Well, I have to say ….

 

June 20/15
Sandra at least tries out the  Flinty….

July 19/14 , Sandra got her new toy today 🙂

And yes it was a  partial surprise. She knew she was going to get it, her plan was to save and save. And she had been making progress, well I just helped a bit to speed up the progress a bit….

 

 

 

Ok I had to add this…..Well the ” new option has been cancelled by the CFO, it was fun while it lasted 🙂

Great new  option, exploding targets…

 

 

 

May 17/14 : The plan: Range report on the latest load: Savage 10 BA, .308, 150 gr. Powder IMR 8208,  43 gr. (approx 2600 fps) 100 yards….. compared to same bullet but different powder and load : 150 gr. Powder CFE 223 48.5 gr. (approx 2700 fps) 100 Yards. Speeds will have to be checked at some point but lets see how they land for now. Image to follow….

April 7/14 : This latest load I am trying with the .308 has been interesting to say the least. So far I have loaded 270 rounds, using the Hornady A-Max 168 gr bullet all with 41.2 gr of IMR 8208 (this according to the load data from the hornady data manual) So this is  whats been happening the last couple trips to the range and my experience with 308.

As you may of noticed I’m using  a 308 and as this is a departure from the 243. I had thought .308 bigger round, more punch etc. Well not so. Now that may well be, because the  Savage 10 BA is a mighty heavy chunk of steel weighing in at about 16 lbs fully loaded, which I am sure is accounting for less felt recoil. The end result is a very comfortable rifle to shoot. So off I go and get a set of Hornady dies, some powder and some Hornady MATCH 168gr bullets. My normal  habit is to buy some cheap rounds and expend the ammo and then reload to a quality round. That’s not to say that factory rounds are not good, I just prefer to know that the rounds I am firing are very consistent in their loads. This time I bought 50 unfired Winchester 308 brass shells and was talked into another 100  steel , once fired shells. Seeing as the brass was 40.00 for 50 and the steel was 15.00 for 100 I thought  why not. Well as you might imagine the brass was so sweet to load. One just has to appreciate loading new brass, the steel on the other hand.. well it wanted to bind and was a real effort to  run the resizer through. I tried putting  wee bit of case lube on the edge of the top of the round and that helped but it was still tough. I attributed it to them being steel, well after about 25 rounds I was ready to chuck them out and stopped loading the steel. I figured that I would just write off the other 75 rounds. I then got the idea that, although they looked nice and clean I would toss them in the tumbler and see if that made any difference. Well sure enough after they had a couple hours of tumbling the resizing and primer removal was a lot easier. After the steel experience I thought that Ill just stick with brass and to that end went out and bought a couple boxes of 150 gr Winchester to fire off and reclaim the brass, @ 18.00 per box of 20 it was pretty close to the same price as empty brass and I got to squeeze off 40 rounds, which is always fun. My surprise was just how many flyers i got with the  factory rounds compared to my hand loads. I had thought that the factory we a bit better than they were and as such was quite surprised to find that not so. That just validates reloading a lot more 🙂

So to firing, Steel vs Brass. I can say that the brass chambered a lot easier than the steel which I found odd. I measured both and the steel was .001 longer and I attribute that to the tight fit. That being said they both shot accurately and I was pleased with the results.

Going forward I’m going to keep this load and work on my breathing and posture etc. once I am comfy with the 308 I will then start adjusting loads. Hmmm 200 and 300 yard play grounds next.

Latest Range Video…

This is with the  Savage 10 BA at 100 yards….

The first group was center and after 8 rounds, I then adjusted for windage and finally elevation. As for the rest I am quite pleased. Those that missed the tack driving are my fault. ( grins the excitement of trying a new caliber) Regardless still some good groups IMHO. However by the last  grouping i had it pretty much under control, top right 10 rounds in one inch. As you can imagine I am looking forward to seeing it out to 300 yards.  Soon 🙂

 

 

 

 

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CALIBRE Magazine

So I came across this great magazine site called Calibre. Its a free mag that is available  across the country at various places. check their site out for a location near you. One of the great things is you can download past issues free in a  PDF format. Not long reads but some great info check it out
http://www.calibremag.ca/index.html

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Sandra doing her best “Drill Sargent Sandra” impression….