Wreck-n-Crew
Member
I was planning on waiting to do a review when I had a load developed to share what i thought about my new shilen barrel but i figured i would go ahead and share todays results.
Some details about the rifle. Savage 12FV that started as a 308. I took the stock off and set it in a stealth chasis. I hated the older stock that came on the stealth and replaced it with ( forget the brand ) an aluminium adjustable stock that you see in the photos. I then replaced the cheap scope i first had on it with a Vortex Viper HST 6-24×50. It started with 2 piece weaver mounts but then i replaced those with the EGW 20MOA one piece rail. Honestly i forget which scope rings i put on it too. It pretty much stayed that way for 500 rounds. The gun shot average about .8 moa. Some days better than others. One day a .45 groups and the next 1.1" groups. Sometimes it was me but no .5 " me.
So i decided i wanted consistency and chose to rebarrel it with a Shilen. I called Northland shooters supply and ordered a 26" shilen varmint profile in 6.5 creedmoor with an 11 degree target crown. Plus a new lug which had no variation in measuermet readable on my calipers.
Being that i chose a bad time for relaoding components i didnt get what i really wanted as far as powder, brass or bullet goes. But i needed something to start with so i gathered the things i could.
I already had Varget and its good for lighter bullets they say. I also landed some Winchester 6.5 staball and ordered it. Good i have some powder to work with but not the powder i wanted. I wanted H4350.
Bullets was another thing. Lately they are scarce but do pop up here and there. I heard that the Barnes Matchburners were not bad and since it was all i could find and they were cheap i grabbed 500 of the 140 gr Matchburners. Great i have bullets.
The Brass i wanted ranged between Peterson Lapua, and one other brand that i cant remember the name of. Not nosler, and not Norma. Im sure someone will know what brand I am forgetting the name of. But all i could find was some Hornady. Now I have not been the biggest fan of Hornady brass as it pertained to Precission components but many Competitors use it so i grabbed the last 100 on the shelf of a gun store 45 miles away. I grabbed them and continued on to 2 other gun stores that were stripped bare of anything i could use.
I ordered a set of Forster BR dies. A pilot for the RCBS neck turning tool and set about making some loads.
First things first, brass prep. Checked the runout. Not bad actually. But i had some that were a little too far out and just turned the necks on them all. Got runout down withing +/- a thousandth. Annealed them, primed them and loaded for saterlee even though i know new brass will likely changed once i fireform and load them as they will be for their life span. I felt no need to waste good powder,primers, bullets, and barrel life without getting something out of it.
I found the throat to be much longer than the magazine length so i just decided on a start length of 2.8". That is .1" longer than barnes length but plenty of bullet was in the case and i started there until i find a good load before adjusting.
I Just finished the loads with varget and was watching my calendar and hoping the 6.5 Staball powder would show up and it did today. Perfect timing.
I guess depending on what cartridge and powder range your afforded some people load differently using the saterlee method but i stuck with small change increments of .2gr for the win.
I loaded up 3 rounds in 3 used cases i had for barrel break in and sighting. Figuring i could contue any barrel break in on the Varget loads.
Since the varget got the first loadings while i waited on the other powder i loaded it from low to high with the data i had started out at 32gr and ending with 35.8 gr for a total of 16 loads.
When I got the 6.5 Stabill powder i felt i might have better hopes with this powder than Varget. Also i was not wanting to waste too many bullets and primers so i started in the middle of the data ( I know you should not do this, technically speaking) and loaded up 11 loads ranging from 42-44gr in .2 gr increments.
I packed up the gun cleaning kit, the sweets for the copper and break in ckeaning, and the chrono and headed out.
I wasnt mindful of the daylight and the sun this time of year goes down behind the shooting bench early enough to cast a shadow on the Chrono. Its a prochrono digital and it works flawless with light. Kicking myself for not ordering lights for it sooner i soon realized that i couldnt capture any data of value. However other things went real well.
Trying to bore sight a gun in a hurry i found myself way off on the firdt shot. So much i though i missed the whole target. It took 5 shots to get pretty close to the dot because i am an idiot and turned the turrets the wrong way.
By this time i am 5 shots and 2 cleanings in. And very little blue on the cleaning patch. Break in did not sway my method. I just shot the groups at they came.
I did split the varget into 2 groups. One 6 shot and one 10. Including the sighter that got me close.
The 6 Shot group,well i pulled one and still came out well. About .75" Keeping in mind these were all different loads at .2 gr increments in a range from 32.6-33.6 gr for a spread of 1.2 gr i dont think it was bad. If i removed the one i pulled the group shrank to about .65"
Moving on to the second half of the Varget loads i figured i would move the chrono and maybe catch data. Changed strings too. No dice.
But as you see in the second picture i still managed a nice 6 hole group seperate from the first 4 at about .5" with a spread of 1.2gr in charge weight.
A pattern is emerging here. When the node moves, it all moves at once it seams? Well the final loads of Staball 6.5 powder seem to do the same thing.
In this 11 shot string i dropped a nice 4 shot group less than .5" before the shift. The next 6 shots measure less than .5"too. Nice little cluster on the right of the final target pic. The last shot opened it up to a little over .7" as you can see.
Maybe i am reading more into this but it seems my hodge podge batch of powder and bullets didnt do too bad with the new Hornady brass and Fed 210M primers. What do you think? Do you think some good Peterson or Lapua brass with a better bullet and some H4350 and i might see a half minute average maybe better?
Although if i dont get the low standsrd deviations i will change something. After all small groups at 100 dont do the same at 1,000 if the numbers are not there.
As a side note i am not planning on using varget as my powder. Not that it did bad but i want a little more velocity. The 6.5 Staball powder may be as good as H4350 in this barrel with the right components. Maybe not.
A day i thought would be a bad day for testing was still enjoyable. Everything felt good. Including the weather.
Some details about the rifle. Savage 12FV that started as a 308. I took the stock off and set it in a stealth chasis. I hated the older stock that came on the stealth and replaced it with ( forget the brand ) an aluminium adjustable stock that you see in the photos. I then replaced the cheap scope i first had on it with a Vortex Viper HST 6-24×50. It started with 2 piece weaver mounts but then i replaced those with the EGW 20MOA one piece rail. Honestly i forget which scope rings i put on it too. It pretty much stayed that way for 500 rounds. The gun shot average about .8 moa. Some days better than others. One day a .45 groups and the next 1.1" groups. Sometimes it was me but no .5 " me.
So i decided i wanted consistency and chose to rebarrel it with a Shilen. I called Northland shooters supply and ordered a 26" shilen varmint profile in 6.5 creedmoor with an 11 degree target crown. Plus a new lug which had no variation in measuermet readable on my calipers.
Being that i chose a bad time for relaoding components i didnt get what i really wanted as far as powder, brass or bullet goes. But i needed something to start with so i gathered the things i could.
I already had Varget and its good for lighter bullets they say. I also landed some Winchester 6.5 staball and ordered it. Good i have some powder to work with but not the powder i wanted. I wanted H4350.
Bullets was another thing. Lately they are scarce but do pop up here and there. I heard that the Barnes Matchburners were not bad and since it was all i could find and they were cheap i grabbed 500 of the 140 gr Matchburners. Great i have bullets.
The Brass i wanted ranged between Peterson Lapua, and one other brand that i cant remember the name of. Not nosler, and not Norma. Im sure someone will know what brand I am forgetting the name of. But all i could find was some Hornady. Now I have not been the biggest fan of Hornady brass as it pertained to Precission components but many Competitors use it so i grabbed the last 100 on the shelf of a gun store 45 miles away. I grabbed them and continued on to 2 other gun stores that were stripped bare of anything i could use.
I ordered a set of Forster BR dies. A pilot for the RCBS neck turning tool and set about making some loads.
First things first, brass prep. Checked the runout. Not bad actually. But i had some that were a little too far out and just turned the necks on them all. Got runout down withing +/- a thousandth. Annealed them, primed them and loaded for saterlee even though i know new brass will likely changed once i fireform and load them as they will be for their life span. I felt no need to waste good powder,primers, bullets, and barrel life without getting something out of it.
I found the throat to be much longer than the magazine length so i just decided on a start length of 2.8". That is .1" longer than barnes length but plenty of bullet was in the case and i started there until i find a good load before adjusting.
I Just finished the loads with varget and was watching my calendar and hoping the 6.5 Staball powder would show up and it did today. Perfect timing.
I guess depending on what cartridge and powder range your afforded some people load differently using the saterlee method but i stuck with small change increments of .2gr for the win.
I loaded up 3 rounds in 3 used cases i had for barrel break in and sighting. Figuring i could contue any barrel break in on the Varget loads.
Since the varget got the first loadings while i waited on the other powder i loaded it from low to high with the data i had started out at 32gr and ending with 35.8 gr for a total of 16 loads.
When I got the 6.5 Stabill powder i felt i might have better hopes with this powder than Varget. Also i was not wanting to waste too many bullets and primers so i started in the middle of the data ( I know you should not do this, technically speaking) and loaded up 11 loads ranging from 42-44gr in .2 gr increments.
I packed up the gun cleaning kit, the sweets for the copper and break in ckeaning, and the chrono and headed out.
I wasnt mindful of the daylight and the sun this time of year goes down behind the shooting bench early enough to cast a shadow on the Chrono. Its a prochrono digital and it works flawless with light. Kicking myself for not ordering lights for it sooner i soon realized that i couldnt capture any data of value. However other things went real well.
Trying to bore sight a gun in a hurry i found myself way off on the firdt shot. So much i though i missed the whole target. It took 5 shots to get pretty close to the dot because i am an idiot and turned the turrets the wrong way.
By this time i am 5 shots and 2 cleanings in. And very little blue on the cleaning patch. Break in did not sway my method. I just shot the groups at they came.
I did split the varget into 2 groups. One 6 shot and one 10. Including the sighter that got me close.
The 6 Shot group,well i pulled one and still came out well. About .75" Keeping in mind these were all different loads at .2 gr increments in a range from 32.6-33.6 gr for a spread of 1.2 gr i dont think it was bad. If i removed the one i pulled the group shrank to about .65"
Moving on to the second half of the Varget loads i figured i would move the chrono and maybe catch data. Changed strings too. No dice.
But as you see in the second picture i still managed a nice 6 hole group seperate from the first 4 at about .5" with a spread of 1.2gr in charge weight.
A pattern is emerging here. When the node moves, it all moves at once it seams? Well the final loads of Staball 6.5 powder seem to do the same thing.
In this 11 shot string i dropped a nice 4 shot group less than .5" before the shift. The next 6 shots measure less than .5"too. Nice little cluster on the right of the final target pic. The last shot opened it up to a little over .7" as you can see.
Maybe i am reading more into this but it seems my hodge podge batch of powder and bullets didnt do too bad with the new Hornady brass and Fed 210M primers. What do you think? Do you think some good Peterson or Lapua brass with a better bullet and some H4350 and i might see a half minute average maybe better?
Although if i dont get the low standsrd deviations i will change something. After all small groups at 100 dont do the same at 1,000 if the numbers are not there.
As a side note i am not planning on using varget as my powder. Not that it did bad but i want a little more velocity. The 6.5 Staball powder may be as good as H4350 in this barrel with the right components. Maybe not.
A day i thought would be a bad day for testing was still enjoyable. Everything felt good. Including the weather.
