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bjornborud
I shot 160 rounds loaded with the XCB bullet today, giving my XCB rifle a good workout. What I was doing was in no way a TEST, in fact I won’t be using that word much anymore, since a test implies laying down baselines, using a comparison protocol, a minimum amount of shots, etc. etc.
Rather than getting all complicated I’ll be doing some shooting, explaining and observing over the next few months, and I invite you shooters out there to share your comments and critiques here on the board. No “rights” or “wrongs”, I’ll be trying out a multitude of variables in my quest to make my rifle shoot as well as she is capable of.
When I did my “HV lube test” the other day, Geargnasher commented that I hadn’t shot sufficiently large strings for the bore to get conditioned with the lube. I have to admit that he most likely is right, and today I wanted to give this famous lube a fair shake. At the end of the day a hundred rounds lubed with FWFL had gone down the bore, and here are some of the highlights:
First I shot a few mild loads – 13 grains of Unique. After the first group of 6 I went directly into 3 strings loaded with 28 grains of Varget. The first 2 groups, 15 shots each, were filled with 3/4 gr. Dacron, with the third group (10 shots) I used Puff-Lon as a filler. This is a powdery substance that is compressed (by 20%) between powder and bullet base. I could not detect much difference in accuracy between the two methods.Then I went straight into some High Velocity stuff. The lube held up very well as the target pictures show. I didn’t set up my chronograph; I have ordered this contraption and it’s being delivered Wednesday:
It should make documentation much easier, since I like to gather data from all my shooting.
The numbers in parenthesis next to the HV groups are MVs chronographed with the identical loads earlier, when the rifle’s barrel was 3 1/2″ shorter. It should give a good reference.Here are the targets from several of the strings shot with Felix lube:
At this point I scrubbed the bore thoroughly, and changed over to a lube I hadn’t tried before: White Label 2700+, from Lars’ Lubes. I had loaded several strings from mild to wild, and to say that I was impressed with this lube would be an understatement. In earlier conversations with Larry Gibson it was mentioned that this lube could be too stiff and possibly leave lube in the grooves upon muzzle exit. Because of the XCB bullet’s shallow grooves I decided to give it a go and it appears the lube performs as advertised.
With this lube I also mixed it up and loaded several bullets cast from pure linotype. Those are indicated in the target photos.
All in all I was very pleased with the way both rifle and loads performed. Not pictured are several groups shot with experimental powders, that didn’t work out well. These loads bombed with both lubes, so no fault there. Hodgdon Superformance just doesn’t shoot well at the velocities we were trying to attain, and more experimenting is needed in this area.
bjornborud-
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daveridenour
timknowles
swheeler
victorjones
lar45
Yes that is correct. When testing the Carnauba Red in a 30-06, the highest I pushed it was just over 2700fps. So that is what I put on the label. With all the work and testing that is being done here, I may have to change the label, lol.
And BTW, thank you guys very much for all of your work and time to do all of this and post it here for everyone to see. I really gets the mind working and thinking of what if’s…
Thanks again
Glenn Larsen.michaelburns
Hi Glenn, I’m currently converting Switzerland to run on Carnauba Red
The defining moment was showing around a 7.62×39 which had just had a bunch of full-power 160gn loads down it with 1 of 2 lube grooves filled and with a charge that was worked out as follows: how much Vit N130 can I get in without compressing it, to the nearest 0.5gn? Answer = 24.5gn.
Of those 100 sticks I just bought I’m going to have exactly 5 left for my own use… I guess I should have sold them on at a profit :doh:
Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to buy another box!
Thanks, and keep up the excellent work!
OK, so I just finished shooting all the remaining loads with stick powder in the XCB rifle. I’ll post it here as usual, mostly to create a record of what can be expected velocity-wise, and to a degree accuracy-wise. I also was introduced to my new XCB hunting rifle, “Carmen”, and I shot a few rounds through her. Further, I tried out some Accurate bullets from the original XCB bullet design (truncated cone bullet nose), since this bullet has a bigger meplat and should make a good hunting bullet. Lastly I shot 3 rounds loaded with “Bruce B”-style softnose bullets, made in the NOE XCB bullet mould.
All the bullets shot in this post were cast from Lyman #2 alloy, water dropped.
I’ll just let the pictures talk:
Carmen is built by Goodsteel on a Small Ring Mauser action (Oviedo 1916), using a Lothar Walther barrel in 1:14 twist, a Boyd’s laminate stock and a Timney trigger. The blueing job is just awesome. Larry recommended a cock on opening bolt conversion, so that will be done in the near future. I just shot a few rounds through her to get the feel of the rifle, and she’s a sweetheart. This is how she shot with cast, first load tried:
The Accurate bullet, which did not handle top speeds nearly as well as the NOE XCB, should nevertheless be a very good hunting bullet in the 2300 fps range, due to its much bigger meplat. I shot it with my “standard” milsurp powder load:
It’s definitely something I can work with and improve on.
Finally, I had cast up a few softnose bullets from the “Bruce B” thread on Cast Boolits. I brought 3 loaded rounds, and they shot reasonably ok:
Next up is continued experimenting with 3 ball powders: LeveRevolution, Superformance and Winchester 760. I’ll be trying to get consistent groups in the 2800 fps range.
timmalcolm
I finally took the Felix rifle to the range and got to put her through her paces today. I really wanted to satisfy myself that the GC uniforming tool was a worthy investment of my time, so I loaded up 40 identical cartridges, with the only difference being the method of preparing and seating the GC.
All cartridges were loaded with 53 grains of WC867.
All cases were SL 43 military. Sized first with the 358WCF die, then with the XCB die. Case necks turned for a tight slip fit with a .310 bullet.
Primers were CCI LR
All bullets were cast by Sgt.Mike and sorted by weight and for visual defects (verified here at MBT).
Lube used was White Label 2700+
Bullets were sized to .3097
Seated for a light press fit to the throat.
The only diferance was in the GCs as follows:20 bullets were lubed with RCBS case lube.
GCs were seated with a custom MBT die blank with a GC sized pocket that keeps everything in alignment while the bullet is pressed into the check with the ram. Then the bullets were run through a custom MBT modular push through sizing die to a diameter of .3097.
Afterwords, the bullets were dip-lubed and run through the die a second time.
Finally they were seated in the brass.
These are the ununiformed GC bullets.20 bullets were lubed with RCBS case lube.
The GCs were uniformed on the MBT mandrel as outlined earlier in this thread.
They were uniformed with a mandrel that measures .2873 and then plucked off the mandrel and used. No care was given to flattening the tip of the mandrel, nor making sure it ran true. In fact, I purposefully made sure it was wobbling in the tool holder to simulate someone doing this on a drill press. Also, no sanding was done, and there were tool marks left on the leading edge of the check from the pliers (it was a little harder to get them off this larger sized mandrel).
The checks were easily placed on the bases of the bullets with finger pressure (they would barely stay on the bases) and then the bullets were run through the .3097 die.
The GCs were securely installed and the bases were amazingly flat and square.
The bullets were then dip lubed, and run through the die a second time.
Finally they were seated in the brass.
These are the uniformed GC bullets.It was a gorgeous day at the range! The light was superb, and the breeze was coming in gusts directly from 6:00. Temperature was 50 degrees and just a might chilly.
First, I shot the nonuniformed GC bullets.
Speeds for all shots ranged between 2235 and 2263. I did not keep exact records because that was not the purpose of this range trip, and speed was not what I was after. most shots fell within +-10 FPS of 2250 except one which made it all the way to 2294 and went wild. Strange.
These were the first shots with the new rifle using BjornB’s old barrel:
(My shot string was interupted by the resident range nazi, but this was only to get on paper)
Once firing recommenced, the barrel was ice cold, and the first shot went low left. After that, I fired a ten shot group into the center of the target and established a group for the nonuniformed bullets.
After this, I switched to the uniformed GC bullets and fired a ten shot group at another spot.
(the marking you see in the lower left part of the picture was that strange flier I mentioned earlier. The speed was much higher than the other shots, so I could only assume there was something wrong with that cartridge for some reason)
Finally, I fired one last group of eight shots (ten minus the weird one noted above from the previous group, and one that was demilled upon extraction when the range nazi called time).
My conclusion from this range trip was that I will be uniforming all the GC’s that I will be shooting HV with. It made a noticeable difference.
Larry Gibson
Felt really good Mike, and what a treat to snap right to decent accuracy above 2000 FPS! After all the trouble I went to with this rifle when it had the sporterized military stock and the 1-10 twist Remington barrel, I can now say: I took the Pepsi challenge and slow twist tastes better!
I was firmly in the fast twist camp at this time last year and I had intended to make the 1-10 shoot come hell or high water, but I finally became resigned to the fact that if you want to drive on the freeway, you have to trade in your orange triangle for a licence plate.
Once I swap out this damaged barrel for a new matchgrade one, I think things will get really fun in short order! Untill then, this 1-14 twist is shooting tighter groups at 2250FPS than the 1-10 was at 300FPS less.
Thanks to Bjorn for doing all the leg work on this! Made it real easy to snap right to a known good load and spend my time at the range making groups instead of patterns.
daveridenour
timknowles
swheeler
victorjones
lar45
michaelburns
timmalcolm
Larry Gibson
sgt.mike
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