All: Well the second trip to the range with the new to me 220 Swift this morning "proved up" - I drove the 26 miles to my friends private range in dead calm conditions parked the VarmintMobile and sure enough here comes the wind (breeze!).
I sped up the prep and settled the heavy Rifle into my Hart benchrest and fired 5 shots in pretty rapid order as conditions were getting worse (wind and smoke).
Again, today, the resulting five shot group at 100 yards just amazed me - todays grouping measured .346"!
And remember this was done with the factory Hornady 55 grain V-Max ammo.
The breeze at my back and the smoke were bad enough after that to discourage me from firing anymore of this "precious" factory ammo.
I've about made up my mind to just dedicate this Rifle to firing the Hornady ammo and forsaking my normal routine of tuning some handloads for my Rifles.
I only have two Rifles as of now that shoot factory ammo so well I don't handload for them - one is a Remington 700 BDL in 25/06 Remington (that shoots the 100 grain Remington PSP ammo) and a Tikka T-3 in 338 Federal (that shoots the Federal 185 grain Barnes TSX).
I guess I am gonna have a third Rifle that I won't have to buy dies and components for - just go with the factory ammo?
Again kudos to the folks at Hornady for the good job on the 55 grain V-Max loads.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
