How's that beautiful new rig shoot "G"? You got quite the "hide" there
In reverse order.
If you are in Frisco Tx. you know the score on trespass leases. This spot which I call "The Canopy" is on Dolph Brisco's homestead ranch about 5 Miles below Concan off SH-83.
This property has probably been hunted close to 100 years now. My buds and I have been here since 2004. It is located on the back side of one of the hills on the property. Evidently in the 70's the juniper was not so overgrown and the guys that had this "pasture" then had access to heavy equipment. No other way they could have got the material up there, put together and erected. The legs of the stand are constructed of 2" sucker rod and the frame is angle iron. It is probably close to 50 years old and now the plywood on the sides has mostly rotted off and the roof leaks like a sieve. I'm pretty much a minimalist in that I usually hunt out of tripods or set up a chair on the side of a cliff or next to a tree, so the fact that it is dilapidated bothers me very little. I do love the view.
northwesterly view
Southeasterly view
easterly view from the spin-cast feeder in the first picture, to the stand on top.
It too is one of the few places I can get cell signal.
Now to the rifle.
I hate to say it but my first outing with the Christensen was sub-par, IMHO, but some of that is probably my fault.
Some caveats, observations and thoughts.
I picked the rifle up earlier in the day Friday. I did not clean the barrel nor tighten any of the action screws. The fellow that mounted the scope is a competition shooter and knows his stuff and used an inch-pound torque wrench to tighten both the fasteners on the Vortex Ring Bases.
He bore sighted it and from the targets included below, you can see that he did a good job of getting it on paper (see shot #1)
IIRC the rifle info indicated that the trigger was adjustable. The literature that comes with the rifle states that the trigger is factory pre-set and that if it is adjusted or changed out, it voids the warranty. The trigger breaks clean with no creep, but I prefer about a 2 lb pull.
I shoot off a lead sled, as rifles with significant recoil can cause a guy to flinch after a few rounds. The 300 PRC, with the muzzle brake installed surprised me with the amount of recoil.
I typically do a barrel break in procedure on a rifle such as this with 50 to 100 strokes with a bronze bore brush coated with a JB Bore Paste/Kroil Mixture, then follow up with cotton patches until they come out clean (or as close to clean as they are going to get). I did not do this as I was going to pack to head to my lease the next morning.
IIRC I fired 11 rounds. The velocity is printed on the boxes and is 2,810 MV for the Match ammo and 2,860 for the Hunting ammo. I was surprised how quick the carbon fiber wrapped barrel hearted up. I do not have another carbon fiber barrel, so I do not know if this is a plus or minus. Perhaps the carbon tends to dissipate heat quicker than a steel barrel. Consequently IIRC I fired three round and then let the barrel cool for at least 5 minutes.
I did not get to the range until about 6:30PM and shooting light ends at 8PM. By the time I got everything set up and targets hung, @100 and 200, it was 7PM. Rather than shoot groups, I decided to fudge and make adjustments on the fly. Probably not the best idea, but my idea was that If it was a 1.5-2MOA shooter, I could perforate a porker @200 with no problems.
So I fired a round to see if it was on paper. When I bought the rifle I also purchased two boxes of hunting ammo and one box of Match ammo. I do not shoot much less hunt with match ammo, but I figured this would give me a total of 60 pieces of brass, help me foul in the barrel and give an indication as to what the rifle liked. It is my impression from the limited rounds down the barrel that this rifle prefers the Hunting ELD-X’s over the ELD-M match ammo. (see targets, POA vs. POI)
My friend Jason (Sakohunter 264) loads the 300 PRC for his buds Christensen, and says that it’s a 1-hole with the 180 Gr. Nosler Accubonds.
In the next week or so I’ll shoot more of the factory ammo and see if I can implore Jason to load me a couple of different variations of powder and bullets to see if I can foul in the barrel and what kind of accuracy I can achieve.
Ya!
GWB