Long Range Rifle/Scope/PRS question(s)

The TT Diamond seemed like the clear favorite and I guess I can turn it up some if I want, so I went that route.... One more part down.

Nature Boy said:

Man, that Ruger looks like a lot of rifle for the money. I wonder who makes their barrels (maybe in house?). There's been some debate on the accuracy of hammer forged vs cut rifling barrels, but I know from my own experience with my FN SPR that hammer forged barrels can be accurate.

I think I'd have to give that Ruger a try.

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I've had so many Ruger Rifles and Handguns over the years. In fact I'm about to purchase a Ruger Super Blackhawk from a friend. In my honest opinion Ruger nearly always gives a lot of bang for the buck.

Mounted the TT Diamond up to my Origin, and after reading about having triggers timed for custom actions, I find myself wondering "how do you know if your trigger is properly timed or not?". Is there some kind of indicator in the feel of the bolt closing?

As an aside, I'm already glad I got the TT, it's easily the best trigger I've ever felt, much less owned, really crisp and downright amazing at the lower weights.

Gtscotty said:

Mounted the TT Diamond up to my Origin, and after reading about having triggers timed for custom actions, I find myself wondering "how do you know if your trigger is properly timed or not?". Is there some kind of indicator in the feel of the bolt closing?

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For anyone in a similar situation in the future, I just wanted to add that I emailed Zermatt with this question and got the following response:

Gtscotty,

We have the Origin's setup to run the TriggerTech triggers without any timing issues. It should be spot on when you have it all together.

Thank you,

Also on case anyone is looking for barrels, PVA is having a labor day sale the coupon code "TaxationIsTheft1787" is good for 17.87% off. I'm planning on ordering a 23" Rock Creek shouldered prefit in 6mm GT, I guess in the M24 profile (seems to be their standard profile?). I know 26"-28" are preferred lengths for this kind of thing, but I will be using a suppressor 100% of the time and don't really want my total barrel length to be too much over the ~30" mark.

PVA and Rock Creek are both 4 letter words in my book. Eccentric brakes, excessive bevel on chambers leaving insufficient case support which blows out a magazine and extractor, PVA is on my no-go list. Inexplicable 1/2 barrel life with customer service totalling “I don’t know what to tell you, I get 3000-4000 rounds from 6 creed before losing speed” when contacted about a barrel which dumped 120fps by 800 rounds and then had dropped almost 400fps by 1200 rounds put Rock Creek right there in the list beside PVA.

Interesting to me why a barrel would dump speed after a low round count.

South Prairie Jim said:

Interesting to me why a barrel would dump speed after a low round count.

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More “interesting” to me was that contacting the barrel maker about what was a defective barrel yielded “that’s weird, that doesn’t usually happen,” which was NOT followed by any action by Rock Creek to figure out why it was happening. At that point, I was a couple dozen barrels deep into 243win and AI, a handful of Dasher tubes, and one 6 creed factory barrel down - not to mention networked with hundreds of other competitive 6 creed shooters - so I had a feel for how long 6 creed barrels should last. No support for the barrel beyond saying the fact mine was burning out twice as fast as it should have and THEN telling me, and asserting twice, that he gets 3000-4000 rounds on 6 creed before losing accuracy or speed (which is utter BS), after three different calls to find a solution, I was left high and dry with a lemon barrel. After I noticed that early dump, I documented then losing ~15fps per hundred rounds from 800-1100, then ~35fps per hundred from 1100-1400 rounds for the same powder lot, same bullet lot, same primer lot, same brass. Absolute train wreck. I was throwing almost a grain and a half more powder by the end to hit the same speed.

I’ve had much smaller issues with other barrels, which makers investigated and replaced.

That's queer...maybe your just unlucky..
I have not burned through near that many barrel's leaving me unqualified

Varminterror said:

PVA and Rock Creek are both 4 letter words in my book. Eccentric brakes, excessive bevel on chambers leaving insufficient case support which blows out a magazine and extractor, PVA is on my no-go list. Inexplicable 1/2 barrel life with customer service totalling “I don’t know what to tell you, I get 3000-4000 rounds from 6 creed before losing speed” when contacted about a barrel which dumped 120fps by 800 rounds and then had dropped almost 400fps by 1200 rounds put Rock Creek right there in the list beside PVA.

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Hmm, that's an interesting development, the only negative things I'd heard about PVA so far was that they seem to often blow their projected timelines by significant margins.

I'm looking for a prefit shouldered or potentially barrel nut barrels, what barrel shops baby you had good luck with, or would recommend?

My original plan was to get barrel nut Shilen from Northland Shooters Supply, but I kind of liked the shouldered prefit idea.

taliv said:

Dang varmint, even my 260AI running super hot didn’t bleed speed that fast.

I’d be willing to bet the problem is that 4-5 years ago there were some steel shortages (before the tariff issues) that caused most of the barrel makers to temporarily shift their steel suppliers. Some of them got stuck with steel that just didn’t come close to their normal spec. Just a rumor but I’d heard rock creek got hit particularly hard and had quite a run of junk barrels. Just a rumor though.

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I assumed something of the same vein, and frankly, I’m not blaming Rock Creek for turning out a lemon barrel, not in the least, even if it had been bad work on their part. Bad luck occasionally happens to all makers.

But they COULD HAVE stood behind their product. But instead, they shrugged their shoulders and told me I was SOL, and counterintuitively substantiated what I was seeing couldn’t be happening because they believe 6 creed barrels should 3,000 to 4,000 rounds without losing speed - even confirming H4350 and 105 Hybrids lasting that long, assured BS - which should have been even MORE reason to have my barrel/rifle into their shop to figure out why it was bleeding speed so fast. Hell, even blame the throating job or SOMETHING... So I didn’t feel well served by, “that’s super weird, it should last 3-4,000 rounds, we don’t know why that could be happening, but thanks for buying our barrel, call us when you want another...” Nah bro...

Gtscotty said:

I'm looking for a prefit shouldered or potentially barrel nut barrels, what barrel shops baby you had good luck with, or would recommend?

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Proof Research, or a Bartlein prefit from Altus. Either of these will be exceptional.

Walkalong said:

Gonna be hard to beat the economy of a Proof pre-fit shouldered barrel.

https://proofresearch.com/barrels/zermatt-arms-pre-fit/

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I've heard nothing but good things about the Proof SS pre-fits, if I could get one in 6mm GT it would be a done deal. As good a deal as they are, it might even make sense to get a Dasher off the shelf and have a smith ream it to GT.

Gtscotty said:

I've heard nothing but good things about the Proof SS pre-fits, if I could get one in 6mm GT it would be a done deal. As good a deal as they are, it might even make sense to get a Dasher off the shelf and have a smith ream it to GT.

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Do you happen to be or know a Mil/LEO? Proof takes care of folks who take care of folks.

Gtscotty said:

I've heard nothing but good things about the Proof SS pre-fits, if I could get one in 6mm GT it would be a done deal. As good a deal as they are, it might even make sense to get a Dasher off the shelf and have a smith ream it to GT.

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How are the prices vs some other barrel companies

South Prairie Jim said:

How are the prices vs some other barrel companies

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Well given that you can get cut rifled Proof prefits for $509, most other well regarded shops offering similar quality prefits seem to run between $130 and $350 more. Savage style barrel nut prefits are less, the NSS Shilen prefit I was thinking about is ~$410 but.... well Salvage barrel nuts are pretty ug... Focused on the important stuff over here.

Maybe I should just go with the Dasher, I just feel like I've read enough about Dashers being fumbly feeding that I'm a bit gun-shy. I saw Dasher specific MDT mags at my lgs the other day, maybe that would help.

I don't intend to mess with forming, hydro forming, etc but I think at least Alpha makes Dasher brass now, maybe Peterson too, whether I can find any currently might be a question.

I was originally going to get a KRG Bravo, but after reading for a while a lot of folks seem to prefer the MDT XRS in the same general price range, so I think I'll go that direction. I've seen a labor day sale already that will knock 10% off the chassis, so that's nice.

I have 1 Primal Rights/AICS mag that feeds like 99% without issues, occasionally (1 per match it seems) it will nosedive a round a bit. I can feel it immediately in the bolt and have to reach into the action and press the rim of the round down to get it to feed.
I have 1 Primal Rights/AICS mag that is more like 70% and it's marked with an X so I know which is which
I have 2 MDT 12 Rounders that are thus far problem free but I only have ~200 rounds between them to verify.

6 Dasher - Defiant Action - MPA Chassis

BR blocked 12rnd MDT’s and HRD Gear blocks for AW mags. No hiccups, Defiance action, Manners Gen2 chassis.

Pretty hard to short stroke a blocked mag - a lot more of us short stroke and choke full length short action cartridges like 6 creed than do Dashers or BRA’s. Reported “poor feeding” is far more often shooter error of short stroking the bolt - blocking mags and moving the rounds forward almost wholly prevents that opportunity.

Walkalong said:

Sounds like my first one, so much stuff to keep track of.

A good habit is to always dial back to zero at the end of a stage. Remove mag, insert chamber flag, dial back to zero, especially after shooting 1200 yard. I saw a fellow who forgot once after shooting 1200, next stage he didn’t realize he already had one revolution on his dial, could have been DQd, no telling where the bullet went

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1200 yards


Good tip.

I do a lot more holding than dialing, until I get to 10 mils, and then I will dial some elevation to keep me closer to the middle of the glass. Since I hold so much, I have to make a conscious decision to go dial back.