Cast and the .308 Win

[Tazman1602]

It’s the Savage. I sold a couple Remingtons and replaced with Savages. They feed cast well and flat out perform.

400.00 gun outshooting a 1000 dollar gun. Great job Savage.

Absolutely agree. 20 years ago the only Savage I’d have was a 99. I bought a Savage 110 “Bear Hunter” in 338 Federal and promptly bought a 308 Savage and an 06 too. They have made amazing improvements over the years and all are tack drivers out of the box with great triggers, can’t compliment them enough.

Matter of fact almost all of the new rifles are MOE for very low prices, youngsters (about anyone under 35) barely believe the things we had to go through 40 years ago to get rifles to shoot MOA.

STILL, being old, nothing beats blued steel, checkered walnut, and a nice shooter. Man I love the information available on this forum.

My all time favs are the Ruger M-77’s tang or MKII actions (love the Leonard Brownells designed bolt handles), Older Remmy 700’s, or well put together Win 70’s. Love the Rugers for their Mauser claw extractors…but then I love Mausers also……..and I love….LOL, all good guns..

Art

[Larry Gibson]

I went to the range yesterday to pressure test some 35 Rem loads in my M91 Mauser I like to take another rifle along to shoot while waiting for the test rifle barrel to cool between tests. Thus, I took the M70 target .308W along with a few of the 30 XCB target loads for it.

The M70 is a stock PF stainless that shot 1/2 moa with 175 MKs over Varget back when I was shooting 600 - 1000 yard belly matches. It has about 2500 such jacketed rounds through it. I only use it for cast bullets these days though occasionally (pre COVD anyway) getting over to Phoenix for a CBA match. I use the weight sorted 30 XCB cast of #2 alloy, WQ'd, Hornady GCs sized at .311 (they drop at .3105) the sized .310 in a honed out Lee sizer. They are loaded to a "crush" fit oal over 19 gr of 2400 (no filler) in LC Match cases with the flash holes drilled out and fully match prepped. The cases are fire formed and neck sized in a Redding NS dies with a Lyman 31 M die used to expand the neck to .002 neck tension and flare the case mouth. The velocity runs 1975 fps with the SDs (10 shots) running 10 fps +/- and the ES running under 30 fps.

I use the "SAAMI Twist" method of putting the loaded round into the rifle.

I had not shot the M70 for some time which was previous to my cataract surgery. Thus, I needed to adjust the scope so the vertical crosshair of the Leupold 6.5x20 target scope was vertical and had to refocus the ocular lens. I figured both would slightly affect the zero slightly and it did. I put 4 CBA score bulls up at 100 yards. I the fired 6 shots on the "SS" bull (bottom left) after putting 2 shots into the berm to foul the bore. 1st three shots were low right, so I adjusted up 3 click and the next two shots cut each other slightly high right. I went down one click and left one click and put the 6th shot into the 10 ring. Went back to the test rifle for another test string.

Came back to the M70 and shot the 5 shot group on the upper left target. The nine o'clock 10 is the first shot from the cold bore. I always fire a fouler before shooting a string for score in CBA matches as that first shot is usually slightly out of the group, as we see. Went back to the test rifle letting the M70 "cool".

I then shot the five shot group on the upper right target. the first shot is the low ten, again just slightly out of the group. Back to the test rifle letting the M70 cool again.

Next i shot a 5 shot group on the lower right target. Those five are the five center shots over the ten ring with the first cold bore shot being the low nine. Back to the test rifle giving the M70 a cool down.

When I came back to shoot the last five shots a steady 2-3 MPH wind had started coming from 3-4 o'clock. I did not hold for the wind as i wanted to see how much wind drift there would be. The first cold bore shot is the nine out at nine o'clock with the other four cutting the slanted hole on the edge of the 10 ring at 9 o'clock. My past experience with such a wind is to hold on the 10 ring at 3 o'clock. That would have been perfect this time also.

Average group size for the 4 five shot groups was .823" Was a good day testing the 35 Rem and shooting the M70.

Attachment 294191

[Shuz]

Wow, Larry, that's some fine shooting! Does your M70 make Production Class or Hunter Class?
Those groups would win either class at our Spokane CBA matches!!

[Larry Gibson]

Wow, Larry, that's some fine shooting! Does your M70 make Production Class or Hunter Class?
Those groups would win either class at our Spokane CBA matches!!

As is she weighs in at 13 lbs 2 ounces. That puts her in "Heavy Rifle" classification. If I take off the fore end BR adapter and the long sunshade off the scope she weighs right under 12 lbs which puts her in "Production Class". The scope in the picture is a 6.5x24 B&L Elite. I have the Leupold 6.5x20 on the M70 Target now. The B&L will go on a 223 Rem Match rifle I'm having rebarreled.

Attachment 294200

[oldblinddog]

How much weight difference was there between shot 5 and the others?

I wish I knew. Had I sorted them the group might have all been together. The four measured 0.871” if I remember correctly.

After this I weight sorted some of the bullets and they were nominally 169 grs, cast from Lyman #2 from Rotometals. Sized 0.311”, with Hornady gas checks and lubed with 2700+. I cast with a bottom pour ladle and don’t water drop. The weights when sorting ran from -0.4 to +0.6. I have other batches of this when I had a mix with hardball that ran 164.5. The weight doesn’t seem to matter much as long as you keep to a +/- 0.1 deviation. Of the “169” gr. bullets above, I had 4 batches of bullets that were +/- 0.1” of their respective nominal weights which ranged from 168.7 to 169.5.

[oldblinddog]

Here are two 1-12” twist .308 rifles:

The 31-160G is Accurate Moulds version of the 30 XCB

This one is a 26” Krieger with a Remington Varmint/Sendero contour that is throated to shoot the Sierra 168 gr. BTHP.

This is a 24” Douglas with a Remington #3 sporter (the standard Remington contour) with a standard .308 chamber done by Douglas. This rifle particularly likes the Sierra 155 BTHP (#2156) over AR-Comp.

Since I didn’t plan on shooting this load on a regular basis in these rifles, I didn’t pursue it.

[oldblinddog]

Here is the 1-17” twist rifle:

This rifle has a 26” Krieger with a Remington Varmint/Sendero contour. The scope is a Weaver T-36 on a 20 MOA rail.

The gunsmith that built this rifle called me and said that he had actually had a problem with his lathe and needed the rifle back to recut the chamber. After his correction, it now shoots much tighter groups.

[charlie b]

Those are all nice. I like the gunsmith's rework policy. Where in TX is he?

[oldblinddog]

Those are all nice. I like the gunsmith's rework policy. Where in TX is he?

Sent you a PM.

[charlie b]

Thanks.

[charlie b]

I know, I said I was done.

Larry Gibson made a comment somewhere about fast and slow powders. I started thinking, which usually costs me a lot of time or money I am shooting the 210gn bullet a lot. I have been concentrating on faster powders recently (4198 and 3031) rather than the Varget I started out with. I stopped using Varget in cast cause it was hard to come by even before COVID. But, I have quite a bit of IMR4166, which is kind of an 'improved' Varget (hype, I know). So, I tried it and found out it works pretty good. Got a load worked up and at 31.0gn it gives me 1960fps, about 20-30fps es and 8-12fps sd (with enlarged flash holes).

This was my target set from yesterday. 200yd, no wind (so no excuses ). Top two were first 10 rounds in clean barrel. Then I fired a bunch at a 4" gong and soda cans on the 300yd line. 'Killed' 12 cans. Bottom two targets are the last ten rounds (shots #35-45). Not too bad. Also confirms again that the barrel needs to be fouled and warm.

Previous session I was at the 1000yd range. At 500yd I could hit the 5" gong about every other shot. Put 5 on paper and got a 7" group.



PS sight settings were different on the bottom targets.

[Silvercreek Farmer]

I know, I said I was done.

Larry Gibson made a comment somewhere about fast and slow powders. I started thinking, which usually costs me a lot of time or money I am shooting the 210gn bullet a lot. I have been concentrating on faster powders recently (4198 and 3031) rather than the Varget I started out with. I stopped using Varget in cast cause it was hard to come by even before COVID. But, I have quite a bit of IMR4166, which is kind of an 'improved' Varget (hype, I know). So, I tried it and found out it works pretty good. Got a load worked up and at 31.0gn it gives me 1960fps, about 20-30fps es and 8-12fps sd (with enlarged flash holes).

This was my target set from yesterday. 200yd, no wind (so no excuses ). Top two were first 10 rounds in clean barrel. Then I fired a bunch at a 4" gong and soda cans on the 300yd line. 'Killed' 12 cans. Bottom two targets are the last ten rounds (shots #35-45). Not too bad. Also confirms again that the barrel needs to be fouled and warm.

Previous session I was at the 1000yd range. At 500yd I could hit the 5" gong about every other shot. Put 5 on paper and got a 7" group.



PS sight settings were different on the bottom targets.

Very nice!