This year's project caliber

[Texas Sheepdawg]

Tried to drive into town today to work and almost ended up in a creek bottom. Finally got turned around, called my boss and told him NO WAY today. It took me 30 minutes to drive six miles back to the house and I almost took out my light pole and my grill trying to park. 
I'm gonna get cabin fever if this stuff doesn't go away soon. 
I hate ice storms. 

What What!?

Stop Global Warming.jpg (15.15 KiB) Viewed 6004 times

[Hoot]

Well, it got up to 34, so I bundled up and braved the elements today. I needed this outing as much for the restorative effect on the soul as to prove out the mechanics and break in the barrel, all of which were successful. I haven't shot in 3 1/2 months. In a phrase, What a pussycat! With one of Ross' brakes, the slip on limbsaver and my DIY knockoff of Gunnut's Recoil-Less A2 stock, it was like my 6mm Remington bolt action pushing 55gr pills. No lie! That was while sending a 160-165gr bullets downrange at around 2775fps. Since I was loading just to break in the barrel, I wasn't pushing the speed up as far as it could go. To make the task a little less dull, I loaded both the Hornady 160gr FTX for the Marlin Express in half and 165gr Speed BTSP in the other half, ahead of 45gr of H4895. I also broke them up with four different primers. Accuracy was not benchrest grade as I was constantly stopping and cleaning and combined with the cold, it was distracting enough to keep me from finding my groove. Basically shoot 1 clean X8, shoot 2 clean X8 and shoot 3 clean x8. I had given the barrel a good JB Paste treatment before going out, so it was not much of a challenge to break in the stainless steel barrel. The only drawback from loading them a little slow was all 48 rounds short-stroked about 3/4 of an inch. That same load at normal temps should be fine. Also, I suspect there is a stiffening effect from cold on the lubricants and the springs. Me too.

I look forward to working up some effective loads for it this year. I've got numbers to crunch for now...

Hoot

[Hoot]

Here's the break-in targets. Keep in mind, they were just something to aim at while breaking-in the barrel:



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