Kimber 84M pro varmint

[Mevo2230]

I am waiting for CZ to release a 17FB 527 heavy barrel.

The first rifle I ever shot was the venerable BRNO Model 2 and I have loved CZ's ever since, although I dont own one at this stage, and I have a browning .22 LR.

I guess my very own BRNO is only a PTA away though

[Knackers]

Bit like me Mevo, love CZ's, have three,.22, .17hmr, .223.

[crowbuster]

Thanks to all & no offence taken for "hijacking my thread".
I think it started when I asked zzsstt whether he reloaded and conducted load accuracy tests & it progressed from there......Obviously a topic dear to everyone's heart this accuracy stuff

Re: the rifle purchase, it all came down to finances in the end (as usual) & as much as I liked the Kimber pro vermin (he he zzsstt), the CZ won out on value & features, especially at a couple of hundred $ below it's normal retail. Scope wise I am hoping to put a loopy vx111 6 - 20 on it, but in the interim I have a VX1 4 -12 that will do the job for now. I still have a week or two for my PTA to arrive assuming the folks at the registry are in the mood.

I may start a new thread titled CZ 527 when I get it & see what flows from that.......

Regards

Peter M.

[ShortandFat]

The origin of this discussion (though not the thread) was my comment that I did not know the benchrest accuracy of my rifle, only the accuracy in the way I use it, and that to me the benchrest accuracy was immaterial as I never shoot from one.

Firstly sorry for, hijack

zzsstt, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you've gone way out on a tangent and this is crazy talk

you talk about "real world" well here it is.

If you don't know the benchrest accuracy of your rifle, then your rifles are not sighted in properly

NOW I'm refering to sighting a rifle in, this takes precedent over discussion on "field or target" use

Do you free hand when you sight in your rifles ?

If when you are sighting in your rifles you pull the trigger hard and the shot goes off 5 inches do you count it because, "it could happen in the field"

If your sighting in the rifle and it's gusting a howling wind do you say, no worries "it could happen in the field"

If you can't zero your scope in to were it should be, then don't. Use open sights.

Any hunter anywhere in the world has the duty of care and the respect of the sport to make sure his rifle and his scope are properly matched, "dead accurate"

The reality is unless you zero your scope with the attitude and set up of a bench rifle you almost put yourself into the catagory of a negligent hunter.

If I asked somebody "are your rifles properly zeroed", and they said "yer to the nearest 3 inches" it was blowing a gail and I had hicups that day, but it's OK I can't shoot much better than that in the field anyway, the guy would need a kick in the arse, not because he can't shoot, because he doesn't really know what side of the crosshairs the bullet will hit

This arguement about field accuracy is a given, nobody is that good and we all know it, and nobody expects it either.

But if your rifle, groups about 2.5 inches (fair field accuracy) but after calcualtions has a mean center or average that is 1.5 inches high and 1.5 inches left, then you rifle isn't sighted properly and you have no business using it

"That's good enough", anywhere within 2 inches at 100 yards is better than I can shoot in the field doesn't change the fact that the "mean average center" is say 1.5 inches left of the crosshairs .


You can't hide behind the" but it's field conditions" line.

Knowing how well your rifle shoots under bechrest conditons is the ONLY way to sight a rifle in accurately

Anything less than this and you haven't grouped and sited your rifle correctly

If I go to the range to sight my rifle in and im jumpy, flinching, my heartbeat makes the crosshairs bounce, my breathing is up the shit or I forget my rests bags or bi pods, I've got hicups, wind is gusting everywhere, I don't bother and trying to sight a rifle in under these conditions is a waist of time.

You seem to be arguing "but in the field, all this bench rest stuff doesn't matter, you never get perfect conditions",

True

but thats a bullshit excuse, the one thing that MUST, be perfect every time is the average ZERO of your rifle to the crosshairs and you can't achieve this unless you have sighted your rifle in under "bench rest conditions"

Now That doesn't mean the rifle has to shoot ".2" at 100 yards, and it doesn't need to either, but the only way you can sight your rifle in at 100 yards is to shoot your group under bench rest conditions, work out the average center, adjust you scope accordingly and repeat until you are satified it is AVERAGING spot at 100 yards

a rifle that isn't sighted in correctly isn't worth a piece of shit in the field. Anybody who carrys a rifle that isn't sited in properly, has no business being in the field, and an ass for going out shooting at game with a rifle that has a higher chance of wounding not killing, because the bullet doesn't hit where the cross hairs are aimed.

The proper practice of scope zeroing has SFA to do with field conditions

regards
S&F

[trevort]

S&F, without getting into an argument with anyone else, I agree entirely with your views on the correct set up of your equipment. Its when you start doing this properly that you then desire to improve your ammo, improve your rifle etc and then maybe want to pick up the target sports too.

I feel really reluctant to use a rifle in the field unless i know the equipment works better than i do.

[Dr G]

G'Day S&F

Without putting words in his mouth I am not sure that zzsstt was talking about zeroing. I am sure that he like me zero's his rifles to be ass accurate as possible with the materials at hand. From a personal perspective i have never shot off of a bench or at a range. When i Zero it is from a sandbag or rolled up rifle bag usually sitting on the bonnet of the 4wd or on the ute tray. I always choose a still day. My targets that i use are usually my rabbit target that i have spoken of in an earlier post and they are placed at 100m measured with a tape.

For the 223 the scope is zeroed so that the mean centre of the group is 3/4" above the target centre in line with the target, pretty standard. BTW i usually would shoot at least 50rnds once sighted in so i am confident of my mean point of impact

I have no idea of the true benchrest potential of my rifle simply because there isnt a range that will allow centerfire rifles within about 250km (Woomera 70km to the south has closed).

Despite not knowing the full acuraccy potential of the rifle i am confident that if its within 200m and i aim at it i am going to hit it.

My personal impression of zzsstt's posts you should be practicing from a variety of positions, off hand, improvised rests etc to get a feel for your field potential. I felt it was implied that you would zero in as controlled as conditions as possible.

One day i will get to a range and use a proper rest and rear bag and then i will see how well me and my rifle can shoot.

[zzsstt]

If you don't know the benchrest accuracy of your rifle, then your rifles are not sighted in properly

Knowing how well your rifle shoots under bechrest conditons is the ONLY way to sight a rifle in accurately

Anything less than this and you haven't grouped and sited your rifle correctly

Now That doesn't mean the rifle has to shoot ".2" at 100 yards, and it doesn't need to either, but the only way you can sight your rifle in at 100 yards is to shoot your group under bench rest conditions, work out the average center, adjust you scope accordingly and repeat until you are satified it is AVERAGING spot at 100 yards The proper practice of scope zeroing has SFA to do with field conditions

regards
S&F

Please excuse my writing today, I have a hangover that would kill a horse...

The discussion was indeed about grouping rather than zeroing, but as you say there is a connection. However the connection, and the need to do it under benchrest conditions, would not appear to me to be quite as strong as you have put it.

Firstly I would suggest that most hunting rifles are shot with a cold barrel (the "fouling shot" tending to scare most game!), so it would seem that zeroing a hunting rifle should not involve groups at all, as the point of aim may change as the barrel warms, so for a one shot rifle the zero should be one shot. Take an average of many, by all means, but they should all be with a stone cold barrel.

Secondly you would also have to be sure that the point of aim did not vary between your benchrest setup and your hunting setup. Benchrest, the rifle would (I imagine) be free to slide in bags and basically have no outside force applied to it. For hunting the rifle would (in my case) have a bipod attached and a certain amount of force applied from hands and shoulders. Unless you can guarantee that this will not affect the zero, perhaps the zero is still not spot on. Whilst I have never tried it, I have read many times that fitting a bipod may affect the zero, and if so I see no reason to think that other forces may not equally affect it. Once again, the efforts that benchresters go to to minimise such forces wouls suggest that they believe they do.

Thirdly, by the very nature of averages, a rifle zeroed by averaging the shots fired from a bipod on the front of a ute should produce the same result as one using benchrest averages (assuming my points above do not come in to play). The groups may be bigger, but the average centre will still be the average centre.

Lastly, playing Devils Advocate again, one could question the need to know the absolute zero at all. Now before anyone reacts I am not in any way suggesting that we should not take care with zeroing our rifles. I am simply suggesting once again, and only for the sake of discussion, that given all the other factors at play perhaps the absolute zero is not so critical. You suggested that a 2.5" group is not too bad for field shooting. Now what that translates to, in my view, is that when I pull the trigger the projectile will hit somewhere within 1.25" of where the crosshairs were. That being the case, how far out would the zero need to be to materially affect the result? Obviously the entire circle of possible impact would move, but without even contemplating doing the maths (hangover!) moving the centre of a 2.5" diameter circle by, say, 0.25" would leave a very large area of the original circle still covered. Add to this the fact that the zero (from an elevation viewpoint) is valid only at a single distance and at any other distance it is down to the ability of the rifleman to both judge the distance accurately and allow for the rise or fall from the known zero at this estimated range, and the value of a zero known to the nth degree could be seen as questionable.

I must say here that I have taken your use of the word "benchrest" to mean the full on benchrest scenario with bags, rests and concrete bench. If in fact you were simply suggesting that we apply the attention to detail of the benchrest environment, but using the rifle in its hunting mode then I agree with what you say. To my mind we should zero the rifle as correctly as possible, a process which for me involves a bipod and the tray of a ute, which by coincidence is also quite often the way the rifle is used. However this is still, in my mind, closer to field shooting than to what I would describe as benchrest.


Now whilst I can certainly see where you are coming from, as indeed I can with all the other posters in this discussion, overall I stand by my original precept that a good hunter should know the accuracy he can obtain in the mode in which he shoots, and should have the resolve to not take a shot if it is outside his abilities to ensure a clean kill. Any knowledge of benchrest groups or accuracy is therefore irrelevant when shooting in the field.

[zzsstt]

I know this thread was long dead, but surfing the 'net looking for information about slings, I found an article by David Tubb about hunting. For those who don't know, Tubb is normally rated as the best high power rifleman in history, having won just about everything many times. He has written well respected books on target shooting, and produced training videos for tactical shooters amongst other things.

Anyway, the article is here http://www.rifleshootermag.com/shooting ... racy_1001/


For those who haven't the time to read it, here are a few extracts that relate to this thread, and specifically to ShortandFat's comments, and my answers to them:

Test your hunting rifle from a shooting position, not from a bench rest. If you feel you need to shoot from a bench to fairly test the rifle, rest your hand, not the rifle fore-end, on the bags, and also use your sling for support. Hold on to the gun as you would if shooting it offhand. Lightweight, hard-kicking rifles are sensitive to point-of-impact changes that follow with how they're allowed to recoil. If you're shooting from a bench rest with little pressure against the rifle, it's a near certainty that the bullet's point of impact will be different once you're shooting the gun in the field.

and

Review the process you follow in zeroing your hunting rifle, and see if it's complementary to the realities of field shooting. Don't shoot all of your shots from a bench rest to test your hunting rifle. Shoot from a stable position, but make sure you're replicating the pressures and head position you'll use in the field. If you study the differences, you'll find that your head is usually farther back on the stock when you're benchresting a gun; likewise, the scope position--if it was determined from benchrest shooting--will probably also be too far back.
Pay attention to where your cold-barrel shots go, and zero the gun to that point. It's common to see a hunting-weight barrel shoot its first two or three shots together and then begin to group at a different point. Well, you care nothing about where your gun groups after its first few shots. What you should be concerned with is where the rifle will print its first round or rounds from a cold barrel, like the one you start out with on a hunt.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who thinks that way!

[bushchook]

Crowbuster ,
I have had a CZ 527 American . Lovely little rifle and accurate . The set trigger is normally very creepy from the factory . Suggest you take it to a good gunsmith and have it polished up . You will be amazed at the difference for about 50 dollars . Better than my Rifle Basix .
I think you have made the right choice . Kimbers seem to be either sh1t hot or just sh1t from what you read . Seems that there are a few lemons sneak past their QC people from time to time .
[url=http://"http://www.hunt101.com/?p=456737&c=545&z=1"][/url]

[ojr]

Hi Peter

No I dont reload for my rifle. I have been using Winchester Supreme (in the black box) and also American Eagle from Federal. Both of these loads are 50 grainers and shoot the same point of impact. I would use the Winchester ammo all the time, however it is hard to obtain and is quite expensive.

I have not done any real group shooting with this rifle, as I used this rifle for mainly hunting. However the first time that I sighted it in, I put 5 shots in a group at 100 metres that could be covered with a fifty cent coin from the prone position . And on another session I shot a group from the sitting postion at fifty metres, which colud be covered with a twenty cent coin.

Before i brought my rifle I read a few articles where they were testing Kimber rifles, two which are covering the Kimber Pro Varmint are

New Zealand Guns & Hunting, Issue 95
Rifle Shooter March/April 2006.

There is also a testfire in a New Zealand Rod & Rifle of a Kimber Pro Varmint 204, which I am trying to find.

Summary of these articles are

Rifle Shooter-tested a Pro Varmint .223

Winchester Supreme - 3/4 of an inch at 100 yards
Black Hill 52 grain ammo- was a touch better.

In this article the aurthor had difficulty obtaining good groups with various FMJ loads. When using varmint style projectiles, the authur states that the rifle delivers 3/4 inch or smaller groups all day long.

New Zealand Guns & Hunting-tested a Pro Varmint in 22/250 was tested and with load development the rifle was shooting .75 of inch or better at 100 yards. The writer tried the rifle at 200 yards and achieved 3 shot groups of less than I inch.

Hope this helps you decide Peter.

cheers

Blair

I'm back Kd lang, and that writer of the 22-250 article was me.
And I also got a mkV weatherby.Maybe I should review it here.