I would like to take a few minutes to express my thanks to Jerry Newman at Newman Precision and the guys over at Benchmark Barrels for their ability to produce a consistent product. Also, I would like to share an incredible experience that I have had thanks to both of these companies and their ability to produce a consistent product. On Saturday September 22, 2012, one week before the NORCAL TBRC I crono’ed my 6X47Lapua barrel that had 1411 rounds of 115gr Berger VLD’s down the pipe only to find out that I had lost 100fps. Needless to say I was franticly wondering if I should start to do load development to try and regain the speed and accuracy that I had on this setup – with this setup I had a 8th place finish at the Score High Tactical Rifle Challenge and some Phoenix/Las Vegas 1st thru 3rds. Instead what I did was call my teammate and he asked me if I still had the new barrel, which I had chambered at the same time as the one I was using, in my safe. I responded in the affirmative and he told me to take the old one off and put the new one on and shoot the load that was developed and previously shot well. Well long story short on Sunday after putting the new barrel on, running a sized piece of brass to make sure that everything was set properly, and loading some rounds using the reload data I keep I was able to shoot rounds 5-10 in a .580 edge to edge group and rounds 15-20 in a .575 edge to edge. These were witnessed and below are the photos. The only difference from one barrel to the next was velocity in the first was 3053 and my new velocity is 3068. With this setup including my US Optics scope on top I was able to win 6th place at the NORCAL TBRC and have confidence in my equipment.
