Stiller found an old Viper Magnum action laying around late last year so i jumped on it. They don't know if or when they will make anymore of them even though they have a heap of bodies sitting there waiting to be finished.
Stiller Viper
Stiller Rings (they dont look finished but ill use them for a while)
Stiller Trigger guard
Lilja 27" HV
Jewell BR
McMillan MBR
Sightron SIII 8-32x56MOA
A dummy round with a Berger 180gr Hybrid Target laoded to touch the lands.
I'm going to try and get some rounds through it tonight.
Gnome wrote:That looks quite nice. Will e interested in seeing the results of your testing
I put the first 12 rounds through it today and have the first bit of data. I was hoping to give it a basic zero but i left the rest at home so i have to fire it off the hip. The goal of the day was to put some rounds through it and give it a few cleans so that next time i can fire a lot more rounds with less cleaning.
The goal for this rifle is the magical 2950fps node so i have a long way to go. The tricky bit will be how much i push the brass on the first firing, the guy shooting 284's talk about a milder load for the first 1 or 2 firings before they ramp it up and they say the cases last longer. Next time out i will go to the max load of 2213SC and possible try 2217. If i can get a load that will give me 2950fps this week i will take it out to the 500m fly shoot on saturday for a run.
Seddo my case is 70 thou shorter and i'm running at the 2910-2920 with 2217. 2213sc has been a real barrel burner in another saum that i've had dealings with. I pushed the cases to full load first firing and the primer pockets are still tight as hell after 3 firings. A mate with a case similar size to mine has 23 firings on his first cases and there was no sign of them giving up anytime soon.
Thanks for the advise. From what i have read 64-65gr of 2217 with a 180gr is the place to start. Ill go up in 0.5gr increments from 63gr to 65gr and see when the bolt starts to get tight.
I would start around 61 and go up. Depending on the throat length it comes up to speed pretty fast. The other saum A mate has with shoots like a jet at 61.2 but it's only doing 2880 ish.
I got some 2217 rounds loaded last night and I took the rifle to the range at lunchtime. I had everything set up ready to shoot and then i realized i left the chrono in the office, talk about pissed. The whole idea of todays trip was to get some data to see where 2950 is to load up for saturday so plan b kicked in and i shot some 50m 2 shot groups so i got something out of the day. I know you can;t call 2 shots a group but i didn't have any other options. After a bore sighting it i took a shot that was slightly high so i adjusted and shot the 2 shots. To make the day worse i dialed it the wrong way and the first group shot high so i had to fix that for the second group.
There was a couple of tight bolt lifts here and there but funny enough they were on the lower charges. The primers are flattened int eh middle but still have round shoulders so i'm happy with that. I used Fed GM 210 primers so they are not known for taking pressure, if i had of used the CCI's they would still look perfect as that's what has happened before. The sum of my brass prep was to run the expander through them as the necks were a little tight. I'm going to load up some at 64gr (maybe a 62.5 as well) and see how they go at 500m on saturday. will load up some of the best few groups and give them a run in the 500M Fly on Saturday.
Your Saum looks really mate and hope it goes well at the Fly shoot this weekend. I have also been playing with a new rifle in 7saum to use for 500m Fly. It will be shot in heavy gun class. Ive put some lead in the stock but it is still quite light weighing in at 18.6lb and the recoil is quite noticeable and this thing bucks like a mule. Ideally i want to get it to about 25lb. I only used to free recoil shooting my 6br and 6.5x47lap....
Anyways I've been working on some loads for the SAUM and have been using the 180 SMK's. So far i have found that around 59.7gr of 2213sc got me around .5" group at 200mts but this only Chrony'd at 2866 fps. Ive also tried VV N170 at 63.5gr gave me 2860 fps. Thing ill add another .5gr and call it good for now...
Hope to catch up with you and have a chat on Saturday, Cheers Allen
So, how did it go on its first outing?
As others mentioned, yes, it is a good idea to give cases a light load on their first firing, but this is more relevant with the 6.5x284 case than the SAUM.
I am working on some new SAUMs at the moment which seem to be showing pressure signs early. I will also try 2217 in mine. (trying to run 195s at 2830 fps)
It went very well. The only downside would be how much it moves under recoil, I built it for f class so I'll see how much more weight I can add to it with a 10kg goal.ill make sure I leave some room in case I change optics.
The 64gr load chrono'ed at 2880fps, the only way to get more powder is a long drop tube or a longer throat as it was compressed. I didn't chrono the 62.5gr load but I only had 17 of them and didn't intend on using them unless I had issues with the 64gr load.
After getting on warmer target with the 64gr load (I fired 4-5 at the steel first) I fired 3 of the 62.5gr rounds to see what the poi change would be. I was very happy with a 2" 3 shot group. The 64gr shot was one of the 2 at the top so the poi change would have been about 2 clicks.
I didn't get my match targets as i had to leave as soon as the last shot was fired but I will get them later in the week. There was a few good 4 shot groups but I managed to loose the 5th one. It wasn't the best day for shooting, gusts got over 20mph
