This is the best I can do

The point I am attempting to make is spend an equal amount of time working at the loading bench developing your load as well as working on unlocking your rifles potential. 

I once knew a man that was undoubtedly the best Front Engine Dragster "Wheel Man" in the sport of Drag Racing but, for all intents and purposes, that is all that he was, at the beginning of his career. The owners of the car built it around this man, made the engine work exceptionally well on their limited budget by running it on 100% pure and undiluted Nitromethane and tossed out the Blowers idler pulley because it was reducing horsepower and was basically a redundant part to begin with. The owners and builders then gave this "Accurized Rifle with the Super Match Load" to the "Shooter" and watched as he successfully out-shot 142 other shooters one weekend in the early 60's. The wheel man then began a journey of trying to improve on becoming a much better wheel man by focusing on both his driving skills as well as what could be done to improve the cars handling characteristics. They did test and tunes with different tires, different parachutes, a more direct fuel delivery system and a highly improved magneto. It eventually became a, "This is the best this car will ever be" even though the all three men continued to spend countless hours at the work bench and at the track. Unfortunately, the wheel man was driving an untested car in the late 60's and a mishap occurred prematurely ending his life's journey. His son continues on in his fathers stead continuously developing improved driving strategies as well as improving the cars capabilities...

As you might recall, I removed and reinstalled the barrel on the Long Branch Mk 1/2 I got from you to facilitate refinishing the metal.  Wasn’t easy getting the barrel off.  The barrel was in good condition other than a bit of muzzle wear.  It’s a good shooter too. 

But, that's not what I was referring to.  The skill classifications are: rifleman, sharpshooter, expert, master and high master.  Might be something unique to the US competitive shooting sports.

I was doing some load tests myself on my AR, and also attempted to chrono my Long Range loads for my No. 4  DCRA 7.62 conversion.  I must have had the Magnetospeed sensor mounted too low below the barrel, could not get any readings. I only shot four rounds of the 155 grain Palma MK and 3 rounds of the 168 TMK.  At 200 yards, the TMK won out, less than 1 MOA shot prone with aperture sights.  These were loaded with my Lee dies, still have not tried my “Super Match” loads done on the Wilson dies.  

It does seem that the 168 TMKs need to be fairly close to the lands for good accuracy, these were seated 0.020 off the lands, the COL was 2.95 inches, too long to feed from the magazine. Three shot group was at 1.6 inches at 200 yards.  44.0 grains of Varget, Lapua case, CCI BR-2 primer. 

The 167 Scenar is the bullet that Creedmoor loads into their .30-06 and .308 Match ammo.  The .30-06 is very accurate in the 03A1 and A4 sniper rifles at 300 and 600 yds and what I’ve used in the sniper matches.  Let us know how they shoot for you.

 

Here ya go Geoff.

10 shots @100 yards and on an official SR-1 NRA approved target.      The rifle kicks like a pissed off bull to...

Well, the results were a bit disappointing. My regular match load using the Lee Collet Neck die did better. I had 20 rounds of the neck sized cases left, and shot those first at 800 and 1000 yards. I only shot 7 rounds at 800 as I wanted to reserve three shots for sighters at 1000.  The wind was very twitchy, constantly changing direction at various locations down the range.  Wind flags would suddenly change, for example, the 100 yard flags would be blowing one way and the 600 yard flags the other way, then again a different direction at 800.  

Here’s the first group at 800 yards, includes the first clean cold bore shots (no sighters or fouling shots) with my regular match load with neck sized cases (Lee Collet Die). I did make sight adjustments to try and bring the group into the center.   The vertical spread was good, just under 1 MOA, but you can see I struggled with the wind, took 7 shots to find the X ring.  Very respectable standard deviation of 5.2 fps.

Next, the same regular match load neck sized and shot at 1000 yards.  The two open circle shots high in the 7 ring were the sighters.  It was even more difficult to deal with the wind, constant changes in the rear sight windage.   Poor elevation control in my part, I find the 44 inch black aiming mark very difficult to see at 1000x thru iron sights.  Elevation spread was at 2.4 MOA, but I did manage to put four shots into the 1 MOA X ring.  Note the standard deviation at 6.8 fps, bit higher than the 800 yd target, but still good. The average velocity at 1000x was 1237 fps, so I can reduce the charge by 1/2 grain and still get the 1200 fps minimum to work the electronic targets. 

Next, the “super match” load, at 800 yards, elevation spread just over 2 MOA.  12 shots here, includes the two sighters which were 10’s.  Note, the standard deviation of the super match load is higher than the regular match load, more than double than the regular match load at 800x.  I believe the shot in the 9 ring at 4 O’Clock was on me.  Discounting that, the vertical spread was at 1.5 MOA. 

The same 800 yard target zoomed in, showed two more shots just outside the X ring, so no question that the rifle and ammo does perform, and those two 9’s are on me.  

Last, 1000 yards with the super match load.  I didn’t take a photo of the target, was not impressive at all.  Only 1 shot of the 12 fired hit the 10 ring, most were 8’s.  I suspect it was me, I was fairly tired at that point and loosing concentration.  I had fired a few groups of DA 1962 service ammunition in between these two loads at 100 yards which I’ll report on separately. It’s possible that might have affected the results here with the super match loads.  

This was all shot slung up prone, PH 5C aperture sight and “Matchmaker” front sight. 

This again showed me that cases neck sized in the Lee Collet Die produce very accurate ammunition. They gave lower standard deviations and reduced group spread.  This is not the general consensus of precision shooters with match and Benchrest rifles, they full length size, the theory being a full length sized case will allow the bullet to self align in the bore better than a neck sized case.  

The additional steps taken for the super match ammunition (partial length sizing cases to uniform headspace, weighing cases and selecting those within +/- 0.1 grains, deburring flash holes and primer pocket depth uniforming) did not show any improvement over my regular match loads.