Browning A Bolt Question

[shooterchris]

I am in the process of working up a hunting load for a hunting buddy of mine. His A Bolt is a 30-06 equipped with a BOSS CR. Browning claims that it is the same as the original without the muzzle brake feature. What is the purpose of this. It also has a micrometer style adjustment that can increase or decrease the length between the crown and the end of the BOSS CR. Thr increments go from 0-10. I have never owned a rifle with a muzzle brake, and if anyone has any advise on how to tune this it would be appreciated. (It would be great if anyone has experience with this setup)
Chris

[stephenj]

chris i have a browning a bolt in 300 win mag with the boss system that ive not realy had the time to play with but its my understanding that the adjustment isnt for recoil but to tune barrel harmonics to fine tune your loads best acuracy ... but in all honesty im just not sure if my info is right about this so i too hope to hear from someone that actualy has some experiance with the boss system , as a side note with starting loads and j word bullets the rifle does seem to shoot darn good with the few rounds ive sent down range

[flounderman]

it's to fine tune the accuracy. you shoot groups and adjust it until you find the sweet spot for that load.

[Dennis Eugene]

OK I'll give this a try, as the bullet travels down the barrel the barrel vibarates up and down, as you adjust the boss for length of barrel you try to find the "sweet spot" you want the barrel to be in the same place every time the bullet exits it. either dead center or at full rise or full drop as it vibrates up and down. Supposedly as you adjust the boss in or out you can find the best spot for the the barrel to be positioned when the bullet exits. I Think. Dennis

[Mk42gunner]

The other posters have pretty much nailed the answer. In theory you can adjust the barrel harmonics for any load. I have to wonder if you would have to change the setting whenever you changed loads.

Plus on a big game rifle it really doesn't matter if you are getting 2 1/2" groups or 3/4" groups.

The way I would adjusty it is to get a decent load that performs how you like, then start shooting groups and adjusting the settings. This would probably take all day to do, since you will have to let the barrel cool between groups.


Robert

[stephen perry]

I own a rifle with a muzzle break. It's only purpose for me is to keep the gun in my front rest. I shoot for accuracy with my 6x47 Lapua. Others shoot a heavy caliber they couldn't handle without a muzzle break. Most know you don't want to shoot at a Range next to a muzzle break seems people with muzzle breaks have the same attitude at a shooting range as the guys that shoot an AR throwing brass all over their neighbors.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[whitetailsniper]

chris, your buddys browning a bolt with you working on loads for him,,, i also have a browning a bolt, i mounted a nikon 3x9x40 on it, and sighted it in last wkend,,now mine is chambered in a 300 wsm and i used a box of fushion 165 grains,with wicked groups from this factory ammo,i also loaded up some rounds 9 rounds with varget,,and 9 rounds with imr 4350
for the varget i used 56.7 grains with a col of 2.780 150 grain siearra spitzer,,,the imr 4350 was 66.0 grains of powder with the same col. i shot 9 rounds each for a total of 18 rounds,getting much better groups with the varget than i did with the imr,,however the factory fushion 165 were much better groups than my reloads.varget was a very close second for groups. as i was not able to have the time to use my crony, i figure fps were in the 3000 fps range. this just goes to show you dont over look factory ammo. even though your buddy has a 30/06 and i have a 300 wsm both use a 30 cal bullet,,but its all in the twist rate,a 165 grain will do much better in a 1 in 10 twist. as for the boss like the other fellows say,and are totally correct its for tuning,not for recoil. my advice for you reloading for your buddy,,use nosler ballistic tip 165 grain,with imr 4895 44.0 grains,,, or h4350 with 57.5 grains i believe you will like the results,as this is the load i use in my sons 30/06. the results in my sons rifle were hitting the same holes at 300 yrds.

[shooterchris]

I think that I'll screw the thing on center of the setting, find the load that works best then maybe adjust it if it even needs it. I will however be loading jacketed Sierra Game King 165 gr, so it the rifle doesn't shoot at least moa I'm gonna advise my buddy to sell the thing and buy a 700. Never had a problem out of one. A 2.5 inch group at 100 yards can turn into a miss by a mile at 300 yards. Is it typical for the A Bolt to shoot poor groups. I got a lot of responses in a short time and some don't sound too positive about the accuracy of this rifle. Will these rifles shoot?

[Dennis Eugene]

Both my son and I have been shooting A-bolts at sitka Blacktrail deer for many years and yes they do shoot. Check out my picture albums on my profile page. Altho we both use 25/06 cal. many of the bucks taken in those pics were taken at 300 yrds give or take 50 as all were taken at varying distances. I believe that a given rifle will be more particular about a bullet, favoring one style/make over another, more so than a given powder. What I'm trying to say is that if a rifle likes a particular bullet it will shoot it well with many different loads both weights and brands of powders but that if it does not care for a particular weight/style of bullet it will never shoot it well no matter the recipe used. So if one finds ones rifle does not shoot well with one style of bullet I would not give up on the rifle with out trying several different styles and weights of bullets. But that is just my opinion and worth exactly what you paid for it. Dennis Eugene Ps by the way neither he nor I have the boss system on either of our rifles. I also own two other browning rifles and my son Mike just bought a new Browning Xbolt in 7MM Mag for this deer season. He hopes to bloody it this weekend as deer season here has been open since the 24th of July.

[shooterchris]

DE,

I agree with you on how a rifle shoots certain bullets and just wont shoot others. My background is benchrest shooting, so I tend to put accuracy first when developing a load. I have in the last few years become interested in hunting. I am of the opinion that nothing takes game better than a well placed shot. A firearm that you know is true and accurate on the bench WILL do it's part as long as the hunter does his part. To settle for less than MOA in any comparable bolt action rifle is giving yourself less room for error in a hunting situation. Since my first post I took the tifle out of the stock because the area between the tang and the rear of the port looked wrong. Turns out the rifle had been bedded.....wrong. there was no bedding compound or a rear pillar and the tang was being pulled down by the rear screw and flexing the action. This is probably the cause of the inaccuracy. He has only shot 40-50 rounds through it and he wasn't able to get it to shoot, so he gave it to me to look at. He was sold this rifle as new and he did not have it bedded, so he is going to the dealer today to figure out what they will do to fix it. As far as the load goes I was going to start with the Sierra on the suggestion of a friend that shoots them in his 30-06. I hunt with a 308 so I have some other stuff laying around to try. thanks for the post.

P.S. Hey whitetailsniper, what kind of 30-06 do you have for your son? One holers at 300 is friggin unbelievable.

[stephen perry]

From your benchrest shooting you know hunting rifles don't shoot one hole groups at 300 unless that was the one hole on the target and the rest of the shots went to Mexico. Got lots of hunting rifles and lots of BR rifles.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[shooterchris]

Stephen,

I guess my sarcasm was too subtle. I was kind of being a smart-you know what. I ask a simple question about how the BOSS system works, and I get all of this "expert" advice on loads....even for guns that I dont have, and claims of 1 hole groups out of a youth rifle.....an 06 at that. I have a 6PPC and a 30BR. Both are tight neck completely custom guns, and yeah they shoot little old groups, but 1 hole at 300, no.

[Moonie]

Many years ago I had an A-Bolt Stainless Stalker with the Boss in 7 Rem mag. Once tuned to the load I was using (large dose of Reloader 22 and 140gr Nosler BT) it would consistently print 3 shot groups at 200 yards under 3/4 inch. Yup, them Brownings can shoot.

[stephen perry]

Since you have a 30BR and see what the Score/Group shooters do with their Tuners how could the Browning BOSS sytem be much different. Somebody should come on with something that makes sense on the A-bolt with the BOSS.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[felix]

Dennis explained it best. Before adjusting the tuner, make the bullet of choice shoot its best by doing what is normally done. If the FINAL group is not satisfactory, then open or close the tuner by no more than 1/12 turn. Shoot group again. Adjust again same direction if group is smaller than the last. If not, go the opposite direction by 1/6 of a turn. It should produce an even smaller group. The objective is to get the group very close to optium, and then occilate the tuner to a nat's eyebrow. How good is good? For that, re-read Robert's post. ... felix

[stephen perry]

I have shot with shooters that had Browning A-bolt using the BOSS system. I doubt the system is patened but if it is it would be easy to build similar and get around the patent, like all old ideas that get picked up again. Browning did not invent barrel tuners.

I don't discount a Tuner system but see it as a what can it do for me today system. Factory rifles have so many variables that can affect accuracy number one being wind and mirage conditions for that moment a group is being shot. Benchrest shooters combat conditions every single group they shoot. Range shooters with factory guns shooting by the seat of their pants cannot beat conditions by turning a Tuner. I don't where the conception that certain guns and calibers shoot through conditions but they are wrong. Look at any Sierra manual and check out wind drift figures. A wind increase or dropping off is going change point of impact sometimes up or down sometimes left or right. No BOSS system can correct for change in conditions.

My suggestion is if you have a BOSS set it at the middle setting leave it alone and learn how to pull a trigger, most Range shooters need work on trigger pulling. If you are serious about shooting groups with a facory gun make a couple wind flags and learn what they do.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[shooterchris]

Stephen,

I agree with you 300 yard shooting has almost as much to do with the shooters ability to read conditions as it does the rifle. A man can dump literally thousands of dollars into a rifle, and if he can't read conditions he'll still get poor results. The dealer is supposed to be looking at his rifle and trying to determine what to do with it, so I gave it back to him today, and still haven't shot it. I personally think that if he wants a rifle to take deer at these distances he is going to have to, for one, put in a lot of trigger time. And in my opinion he could outfit himself with a better gun. Something with a blueprinted 700 action, or similar custom action, and a custom barrel. I see a lot of claims of 300-500 yard shots being made, and I dont discount them all. Unless you spend some time at a range that you can actually shoot at these distances, I think that some of the claims are mis-judged more than exaggerated. Until you are facing a target of a known size at 300 yards most shooters don't really understand how far that is. A deer at 300-500 yards looks really small, and at 1000 is almost impossible to see. I guess your point, and I agree with you, is that making the shot is what it comes down to, and both the shooter and the gun must be doing their jobs.

What caliber and type / class of BR do you shoot?

[stephen perry]

You agree with me about shooting because neither of us has anything to prove. We both have been there and done that in the shooting game.

Chris I shoot NBRSA all 4 group shooting classes short range 100-300 yd. I'm in the SW Region shoot Visalia and Phoenix mainly. I was Shoot Director at San Gabriel Valley Benchrest Shooters for 11 years 1995-2006 until the Range closed. We are now building Angeles BR range, hope to have a full schedule next year where I will be Shooting Director again, wow is me.

My BR guns are a Hall sporter, a 40x Sporter, a Rem 600 HV, 2 rail guns, a 6x47 Lapua 200-600 silohuette gun, and 3 Cruiser guns. I shoot 22 and 6 PPC barrels. For BR scopes I have 4 Weaver 36, Leupold 36, B&L 36, Lyman 36, and a Tasco 36. Just a bunch of stuff that I have spent years collecting. I make my own benchrest 22 and 6 bullets.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[Heavy lead]

I actually had a boss on a Winchester Model 70 30-06 I had in the mid 90
's through early 2000's, anyway this was the muzzle brake boss and was one of the few Winchester's I had that would shoot well. It came in the box with suggested sweet spot settings and was able to dial it in pretty well, after the handload I settled on was acceptable accuracy I fine tuned a might afterwords and it was a fine shooter, if memory serves regular 3/4" groups with no other work being done to it. I did in fact adjust the boss some just to see if it shot worse at other settings and it did, also I shot it without the device and it also shot worse. With that said I got rid of the rifle as I just don't like brakes at all. Anyway a quick search turned up this link, check it out, it has a sweet spot set per caliber and load, might want to start there.
http://www.browning.com/customerservice/qna/detail.asp?id=109

Give it a try, might just surprise you.
By the way, I myself am a 700 guy too, have always been able to make them shoot.

[shooterchris]

Weaver T36...Best BR scope for the money. Is your Tasco one of the old World Class 36's? those were great scopes too. I have one one too, and don't really meet too many people that still have em.

I just sent the NBRSA Southeastern Director an email requesting some info on range locations. The club that I do my shooting at now has very organized matches for score, and the rifle classes are essentially the same as NBRSA. I don't know where any of the other ranges are. On the website the name of the range is listed, but not the location. I would really like to do some shooting with some of you fellas. I have been shooting BR for 3 years now so I am a rookie, but I have had some pretty decent scores. Best score to this point has been 397-14x 100/200 yards with what would be concidered Sporter class rifle. I just enjoy good natured competition, and not that the guys I shoot with are unsportsmanlike in any way, but I would like to see more of what the BR world has to offer. I just finished having my first unlimited rifle built. It is a 30br with a trued 700 action and a 1.350 Lilja barrel with a Jewel trigger. I put a T 36 scope on it. I barely have 200 rounds through it, but it is pretty impressive if I do my part.

Any advice you have for me to help me make the next step in the BR shooting experience would be appreciated.

[felix]

Chris, that is a hard to do. The best advice is to do whatever you already know, and play the hand delivered. It will be internal to you for the remainder of your term in BR. Things like patience, fearless, smoothness, and continuousness, whatever that is. ... felix

[stephen perry]

Chris
All the info you are going to need is on Benchrest Central Forum. Do a search on that title you will get info on the Southeast Region of the NBRSA.

Stephen Perry
Angeles BR

[shooterchris]

10-4 Stephen. Thanks.