Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Mountain Ascent 280 Ackley Improved

Nosler is releasing a new long range Accubond this spring and they have 3 offerings for the .284 size, a 150, 168 and 175 grain bullets and the BC looks very impressive. I hope to work up some loads using R17 and the 168 LR Accubond for mine. I'm using R17 in several calibers and the velocity and accuracy are really good.

http://noslerreloading.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=21141

I have made one more tweak to the rifle. I never liked the muzzle crown with the thread protector, so I re-cut it. It is hard to see what it looked like before from the attached picture. The top picture is how it came from the factory after removing the muzzle brake and installing the thread protector. The bottom shows the crown re-cut at 11 degrees with the thread protector. The thread protector participated in the cut also. It has blue thread lock, so it should not move.






I went to the range to test it out, but to my disappointment, the pet loads of 57 grains of H4831 Berger VLD Hunting 168 gr were not shooting well. The groups were in the 1.5" to 1.8" range. When I worked up the loads, the temperature was 40 degrees, now it is 85 degrees. Also, this load seemed to open up at 57.7 grains. Therefore, I suspected I could be having temperature stability effects. I backed off the load to 56 grains, went to the range again and the first two groups were 0.4" as shown below. The next two groups with 56.5 grains were acceptable, but a little more open at 0.7" and 0.9".








I think I will stick with the 56grain loads and NEVER tweak the gun again.

This thing is light, and a little tough to hold steady, but it is a shooter.

Would be great to know what speed your loads are doing.

Congrats on a nice rifle and thanks for sharing your work with us.

Very nice. Seems like it is humming along nicely.

Now you're cooking with Crisco. Looking good and you can't argue with that accuracy from an ultralight factory rig.

It is a lot easier on the bench than out in the field. I am very pleased with this one. The accuracy is very good for these lightweight guns. I once thought I needed a bull barrel to have an accurate gun, and they are a little more forgiving, but not fun to carry. Once you hone your shooting skills, a lightweight gun is just as effective and a whole lot more fun to carry around, which is what you do most of the time anyway.

Great info and thanks for going through the effort of sharing. Looks like a fine rig you have!