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Not as I had hoped for range day.

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Goosic View Drop Down
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    Posted: February 12 2020 at 11:52am
The D166 Lapua bullets fired out of the faux No4 T rifle was atrocious to say the least. The best results are in the supplied photo along with the rest of the photo which shows one of the bullets going through the target sideways. One target, that I did not take a picture of,had the range master assure me that his 5 year old grandchild could have taken a fist full of rocks and gotten a better group. I thought something was wrong with the rifle barrel and I decided to resort back to my 174grn BTHP GRAF bullets.  The one bullet in the bottom left of the red was an absolute flinch. I loaded the magazine with ten cartridges and fired,cycled,fired,and cycled until all ten shots were sent down range. That's ten shots inside my homemade less then 1" square which is,from left to right at its widest is 0.421". From top to bottom at the widest point is 0.692". It was not the rifles fault.  I took the faux Parker Hale rifle out and loaded up a mag full of the Lapua D166 bullets and lo and behold, same damn thing. This time however was much less severe but still had a bunch of those things going in the paper sideways.  The interesting thing here is that my .308 168grn A-Max bullets  loaded in the 303 cases, left a similar group like  the .312 174grn bullets. So,go figure.  I have not tried the Long Branch out with these D166 bullets yet and need to, being that the barrel is brand new so to speak and I can make a better assessment when that is done...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote britrifles Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 11:55am
100 yards?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Goosic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 1:13pm
Yeppers...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote britrifles Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 5:20pm
Is the top and center target all with the D166 bullet?  So only one wild shot off to 2:00 on the target?  If so, the rest of the shots look to be within 2 inches.  Really odd only one shot tumbled and the others didn’t.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Goosic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 5:39pm
britrifles.  That is the best target I could manage and it was not just the one shot that tumbled. Out of 80 bullets I used,26 of them hit the target sideways and never came near the bullseye. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Pukka Bundook Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 10:07pm
That's Odd, Goosic.  Thinking time required...
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Goosic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 12 2020 at 10:27pm
Not really after much deliberation.  The faux No4 T rifle is a 1943 Savage and the barrel has seen its fair share of junk pass through it since its inception 77 years ago. The faux Parker Hale is a 1944 Fazackerly that was FTR'D in 48 to a No4Mk1/2. The 5 groove barrel is starting to show its age as well. I will be testing my remaining loads in my 1942 Long Branch that has an unissued,new old stock barrel installed.  It was mummy wrapped and still in wax when I bought the barrel. I temporarily installed a scope to get up close and personal with the targets this weekend.  I want to exhaust all possibilities before I make any other judgement calls.
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