Photos of groups shot with factory Federal 40gn BT ammo showed groups of around 2" at 100m - not real flash. Didn't stop him from getting 4 foxes under the spotlight last night though.
While we set the reloading gear up we pulled the bolt and ran some solvent into the barrel to soak. Asking a few questions found that he did t have a cleaning rod, and his dad was asking if the barrel should be cleaned once per year
Set up the old Simplex press, showed him the ropes and let him at it:
Meanwhile I attended to that barrel:
A power of copper came out and I could have kept going but we had some groups to shoot. Another pleasant surprise was that the rifling was crisp with no pitting.
He loaded up 5 increments of AR2207 with 40gn Nosler Varmageddons, and another 5 increments with 50gn z-maxes.
Then we headed out to check things on paper. To baseline he shot 5x with the Federal 40gn factory ammo he has been using, and 5x Winchester 50gn varmint supreme factory fodder in the blac box. Nothing special:
The 50gn Win in the silver box:
And finally some of my reloads developed for my Sako (BM1 with 40gn ) - a little more promising. The trigger is very heavy and we will adjust it down a bit next time:
To check it wasn't an issue with shooter technique I gave a few shots out of my rifles. My Sako .222:
My Anschutz .222:
And my Sako .17-222:
So he can shoot Ok. We ran out of time to check the reloads so he will test over the next week or two. I suspect we can get the old Sako shooting much better with a bit lighter trigger pull weight and a worked up load.
Marcus
