F T/R Competition Barrel Tuners
- Thread starter jsthntn247
- Start date
Mike said you had one of his on your gun. I just ordered one myself. How has it helped you out? Do you have to adjust it or just leave it on one setting most all the time?
Mike who?
I have one of Erik Cortina's tuners installed on my 12 FTR from last year - 30" Krieger heavy Palma contour, ~0.900" @ muzzle. Normally his are designed more for 1.250" straight cylinder contours, where they pretty much just disappear. On mine, its pretty obvious there's a tuner on the end
Erik did the install on this one and it turned out pretty good. Ordered another and had a local 'smith install it... usually a pretty good guy but he didn't plan ahead enough (to be honest, I hadn't looked that closely at the interior of the tuner myself, and had made the same assumption) and the install was not good. I'd recommend having yours installed by someone who uses and understands them first-hand. I'm currently waiting til after FCNC to have either that second tuner, or another if necessary, fitted to my current barrel (factory 30" 1-10tw, ~1.000" @ muzzle).
I basically left mine @ zero for normal load development - vary the powder charge, found a node w/ minimal vertical. Varied the seating depth, again found a node with minimal vertical. Then loaded up enough of that combination for sighters/foulers plus 2 rds each every two increments around the tuner i.e. it runs 0-25, so I loaded up ~24rds (plus sighters to warm up the barrel). Shot two rounds, then adjusted the tuner +2, fired another two rounds, adjusted the tuner +2 again, etc. to completion. The results were almost blatantly obvious... I say 'almost' because the two shots @ '8' were literally one hole - had to measure with a caliper to tell there was more than one shot thru the paper, and 10 was pretty tiny as well, and 12 wasn't anything I'd normally turn up my nose at. The catch was I 'knew' that the group for #8 had a flier - it just went *into* the group, rather than out. The shot just didn't break *that* good, despite what I might wish. We had a local 3x600 coming up, and I set the tuner to 9, hedging my bets towards 10 just a little. First two strings went pretty well, but I had the feeling something was not quite as good as it could be... so during prep time for the third string, I reached up and tweaked it to 10. Thats it. Vertical on target shrunk noticeably, and I haven't touched it since in any of the matches I've shot it in.
It's not a substitute for load development so much as it seems to make things a little more forgiving. Some guns and/or sports may not benefit from that... and some do.
I have one of Erik Cortina's tuners installed on my 12 FTR from last year - 30" Krieger heavy Palma contour, ~0.900" @ muzzle. Normally his are designed more for 1.250" straight cylinder contours, where they pretty much just disappear. On mine, its pretty obvious there's a tuner on the end
Erik did the install on this one and it turned out pretty good. Ordered another and had a local 'smith install it... usually a pretty good guy but he didn't plan ahead enough (to be honest, I hadn't looked that closely at the interior of the tuner myself, and had made the same assumption) and the install was not good. I'd recommend having yours installed by someone who uses and understands them first-hand. I'm currently waiting til after FCNC to have either that second tuner, or another if necessary, fitted to my current barrel (factory 30" 1-10tw, ~1.000" @ muzzle).I basically left mine @ zero for normal load development - vary the powder charge, found a node w/ minimal vertical. Varied the seating depth, again found a node with minimal vertical. Then loaded up enough of that combination for sighters/foulers plus 2 rds each every two increments around the tuner i.e. it runs 0-25, so I loaded up ~24rds (plus sighters to warm up the barrel). Shot two rounds, then adjusted the tuner +2, fired another two rounds, adjusted the tuner +2 again, etc. to completion. The results were almost blatantly obvious... I say 'almost' because the two shots @ '8' were literally one hole - had to measure with a caliper to tell there was more than one shot thru the paper, and 10 was pretty tiny as well, and 12 wasn't anything I'd normally turn up my nose at. The catch was I 'knew' that the group for #8 had a flier - it just went *into* the group, rather than out. The shot just didn't break *that* good, despite what I might wish. We had a local 3x600 coming up, and I set the tuner to 9, hedging my bets towards 10 just a little. First two strings went pretty well, but I had the feeling something was not quite as good as it could be... so during prep time for the third string, I reached up and tweaked it to 10. Thats it. Vertical on target shrunk noticeably, and I haven't touched it since in any of the matches I've shot it in.
It's not a substitute for load development so much as it seems to make things a little more forgiving. Some guns and/or sports may not benefit from that... and some do.
Very good explanation Milanuk. Sorry, had Erik Cortina and Mike Ezell's names mixed up. They both make tuners.
