First day on the range

[Hovering Sniper]

It's been weeks in the making, getting the new rifle all set up and ready to go, but I finally put some lead down range today!!!

I now have a very sweet shooting Model 12 Benchrest in 6mm BR Norma, I have a Sightron III 10-50x60 LRMD scope mounted onto an EGW 20 MOA base with Leupold PRW high rings. I hand loaded 50 rounds of Lapua brass with 27 grains of Varget behind a 105 grain Berger bullet. I did a proper break-in by cleaning between each shot (yea it took a while) and accomplished a very good 100 yd zero.

I was having a looseness issue with my front rest that I didn't figure out until I shot the last couple of strings. Before finding it, I was getting 3/4 to 1" groups, but after cranking the ears in, I had a solid 1/4" group!!! This is a really good shooter. Trigger pull was about 1.4 pounds with no creep. I trimmed the ejector spring back some so my expensive Lapua brass doesn't bounce across the firing line when I pull the bolt back.

All in all, I am very happy with this system. I can't wait to get more rounds loaded up so I can start stretching out to the longer ranges.

[Joe L]

Well, I'm not convinced this new rifle really exists...without photos!

Joe

[Hovering Sniper]

LOL Joe, here she is.

[din]

Beautiful build! Get some photos of your groups next time you take her out.

[Joe L]

That's great! Beautiful rifle.

Joe

[eddiesindian]

great looken rifle!

[Hovering Sniper]

Thanks guys, this is going to be fun.

[derrelw]

I like it!

[Maztech89]

Very nice indeed!

[Hovering Sniper]

Update: The initial looseness in my front rest that I thought was just the ears turned out to be quite a bit more. I have a Caldwell Fire Control rest, that is a pretty descent rest. I decided to take it completely apart, one to see how it works, and two see if I can tighten things up. I'm really glad I did that, because I found that the vertical control bearings were not even in the slot!!! No wonder the rest dropped after each shot, sure explained a lot. So cleaned up the inners, lubed up the bearings and tightened everything up. Bench testing it all looks good and holds position. The real test will be at the range, but it would surprise me if it didn't work as expected.

[Hovering Sniper]

Yep, the work on the front rest really paid off. Took it out to the range today, and was really happy with how it performed. After getting a .19" group at 100 yds, I stepped it out to practice some 500 yd prone shooting in preparation for my first F-Class competition a week from Saturday. Didn't do too bad, a couple of 8's, a couple of X's, and pretty evenly split between 9's and 10's. I have some position issues I need to work out with this firing position, but this will be a fun journey.