Took the new build to the range yesterday morning. To make a long story short, best load was 52.9 grains of IMR 4350 pushing a 190 grain SMK to 2700 fps. This load is .3 grains under the max book load. That load grouped five into 1.547" at 300 yards. The barrel didn't like any of the loads I made up using IMR 4064 pushing the 150 grain SMK, sprayed those all over the paper. Total round count is 35 rounds. I got some indication of copper when I cleaned it but it wasn't too bad. So far, I'm impressed by this Shaw barrel.

Tuesday I'm taking the new build I call "Thumper" to a friend's 1k range to stretch it legs out to 500 yards or so testing some 178 grain A-Max and 175 grain SMKs.