New rifle .40-65 chamber

[flatsguide]

Chill, did you know George Orndorff? He and I shot competitive pistol bullseye shooting in the early seventies. I moved from a Denver around 78 and returned to fly for Rocky Mountain Airways when BPCR shooting was taking off(no pun intended). George was really getting into that but I had another sport at that time. Fond memories indeed. Getting back into shooting at 80 years old is still fun but the body has other ideas, ha ha.
Spoke to a number of shooters that are using Ron Smiths Stainless gain twist and having very good luck. Coltsmoke comes to mind first. He is a hell of a shot and thinks they are first rate barrels.

[Lead pot]

I wish Ron would make a .438/446 barrel. I called him about a .44 left hand gain twist but all he would do is a .416.
I just might have him make a .40. Like I need another

[Gunlaker]

Chill, I haven't used any of my Ron Smith barrels in competition actually, well except for one in a .32-40 that I shot black powder bench-rest in Tacoma. I have been using my Shiloh rifles for all of my silhouette/BPTR matches. I decided to go that route as there just aren't any gunsmiths in my neck of the woods and my Shiloh rifles just shoot so well for me.

Most of my RKS barrels are on schuetzen rifles and I sort of lost focus on that when I got addicted to BPTR. I do have two .45 cal rifles with RKS barrels. One is a .45-70 gain twist ending in 1:17.5 on a Meacham highwall. It is a very accurate rifle, I just haven't used it in silhouette yet. The other is a 15 lb Shiloh Sharps with a 1:16 twist ( non-gain ) and chambered in .45-2.6 with Dan's PP reamer. I have not yet shot it in a Creedmoor match. I might one day though.

I don't think the RKS barrels are necessarily better than say a good Green Mountain, Badger, or a Shiloh barrel, but they seem to work consistently well.

Jack Odor is a big fan of Ron Smith's barrels, I gave him a .38 cal RKS gain twist barrel this year from a project that I decided not to do. He would be a good person to talk to about those barrels.

Chris.

[Chill Wills]

Jack Odor is a big fan of Ron Smith's barrels, I gave him a .38 cal RKS gain twist barrel this year from a project that I decided not to do. He would be a good person to talk to about those barrels.
Chris.

Chris - Well it was your barrel that got this conversation going a few days ago. Two weeks ago Jack Odor and I were on our way to a pronghorn hunt and stopped by Mike Lewis's house to drop off Jack's rifle project. It was snowing like crazy and Mike was not home - so a few days ago the three of us met for lunch. (trying to keep this short)

Mike is doing a barrel project for me, I'm re-barreling a rifle for my son in 40-60 Maynard by taking off a Ron Smith 45-70 Gain twist and Jack had your Ron Smith gain twist barrel and was going to try it on his rifle project.
According to Mike, over the years, he has been fielding complaints from people having trouble (consistent accuracy) with gain twist in BPCR applications. He made the distinction that gain twist barreled rifles for the 200y schuetzen rifle shooters using smokeless weren't in that group. Mike wasn't saying "Don't do it!" But just throwing that out there.

So I'd thought I would run that by you and/or anyone one with experience shooting Black in a gain barrel.

[Chill Wills]

Flatsguide
I don't know George but I do know Rocky Mountain Airways

By the time you were flying for them in the 80's were you in Otters or the 4 engine Dash 7?

About that time I was working at the end of the Stoll port runway ducking whenever you were taking off. I was a fireman 30 years ago in Avon/Beaver Creek.
It was snarky to call the airline Rocky Mountain Scareways. That little airport is long gone.

[flatsguide]

Lol, Rocky Mountain Scareways...got that right. I flew both the twin otter and the Dash 7.
Just ordered 250 rounds of Starline brass and now looking for a good stock blank. I may go with a pre Inletted blank. Anybody here that has tried a Treebone pre inletted stock ?
Thanks Richard

[Chill Wills]

Treebone is good. Give George a call, talk it over, he is good at getting you what you are looking for.

[Gunlaker]

Chills I'm honestly couldn't say whether the gain twist is useful at all. That Meacham highwall shoots pretty well, but so do all of the rifles that I haven't sold off . I know that some of the old timers didn't think much of it. In Perry's book he dedicates a single sentence to gain twist barrels. He says to avoid them interestingly, but doesn't say why.


Chris.

[flatsguide]

Comments on gain twist. I don’t know how to make an active link.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...-twist-barrel/

[Chill Wills]

Comments on gain twist. I don’t know how to make an active link.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/...-twist-barrel/

Here is part of the first paragraph
Quote;At the recent IBS 100/200 Yard Nationals, Benchrest legend Tony Boyer shot a spectacular 0.1697 Grand Agg in the Heavy Varmint class (0.1552 at 100, and 0.1843 at 200). This is the combined, distance-adjusted average group size for five targets at 100 yards and five targets at 200 yards. Interestingly, Tony was shooting a very unusual new gain-twist barrel from Bartlein Barrels of Wisconsin. A “gain-twist” barrel has rifling with a variable twist rate, that starts with a slower twist and transitions into a faster twist. The barrel used by Boyer had a very slight gain twist: 1:15″ twist at the breech end, increasing to 1:14.25″ at the muzzle

Greg- I think (I sure don't know) that trying to compare smokeless with our BPCR looses something in translation. The one sited above is just about NOT.....gain twisted "a very slight gain twist: 1:15″ twist at the breech end, increasing to 1:14.25″ at the muzzle".

My old shooting partner Woody shoots a gain twist 40-65. Not because he was looking to buy when he was putting the rifle together he fell into the barrelblank and it too is some mild version of the one above. These RKS barrels like the one Chris gave my friend Jack ( Wow! By the way who gives an almost stranger a free barrel????) and the one I took off a trade rifle (Woody again) in 45 cal RKS 31 to 16 twist is about a two to one ratio.
I have zero experience with them either so I'm just spitting in the wind too. I guess I need to install the one I have on something and learn. The history of mine is the first owner, a national match champion could not make it shoot and he traded it to Woody and Woody was not impressed so much that he wanted to keep it so it went with the rifle action and stock to me. So far it is a two time looser.

Now to be fair, RKS barrels have a seller reputation. He make a lot of normally twisted barrels that get on rifles that win matches.

Okay - enough for now. Somebody else's turn. (I did not even proof rear this - time for dinner.)

[Lead pot]

I would like to look at a undamaged PP bullet recovered from a snow bank to see what the land cuts look like.
Kurt

[flatsguide]

I would like to look at a undamaged PP bullet recovered from a snow bank to see what the land cuts look like.
Kurt

That would be interesting to see. Bullet rifling I’ve seen from my pp bullets looks good, but maybe a gentler start of the bullets spin may be slightly more beneficial. Pope really liked gain twist but he was very meticulous guaranteeing just over MOA at two hundred yards.

[flatsguide]

Just received my MVA 1885 action. I must say that I’m very surprised at the quality and finish. The action is very smooth and locks up tight. There are machine and grinding marks left from various manufacturing operations but they are not deep at all. MVA states that there is .005” left for finishing and this is true. There is a little bit of file work to do and the rest can be stoned and finished with 400 to 600 emery cloth. If MVA had to do this the cost would be most likely 50% higher. The set trigger is very good and crisp both as a single unset trigger and when set. Most likely I will use it set on the chickens and unset on the rest of the critters. I’m waiting on the .40 caliber barrel from Ron Smith. When I get the barrel I can determine the bore size and figure out the chamber size and get a PP reamer ground from Manson.
I’m looking for some nice wood to stock her with. Something like this.






To be continued...
Regards, Richard

[Chill Wills]

That MVA action is a first class, a well made piece of steel.

That looks like a blank of American Black with fine crotch figure. That is a high end blank.
How long do you think to complete the rifle? Please post pictures as you go.

[dave roelle]

Have a look with Cecil Fredie (sp) for your wood

I believe his web sight is
http://www.gunstockblanks.com
Cecils wood and georges carving get the job done

Dave

[Old-Win]

The 40-65 chamber was discussed a while back on the ASSRA forum and might be worthwhile reading. https://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Y...m=1495847350/0
Also, a good source of both American and Turkish walnut is Watts Walnuts.
http://www.wattswalnut.com/inventory.php

[Hardcast416taylor]

Not to hijack this thread. A friend is rehabing an old lever Winchester in .40-65 to shooter condition. He is looking for lead boolet load data for the original Lyman #403169 that was the standard for the old loads. Anybody have any data for loads?Robert

[flatsguide]

Thanks for the wood blank links. I’m moving along faster than I anticipated so I need to order the wood this coming week. I hope to have the gun finished I about three months. I tore the action apart and started filing and getting the action ready for case hardening...I sti”l need to polish the side panels and blend the side radii to the flats.



After I finish the action I need to file the correct profile into the lever. There is a transition area that would be difficult to do by machine but a few good strokes with a file will dress it up. I’ll post pics of that when I start on the lever. I will get it to a 600 or 800 finish for case hardening... Later R