After three months of waiting, reading, loading, and waiting some more I finally went out to shoot with the new rifle. Conditions were pretty bad. A solid 15MPH wind with several gusts to 20+ per minute. This is the first time I've loaded my own ammo so I was a little apprehensive of the results. I also wanted to pull the trigger on the first round with a string from behind some cover. Turns out the rifle didn't explode.
A close family friend went out with us and he had quite a shooting setup. We found a large open area at the deer lease and set up some pre-built targets. After anchoring them down I broke the rifle in with 40 rounds of lightly loaded ammo(40gr H4350 | 142SMK). We set up with the wind in our face as much as possible. This fixed some of the variation on the cross wind, but introduced another issue. Our buddy has a shooting bench built into the back of his Polaris Ranger. At the longer distances the wind was rocking the Ranger a little and you had to time the shots to avoid too much vertical spread. The first three rounds after scope zero were one hole.
After the break-in I ran through increased powder loads in .3 increments. The best loads were 41.5 and 41.8 gr. 42.1 has noticeably more recoil but no other pressure signs. I could tell the primers were starting to flatten out but they still had a way to go.
The winner of the day was the attached target @300 yards with 35 rounds down the barrel. Load was 41.8gr of 4350, BR2 primers, 142SMK, and new Hornady brass. The bullet was seated .015 off the lands.
Result was .33MOA with almost all of that being vertical spread. A lot of the spread was probably due to the wind rocking the Ranger. I'm pretty happy with this for the first time out. Thank you everybody on here for the knowledge I've gained. I've learned more on here than I would shooting 1000 rounds of ammo.
A close family friend went out with us and he had quite a shooting setup. We found a large open area at the deer lease and set up some pre-built targets. After anchoring them down I broke the rifle in with 40 rounds of lightly loaded ammo(40gr H4350 | 142SMK). We set up with the wind in our face as much as possible. This fixed some of the variation on the cross wind, but introduced another issue. Our buddy has a shooting bench built into the back of his Polaris Ranger. At the longer distances the wind was rocking the Ranger a little and you had to time the shots to avoid too much vertical spread. The first three rounds after scope zero were one hole.
After the break-in I ran through increased powder loads in .3 increments. The best loads were 41.5 and 41.8 gr. 42.1 has noticeably more recoil but no other pressure signs. I could tell the primers were starting to flatten out but they still had a way to go.
The winner of the day was the attached target @300 yards with 35 rounds down the barrel. Load was 41.8gr of 4350, BR2 primers, 142SMK, and new Hornady brass. The bullet was seated .015 off the lands.
Result was .33MOA with almost all of that being vertical spread. A lot of the spread was probably due to the wind rocking the Ranger. I'm pretty happy with this for the first time out. Thank you everybody on here for the knowledge I've gained. I've learned more on here than I would shooting 1000 rounds of ammo.