Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Building a rifle to shoot X bullets?

Alright folks, enlighten me. I'm going to build a .264 WSM and want it to shoot 120 gr. XLC's accurately. I'm looking for tips to get me there. My magazine box measures approx. 3.065" so I would like to keep max. COL to 3.050". I have heard of people cutting the throats for particular bullets and COL. Have I heard right? I would like the bullets to touch the lands at 3.050". Then I can reduce COL until optimal accuracy is achieved. The goal being accuracy without taking up any more case capacity than necessary while still keeping the rifle a repeater. The rifle will be primarily used for hunting. Now if the XLC won't work out then I would probably use the 125 grain Partition for hunting. Good luck, Troy

Hi Troy. I didn't know Barnes made their 120 gr. flatbase in the XCL configuration. I understand they do make a 120 gr. X bullet however. <BR> I've had good luck with Pac-Nor's barrels. I understand you want to go with a longer than 2.80 inch OAL ? Just tell them what you want. They can handle it. At one time, I was going to have them make me a 7X57 barrel with a short throat for 120-140 gr. bullets. I finally decided to go with the .280 case. No regrets. E

Troy, don't forget twist. X bullets are long for weight and need a faster twist than a lead core. And don't make that barel too short, with the case capacity of a WSM and a 6.5 bore, you need at least 26 inches to get full potential. It's going to be slow powders and enough barrel to burn 'em!

You're right John, I plan on getting at least a 26" barrel if not a tad longer to get the velocity I'm "shooting" for [img]images/icons/laugh.gif" border="0[/img] . Good luck, Troy.

To aid in my quest for stunning accuracy a new unfinished A-2 McMillan from 'Stick's secret stock source just showed up today. Next step is to order my dies from Redding so I can make up a dummy to send to Pac-Nor. It won't be done in time to take it deer hunting unless I draw a depredation tag but the coyotes are on borrowed time. Good luck, Troy.

troy-<BR>please keep us updated. the 264 win has crossed my mind a time or two, and i would be interested in hearing your results.

Troy,<P>I have done quite a bit of accuracy experimenting with Barnes X bullets in match grade barrels as a mate of mine uses them exclusively.<P>There were three things that seemed to mostly give a good outcome for accuracy.<P>1) Undersize barrels by around .001"<P>2) Fire only X bullets from day one and never use guilding metal jacketed bullets<P>3) Individual barrel steel seems to have an effect. Unfortunately there is no real way of controlling that.<P>There are of course exceptions. I had a 35 Whelen Rem 700 that had a .359" barrel and it shot its best groups with 200 Barnes X bullets and I could mix them up with Hornadies and they would still shoot.<P>But generally the undersize barrel and sticking exclusively to X bullets appears so far to give the best outcome for accuracy and most often.<P>Mike

When you send a dummy round to pac-nor be sure and impress upon them that you will be measuring the throat when you get it back. I had them rebarrel a short action winchester M70 to .257 roberts a couple of years back and sent in a dummy round to have it chambered. When I got the barreled action back the first thing I did was measure the throat and they had cut it .070" longer than the dummy cartridge I had included. Since they cut the throat so long I couldn't seat bullets to touch the lands. Instead of sending it back I removed the spacer from the back of the magazine box and was able to reach the lands then.<P>I had a barrel chambered by hart the same year and also sent in a dummy round. When I measured the throat on the hart they had throated it exactly as I asked so I know it can be done, why pac-nor screwed it up I don't know. Pac-nor also left lapping compound all over the locking lugs and lug seats that took me about an hour of cleaning with carbeurator cleaner to get out. The barrel was pretty good but I wasn't that impressed with their gunsmithing services.

Troy, don't forget that Barnes recommends that you seat an X bullet no closer to the lands than 0.050 inches!