and 800+ 175s down range in all types of cases and twists has not reproduced one group better than what i can get out of the 168 or 162. Eric G has shot one 3.xxx group at 1K with the 175 but went backwards with the aggs overall until he returned to the 168s. The consistancy with the 175 is just not there. This bullet had so much promise and early correspondence JR had with Dave Tooley led us to believe that this was to be the holy grail of 7 mils. Later it was to come out that the developement on the 175 Tooley had done, point up dies and all, was that he used a polymer nose insert, as he does in his BIBs, giving him a very high BC and good accuracy out of his 9 twist 280 AI. What Sierra came out with is a totally different bullet. Why? Who knows.

Forget what the box says, the Amax working range is 2900 through 3100 in 9.5-10 twist barrels and can reliably go sub 2 inch at 500 and can nudge the 1 inch in good weather. The 168s, both Sierra and Berger can also do this in 10 twist barrels. The 180 Berger is too fickle to be a contender in all weather and requires at least a 8.5 twist or faster to work, so i relegate this combination to the same category of the 6.5s; 4 good shots and one off to the moon. Way too many rpms.

So you now have the bullets, 168 Berger and SMK and the Amax. For a barrel and twist rate i reckon a 9.5 Krieger or 10 Maddco. The speed you need is 2900 plus. So the case choice comes down to what will do this 2900 fps and not lose a primer pocket in a couple of shots. The cases worth the effort are 270/280 RWS, 9.3x62 Lapua in standard size, and in mag size the RWS anything and Lapua 300 WinMag. The case design won't matter that much, around 70 grains H2O in volume, 30/35/40 degree shoulders don't matter that much, a long neck helps as i said earlier. The mag cases may need quite a bit of work to get to 70 grains of H20, but if the brass is good a 100 should see out the life of the barrel. A full length 7 Mag like the Rem will work fine, but the barrel erosion is a bit high. A longer necked version may extend this a little.

Tony Z.

TZ,

Thanks for the info...jeezus your into this...have you ever thought about writing a book on it all ..probably take another lifetime I guess

Dave G has spoken to me about the 168MK's and it seems that if you find a good batch your laughing.....might be a hard row but

I was originally dreaming of the 7x61 Sharp and Hart, with cases made from the Lapua 300 win stuff, I don't know how I would go turning the rims down to meet my boltface as my old remo is a multi purpose 6BR/6.5/PPC club gun type of thing so I really don't want to change it...easy fix would be grab another action and start from scratch...good excuse to get the young fella into long range anyway as he can use the oldie.

What do you think..will the case handle being belted against a reduced headdsize ?

Sooo much to think about

KY

With belt turning and rim rebating, Ian Lampl did this on a couple of occasions and had no problem. I have never turned off belts basically because i'm fuckin lazy and would rather go with another case or action so i cannot say anything about this. There must be others out there that have played with this that might be able to say a bit.

Tony Z.