30-375 Ruger Pearce magnum. ELR on a budget.
It's been awhile but I finally have met all my goals!
About 18 months ago I decided I wanted to have a rifle built for Extreme Long range(ELR)shooting from 1000Y to 1800Y.Since I already own a 375Cheytac for ELR out to 3000 yards which is very expensive to shoot and a fussy cartridge and a 6x47L for regular LR use I wanted something in between the two.
Picking a cartridge within these parameters.
1.Reasonably inexpensive brass without a magnum belt.
2.A reasonably inexpensive bullet with a high ballistic coefficient.
3.A cartridge that burned approximately 80 grains of powder.
4.Seating the bullet out of the neck shoulder junction.
5.A cartridge that would fit in a magnum Accuracy International magazine to be shot as a repeater.
6.Reasonable barrel and throat life.
At the time I was working out of town and met a local gunsmith "Glenn Pearce" that had been an avid 1000Y benchrest shooter for many years.I approached him with some if my ideas about which cartridge to use on this build but at the time it seemed like I would have to compromise some of my goals.We discussed the advantages/disadvantages of 284 cal,30 cal and 338 cal.He stated that after trying all the common calibers and cartridges even different wildcat designs he favored 30 cal claiming that his impression was that they blew less in the wind and gave the best groups overall with the 208's 210's and 240's at 1000 yard benchrest comps.He then began to show me his newest wildcat design a 30 cal wildcat based on the new 375 Ruger case.As soon as I saw it I got exited because it was in between 300wsm and 300 ultra mag in size and after some research discovered that it would meet all my criteria just fine!So later that week I commissioned Glenn for the build.
I picked the 240 grain Sierra match king bullet with a .711BC and at Glenn's suggestion went with a Krieger stainless medium heavy #8 contour twisted in 1-9 to stabilize the 240's correctly,finished at 30 inches with his own muzzle brake adding another 1.5 inches.
I bit the bullet and picked the(expensive)Surgeon XL action because it's totally kick ass!LOL.It has a 30 minute picatinny rail machined into it,recoil lug machined in and well... just go to their website and see all the other cool features.It's the perfect size for this cartridge and comes with the bottom metal for AI magazines.
Fortunately Glenn had a used Mcmillin solid composite Anschutz style prone stock on hand that he made me a great deal on.He had to do some tedious machining and glass bedding but it turned out to be a perfect stock for me especially with the Tubb fully adjustable butt stock.
Time passed and I got the phone call that the rifle was finished but the reloading dies were not finished yet so I used 338RCM and 30RCM dies to neck down the 375 Ruger cases to a tight fit.I used lots of bolt grease on the locking lugs of the bolt because the cases barely fit in the chamber.I benchrest prepped 200 cases and fireformed with some 155's and 208's.I fireformed the 208's at 1000Y and was hitting a 10 inch steel plate quite often and the last three shots were hits so I knew the rifle was going to be a shooter once I got the custom dies in.
It took nearly 3 months to get the dies in.It was driving me nuts.It turned out that Hornady was moving their shop to another building right when I ordered the dies then they had to wait for heat treat so just bad timing on my part I guess.
The wait was over and time for some load development with the 240's.I had Retumbo,R-25,R-22,4831,and US-869 on hand to try.The only powder I could get any decent velocity out of was R-25.I was able to push the 240's up to 2800fps but the rifle liked 71.5gr of R-25 at 2775fps.I was able to shoot one 5 shot group that was .80 wide and .22 inch/ctc tall at 100 yards and with the same load a .25 group.So at this point I was happy with the accuracy but was disappointed that I was only able to get 2775fps out of my 30-375R as I had hoped for 2850fps.
Fast forward to last Friday.
Big thanks to Rob01 and Chadtrg42 for suggesting H-1000 as a good powder for the 300winmag.Man I'm glad I tried it!It gave me a substantial gain in velocity with the 30-375!I found max load was sending those 240's at 2920fps WOW!I found the best load to be 78 grains of H-1000 at 2885 fps.I also shot the smallest group I ever shot out of this rifle with 5 shots into .184/ctc.Yahoo.
It's interesting to note that while this build was in progress Glenn Pearce invited me to a 1000Y benchrest match in Tucson AZ and while in the pits pulling and pasting for a fellow competitor named Charles Greer I witnessed him set a new 10 shot light gun world record with his 300wsm in the 3.8inch range.Also I had read Tom Sarver's reports about some sub 2inch groups he had shot at 1000 yards with his 30 Hulk and the 240's.
I know all the regulars have seen these pics before but I wanted to show any new comers what a good 30 cal is capable of at ELR distances.
The rifle
30-375RPR 3.55 AOl
Cartridge comparison 6x47L on left,30-375 middle,375Cheytac on right
240SMK and cartridge
Steel plate that was shot at 1800 yards with 30-375RPR.Top group is 7 shots into 13 inches
Thanks,
Steve
It's been awhile but I finally have met all my goals!
About 18 months ago I decided I wanted to have a rifle built for Extreme Long range(ELR)shooting from 1000Y to 1800Y.Since I already own a 375Cheytac for ELR out to 3000 yards which is very expensive to shoot and a fussy cartridge and a 6x47L for regular LR use I wanted something in between the two.
Picking a cartridge within these parameters.
1.Reasonably inexpensive brass without a magnum belt.
2.A reasonably inexpensive bullet with a high ballistic coefficient.
3.A cartridge that burned approximately 80 grains of powder.
4.Seating the bullet out of the neck shoulder junction.
5.A cartridge that would fit in a magnum Accuracy International magazine to be shot as a repeater.
6.Reasonable barrel and throat life.
At the time I was working out of town and met a local gunsmith "Glenn Pearce" that had been an avid 1000Y benchrest shooter for many years.I approached him with some if my ideas about which cartridge to use on this build but at the time it seemed like I would have to compromise some of my goals.We discussed the advantages/disadvantages of 284 cal,30 cal and 338 cal.He stated that after trying all the common calibers and cartridges even different wildcat designs he favored 30 cal claiming that his impression was that they blew less in the wind and gave the best groups overall with the 208's 210's and 240's at 1000 yard benchrest comps.He then began to show me his newest wildcat design a 30 cal wildcat based on the new 375 Ruger case.As soon as I saw it I got exited because it was in between 300wsm and 300 ultra mag in size and after some research discovered that it would meet all my criteria just fine!So later that week I commissioned Glenn for the build.
I picked the 240 grain Sierra match king bullet with a .711BC and at Glenn's suggestion went with a Krieger stainless medium heavy #8 contour twisted in 1-9 to stabilize the 240's correctly,finished at 30 inches with his own muzzle brake adding another 1.5 inches.
I bit the bullet and picked the(expensive)Surgeon XL action because it's totally kick ass!LOL.It has a 30 minute picatinny rail machined into it,recoil lug machined in and well... just go to their website and see all the other cool features.It's the perfect size for this cartridge and comes with the bottom metal for AI magazines.
Fortunately Glenn had a used Mcmillin solid composite Anschutz style prone stock on hand that he made me a great deal on.He had to do some tedious machining and glass bedding but it turned out to be a perfect stock for me especially with the Tubb fully adjustable butt stock.
Time passed and I got the phone call that the rifle was finished but the reloading dies were not finished yet so I used 338RCM and 30RCM dies to neck down the 375 Ruger cases to a tight fit.I used lots of bolt grease on the locking lugs of the bolt because the cases barely fit in the chamber.I benchrest prepped 200 cases and fireformed with some 155's and 208's.I fireformed the 208's at 1000Y and was hitting a 10 inch steel plate quite often and the last three shots were hits so I knew the rifle was going to be a shooter once I got the custom dies in.
It took nearly 3 months to get the dies in.It was driving me nuts.It turned out that Hornady was moving their shop to another building right when I ordered the dies then they had to wait for heat treat so just bad timing on my part I guess.
The wait was over and time for some load development with the 240's.I had Retumbo,R-25,R-22,4831,and US-869 on hand to try.The only powder I could get any decent velocity out of was R-25.I was able to push the 240's up to 2800fps but the rifle liked 71.5gr of R-25 at 2775fps.I was able to shoot one 5 shot group that was .80 wide and .22 inch/ctc tall at 100 yards and with the same load a .25 group.So at this point I was happy with the accuracy but was disappointed that I was only able to get 2775fps out of my 30-375R as I had hoped for 2850fps.
Fast forward to last Friday.
Big thanks to Rob01 and Chadtrg42 for suggesting H-1000 as a good powder for the 300winmag.Man I'm glad I tried it!It gave me a substantial gain in velocity with the 30-375!I found max load was sending those 240's at 2920fps WOW!I found the best load to be 78 grains of H-1000 at 2885 fps.I also shot the smallest group I ever shot out of this rifle with 5 shots into .184/ctc.Yahoo.
It's interesting to note that while this build was in progress Glenn Pearce invited me to a 1000Y benchrest match in Tucson AZ and while in the pits pulling and pasting for a fellow competitor named Charles Greer I witnessed him set a new 10 shot light gun world record with his 300wsm in the 3.8inch range.Also I had read Tom Sarver's reports about some sub 2inch groups he had shot at 1000 yards with his 30 Hulk and the 240's.
I know all the regulars have seen these pics before but I wanted to show any new comers what a good 30 cal is capable of at ELR distances.
The rifle
30-375RPR 3.55 AOl
Cartridge comparison 6x47L on left,30-375 middle,375Cheytac on right
240SMK and cartridge
Steel plate that was shot at 1800 yards with 30-375RPR.Top group is 7 shots into 13 inches
Thanks,
Steve
