I went to the club today because I was behind on a rifle project. There were a bunch of pick ups and cars there, so I thought the place would be busy. I was wrong! The club is upgrading some electrical stuff and it looks like there's a new septic coming. All the vehicles were workers.

I brought two 6x45mms to play with. Both are savages I rebuilt with Shilen Select Match barrels and Timney triggers.

Today's shoot was to establish minimum loads for various powders and bullets. The pictures show how a good barrel and trigger can help get you close to the zone with a minimum of fuss. These first two target pix are minimum loads with either eight or ten powders. I fired two shots to establish the minimum.

...

The target on top is only 16 shots (two bullets x eight powders), but what impressed me was the tightness of it. The bullet was a 65 gr. Berger BT Target bullet. 16 shots with eight different powders into a little less than 1.5 inches at 100 yd. The launch vehicle was a HB Frankenrifle. A former Stevens 200 (Savage Model 10) with a Choate Ultra Varmint stock, Timney Trigger and 22 inch Shilen SM barrel. On top, an inexpensive Mueller 8-32 scope.

The second target made me smile. Frankenrifle Too started life as a Savage Axis. An inexpensive donor action that was completely made over. I replaced the barrel with a Shilen SM barrel, Boyds AT-One stock, Timney Trigger and a Bushnell 3200, 4-12 scope. It grouped two different bullets, propelled by ten different powders into 2.4 inches. These were minimum loads, ambling along at a sedate 2500 to 2600 fps.





This is the best start for load work ups that I have had in a while. The winds were okay - 15 to 20 kph (9 to 12 mph), but I never use wind or pulled shots as an excuse. They have happened to me while hunting and shooting in competition. The shots still count.

From here, it shouldn't be too difficult to get 3/4 inch or better with any of the bullets.

Steve;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope all is going according to plan in your world and you're as well as can be.

Holy cow those are pretty fancy groups for that many shots!!!

As I've mentioned here on the 'Fire, I picked up a little stubby Tikka T1X this past winter and have been testing it with 10 shot groups.

John Barsness has written a couple articles on the specific math of how much harder it is to get smaller groups as we increase the number of shots, but so help me all I can recall is that it becomes tougher and tougher...

That's absolutely been the case with the .22 for sure and with the .223 Ruger American I've been fooling around with as well.

Anyway, to this BC redneck that's an impressive pair of groups for sure!

Thanks for sharing and all the best to you this season.

Dwayne


PS;
Am very much enjoying your book too.

Strangely for me as I am not typically an aficionado of many things of a poetic nature, there's a couple of your poems/verses that I thought were good stuff too!

Hi Dwayne. Yes, the more shots you put downrange, the larger the group will become. A lot of people use a three shot group. One can argue the math, but I have always felt that for hunting loads at least, a couple of five shot groups will tell the tale, early on. I look for consistent clusters. I do not look for the fastest velocities. It's a visual thing for me.

In this case, it was visually apparent early on. I would like to praise the shooter , but he is just a part of the process - albeit a significant one. A quality aftermarket barrel, consistency when reloading and repeatability when shooting (aided in large part by the trigger) tell the tale. These pictures told me that everything was there, and that I would shoot a few good groups. I haven't shot any max loads yet, but I expect the consistency will remain with some of the powders. Math is important, but for visual learners, the uniformity will quickly become apparent. The cohesion will appear after about 10 shots or two five shot groups. What I am trying to say is that success will be visually apparent without measuring.

Mind you, everyone loves to hear about small group sizes and large velocity numbers. For that reason, they have to be recorded, for people to debate at a later time.

--

I am glad to hear you are enjoying the book. The poems are not the flowery, 'isn't life wonderful' kind. Some are humourous. Others are dramatic. I am not Liz Browning or Billy Shakespeare. I am happy that you liked some of them. One of the things about putting short stories or poetry into a book is that not everyone will like everything inside. I suppose that an author can only hope that most of the prose or poetry is well received.

Cheers!

One thing Steve. Billy S didn't know how to speak English, that I can understand anyway. You have it down pat. Or Joanne or Amy or whatever....... Be Well, RZ. And about the groups! Minute of Moose at least! And Be Well, RZ.

That's for sure. I figure Shakespeare was an alien, sent down to write a bunch of nonsense that high school students would have to suffer through for hundreds of years. When I was in high school, a Shakespearean play was forced upon us every year. I considered it a test of will. Could I get through that part of the year without committing a violent act.

WRT the 6x45mm, I will be loading a bunch more to test in the coming weeks. I have 15 bullets and 10 or 12 powders to work through. I had started, but stopped because they shut down my club for a while. It's open again now.

You done good Steve!

Thanks.

Canada has a law that says we cannot take ARs hunting. It's a range only rifle. This means that the 6x45mm is largely ignored in Canada, and perhaps, to a lesser extent, in the US, when fired from a single shot or bolt action rifle. It is a 200 to 250 yd deer rifle, if you accept Speer's recommendation of 1000 ft-lb of energy as the marker for whitetails. Farther, with modern bullets.

It's probably a 300 to 400 yd coyote rifle, but I haven't tried it that far because of a lack of places around here for shots that far. I can attest to it working to 250 yd with Speer 75 gr. HPs though.

This week's range trips will involve more velocity verifications, and collecting targets of same. I will finish up the deer loads and start into the varmint and target loads.



I also have a few hundred 5.56x45 cases left that have to be made into 6x45mm. .