G’day all, I’m a long-time reader but first-time poster.
I am a 3P and prone shooter who recently purchased a Vudoo V22 single shot to dabble into benchrest. So, I have little to no experience in shooting bench so please excuse any ignorance in this post. I also must apologise for my OCD in testing as I have an analytical mind also.
I purchased a stock from a local stock maker Just Ask Geoff (JAG) which is named the ST1000. Geoff was very helpful and did an amazing job on the stock so there was very little that needed to be done during bedding and finishing.
This is the initial set up of the barrelled action in the stock;
View attachment 7756945 Due to not wanting to test tuner with ammo that didn’t shoot in the rifle I conducted these initial tests with batches of ammo I had on hand to see what shot the best. I don’t believe a couple of 5 shot groups give a true indication of how rimfire ammunitions shoots so I shot three 10 shot groups for each batch of ammo to give a better indication of what actually shoots well.
View attachment 7756946 View attachment 7756947 View attachment 7756948 All targets were shot with the same aim point and I must admit I was pretty disappointed with the Lapua Centre-X as all the batches I was able to test didn’t shoot well at all, even though the Vudoo’s are chambered for Lapua.
Realising that looks count for fifty percent of accuracy I added a few stickers to the stock to make it look better prior to finishing and painting it.
View attachment 7756949 After deciding on the colour scheme for the rifle this is the finished product
View attachment 7756950 View attachment 7756951 I use a Starik tube on my smallbore rifle and have tuned that rifle utilising the positive compensation method.
I have a Harrell tuner for this rifle and attempted to use the same process. However, this method did not work at all using the Harrell as the results were not repeatable.
Therefore, after a little advice from Jason LOWE at Lowey Products, who also made some amazing bolt protectors and bore guides for the rifle (pics to follow) I used the Hopewell Method to tune the rifle.
View attachment 7756952 This showed a node between 225 and 250 but on this day I chose the 250 groups and played further with that setting. The issue with this day was the wind was terrible and I really struggled to hold the groups together.
I then conducted another Hopewell Test to confirm these setting and found the following;
View attachment 7756953 After chasing the 100-200 setting I wasn’t totally happy so I went back to the 200-300 range and fell right back at the 225. However, the 125 was also not bad either.
Therefore, I settled on the 225 setting and began testing further batches of ammo I had on hand.
Again, there are three 10 shot groups of each batch of ammo as I don’t trust a couple of five shot groups. The weather was extremely windy again and I got caught a few times but did my best to hold the groups together;
View attachment 7756954 I had some Eley Team which shoots well through my repeater so I thought I would give it a crack in the single shot and this was the result. There are three 10 shot groups on the left and then obviously one shot per aiming mark on the right. Again wind killed me but I am slowly learning not to be so impatient.
View attachment 7756955 I just wanted to share what I had done to hopefully help anyone else who is finding their feet in benchrest and happy to take advise and criticism.
Also, as the rifle is not in the sun so the pics don't do the paint any justice. I will update with better pics in the future.
