260AI...picture heavy

[LongRange]

Looks like you have found the sweet spot with your rig. Welcome to the .260 Ackley club. My current set up has a C.B.T.O. of 2.120" with 140 Bergers at .025" off the lands which should put me right around 2.841" overall length according to Bergers data sheet.

stomp i know you answered this before but is your barrel a prefit or a blank you had chambered?

[stomp442]

Mine is a Mcgowan Prefit. I will be chambering my own here shortly though. I have a Ruger M77 MKII chambered in .308 that I am going to turn into my long range deer gun.

[LongRange]

thats what i thought...i ordered a reamer from PT&G this morning with a .296 neck and .060 free bore..i ordered the short free bore as i will have the smith set the free bore to a dummy round once i play with this barrel a little more.

[scooterf79]

LOL...thats why its a good hobby if you like to tinker.
100% agree! It takes me a bit to get to where I can shoot, but I can spend forever in my reloading room messing with stuff and have just as much enjoyment doing that.

Nice shooting LR! Umm just a heads up, those 20 deg days....thats when I intentionally stay in my reloading room lll
Scooter

[yobuck]

[QUOTE=LongRange;346331]99% of my shots are the shooter not the rifle or the brass so if sorted by shots fired id never have 2 frings on any brass LOL.

seriously though at what point do we consider the shooter is the error and how do we distinguish that from brass or rifle errors? i have no idea...and to add more questions to this...i have read that a few of the top BR guys do no prep work and set records so is that because they are better shooters or because they are shooting $15,000 dollar rifles?

Well i doubt there would be very many costing any where near that amount of money. Unless you include all the barrels they bought and chambered before
they found the right one. No doubt with records being what they are, and all the components being as good as they are, attention to details is very important.
But an exceptional barrel chambered by an excellant gunsmith can offset some of the poorer ingredients in the soup and still do well in my opinion.
The late Earl Chronister was a 1000 yd target shooter who for a few years in the 80s held the group world record. He would try to buy the gun from anybody he
considered serious competition, and thats a fact. He wasent concerned about them as much as the gun they used.

[LongRange]

yeah that was exaggerated a little to make a point but i bet from a smith with a winning record for building record holding riffles your looking at $5-$6k minus a scope.

[LongRange]

well ive been wanting to try a SSS comp trigger for a long time....i talked to Dennis at MY ACCURATE BARREL a month or so ago and asked him to get a hold of me when he got the triggers in...i ordered one on the 22nd and got it last night. i got it installed and set up and before firing a round with it i ordered another one for my short action.
i will post up my thoughts after i shoot a few rounds with this trigger but i can already tell you now they are going to be positive....ive been shooting the rifle basix sav2s in both riffles for several years and have installed a few and the SSS comp trigger is IMO a BIG up grade from the RBs.

the SSS trigger is much easier to install(even though i had to notch the trigger housing)and MUCH easier to tune and comes with very easy to understand and follow instruction....ill post a different thread when i install the one in my short action with some pics...for now heres a couple of before and after of the trigger housing notched out....

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff515/LTT-/Mobile%20Uploads/1451400360.jpg (http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/LTT-/media/Mobile%20Uploads/1451400360.jpg.html)

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff515/LTT-/Mobile%20Uploads/1451400367.jpg (http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/LTT-/media/Mobile%20Uploads/1451400367.jpg.html)

also Dennis is a great guy to deal with...super fast shipping a fantastic communication!!!

[yobuck]

yeah that was exaggerated a little to make a point but i bet from a smith with a winning record for building record holding riffles your looking at $5-$6k minus a scope.

I think the competition in any business controls cost to a large degree.
Modern tools and machinery has also drasticly changed the landscape in many trades, probably more than individual talent.
At some point i think most good shooters come to realize theres more involved than their own ability
and a good gun to set a record. Especialy a long range record. Those who build the guns realize that also.
Fame can be a very temporary thing when dealing with the public.

[LongRange]

I think the competition in any business controls cost to a large degree.
Modern tools and machinery has also drasticly changed the landscape in many trades, probably more than individual talent.
At some point i think most good shooters come to realize theres more involved than their own ability
and a good gun to set a record. Especialy a long range record. Those who build the guns realize that also.
Fame can be a very temporary thing when dealing with the public.

i agree.

[LongRange]

well i cleaned up all the necks on 107 cases,annealed and tumbled...i primed all 107 cases and have 22 that will be fired for the last time this go round due to loose pockets...im not sure if its the 45.9g load of RL-17 or if it was from jamming the bullets with heavy loads during load development but ill know in the next day or so.

not a lot left to say other than the 260AI has exceeded my expectations and im a believer LOL...im sold enough that as i said above i ordered a reamer this week with a .296 neck and will have the smith re-chamber the shilen barrel that was on this rifle and have it finished at 27" and .190 to .200 free bore as im pretty sure with a long free bore i can easily get the speeds i want with the H4831sc.
the only question now is barrel life...i havent been tracking the round count very closely but im some where between 4 and 500 rounds now. if the brass dont hold up i will most likely back the load down to 2950-2970 or go to lapua brass.

ive got 15 rounds loaded up so i can get the scope back zeroed and run a 5 round group over the chrony to see what the ESs are like and also have 10 loaded at .030 off the lands to see if the groups improve a little.
ill load up 50 rounds later and shoot out to a 1000yds and see how it preforms tomorrow(maybe later today)im curious to see the elevation difference from the standard 260.

[Dewey7271]

Good stuff and good thread LR.
If the wind dies down plan to shoot mine this afternoon. Not quite your range but right at 400 to check loads.

[LongRange]

yeah i planned on shooting today too but got all my stuff ready and its been snowing since...if i had a zero and some dopes id go in the snow...so it might be tomorrow before i get out.

[LongRange]

well this isnt quite over yet LOL!

i did make it out yesterday to shoot a little late in the afternoon when it quit snowing...i shot 25 rounds playing with seating depth and every group was pretty ugly...all loads were with 45.9g RL-17,142g smk and a CCI BR 2 which shot pretty well last weekend at 495yds..the difference being that the rounds i shot at 495yds all the bullets seated pretty nicely and yesterday the bullets had different felt seating pressures...some seated smoothly while others not so smooth...like the collet die is sizing the necks like this ^ again..i can see faint lines from the collet on the necks and they extend down into the shoulder/neck junction so im thinking the necks are getting sized more at the top instead of evenly.

anyway after yesterday i started second guessing my scope again because the groups i shot acted like a few broken scopes ive seen...yesterday while trying to zero my scope it was like chasing my tail...i shot round 1 and it was 1.5moa low and about .5 left...i left the wind and came up 1.25moa and the next round was about .75 to 1moa high and just right of center...this continued for 10 rounds at which point i was close enough and finished shooting what i had loaded...every thing was all over with no pattern like random fliers.

this morning i loaded 10 rounds and did a tracking check to eliminate the scope...i chrony'd 10 of the rounds i shot yesterday and most were over 3000fps...at .025 off the lands i got 2992 to 3027fps at .030 off i got 2984 to 3006fps...not bad ESs but somethings wrong....i ordered a redding FL type S bushing die and bushings this morning so im hoping that will help or eliminate the issues...ill wait until the die comes and size some cases and shoot again before i do anything else and if the same thing happens ill clean the barrel and go from there as im 99% sure its not the scope now....

http://i1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff515/LTT-/Mobile%20Uploads/1451678001.jpg (http://s1239.photobucket.com/user/LTT-/media/Mobile%20Uploads/1451678001.jpg.html)

[sixonetonoffun]

I can't help but wonder if inside reaming would do a better job?

Wouldn't have expected much trouble with the necks going up in size though.

[LongRange]

I think its the collet die..its a standard 260 collet die and i know ppl use it for the AI but its not working so well for me...with the forster FL die and my 260 there is no felt difference when seating and the bullets seat smoothly into every case. After turning the necks on these cases,annealing them and still having the seating issues im leaning toward the die and hoping the redding die takes care of them.

[upSLIDEdown]

I feel like the people I've seen using a regular collet die on an AI are using a washer somewhere at the base to make it engage sooner.

[LongRange]

thanks for bringing this up USD...I've read about it but honestly never thought about it until you just brought it up...I'm going to look around here and see what I can find and I'll run over to lowes when they open and see what I can find.

[LongRange]

So I found a washer that fits perfectly over the cases and smoothed it out with some 320 grit sand paper over a piece of glass...taking measurements at 4 points it is a consistent .045.
i pulled one of the bullets from the rounds I didn't shoot yesterday,readjusted the LCD,sized the neck and then seated a bullet and it seated very smoothly from start to finish.

i pulled the other 24 rounds apart,resized all with the LCD and the washer and reloaded...all bullets seated very smooth...Ill go shoot these 25 rounds and see if this helps.

[upSLIDEdown]

Now we're squawkin!

[LongRange]

Now we're squawkin!

i know i talk to myself a lot LOL...and the funny part is i hate the social media stuff face book ect.