Looking Good!!!!

My long awaited Tikka prefit barrel in 7 PRC finally showed up in the mail yesterday. Today I installed and torqued it to the action and checked headspace. Then I reassembled the rifle and installed the mounts and bore sighted the scope. Tomorrow I will build 20 ish loads using up some old components and powder to break in the barrel before loading premium powder and bullets and doing ladder tests. I have lots of RL26 and 175 ABLR bullets and a supply of ADG and Peterson brass to try. It’s been a long wait for the barrel ( ordered early August ‘23) but now I’m excited to shoot this thing, especially with the new Garmin chronograph.

Since Tikka doesn’t seem to want to make lefty PRC rifles I had to make my own. I hope it lives up to my expectations.

Busy yesterday loading 16 gauge and 20 gauge field loads with 4756 , and a bucket full of 24 gram 12 gauge loads with 700X.
Decided to trash a pile of old wads that I have either no hulls /powder or use for and use the bins for stuff I do use.
Cat

Put the last few touches on my HD wet tumbling rig.

https://i.postimg.cc/BnpP20Q3/IMG_2496.jpg

Finished gluing the end cap and neck on and sealed for leaks. Wired up the 1/3 HP motor and greased the bearings.

The barrel is a 6” diameter piece of pvc pipe that’s 18” long. The neck is topped with a HD rubber cap held with a clamp.

I need to go shooting one of these days so I can try it out.

Andy, is it smooth inside?
I did a similar thing years back and found I had to glue in some baffles to get it to tumble effectively. Else the whole mass would just sort of "slide" as it turned. Anyway, that was my experience.

It is smooth inside, but I have not tried it yet to see how well it works. I see what you’re saying Darrell. My other tumbler barrel is octagonal, not round inside. So it’s designed to tumble the mass onto itself by the shape of the internals. The smooth pipe….we’ll see. Although, this motor’s speed is slower than my smaller tumbler. I will probably experiment with the speed before doing any type of internal baffling.

One thing is good about this design, is that I can use my other tumbler’s tanks on these rollers. In fact this one is so wide as to accommodate two of the smaller tanks at once. For those heavy cleaning days :bad_boys_20:

I just need to do some shooting so I can have something to clean. I’ll let you know.

100 rounds of 7mmremmag loaded today, using imr7828, and the TTSX150. It's the only load out of 7 that I tested, that a friend's rifle likes.

Ok, I decided to wait on the pvc pipe barrel for the tumbler. I had an idea that the both of the barrels for my Extreme unit would fit on the rollers. So I decided to give it a try, and yes it works. The right tank does walk a bit to the left when it’s running. But I just turn the tank on the left around so the two bottoms face each other (so there’s no fastener conflict between the tanks). And the left tank holds the right tank from moving to the left.

https://i.postimg.cc/JzXr3jR8/IMG_2555.jpg

I went to the range yesterday and I had some brass to clean. My stuff and range pick ups. So I tried it out. One tank had the liquid, pins, and brass. The other only had water for “ballast” and weight. It worked beautifully. Total weight on the rollers with two full tanks is 31 pounds. I’m glad I have the 1/3HP motor. So I put the pipe idea on hold. Hey…if it works, why bugger with it? And now I have double the capacity at once. (I can choose to only run one tank on the rollers if I want to as well.)

And I loaded a few more Varmageddons for the dogs.

https://i.postimg.cc/HnjHry6f/IMG_2552.jpg

Got the head space and other details sorted for a fast twist .223 TR
rifle with 95 Match Kings- we should be in decent shape for the 900 meter matches up here on the 20/21st:sHa_shakeshout:
Cat

I've spent quite a few hours cleaning and polishing a lot of Wilson dies that I bought recently. They showed up in a range of condition - some fine, some with slight surface rust, and some with some deeper rust. A bit of time in the tumbler for some, some elbow grease with 0000 steel wool and lots of oil, and they've cleaned up very nicely for the most part. What a lot of work!

I'll be picking out what I need and likely selling the rest at some time. There's a few real oddballs in the mix.

https://i.imgur.com/mb2Wgge.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/taGshq8.jpg

Who says you can’t hand load precision varmint cartridges?

https://i.postimg.cc/NMQywxjm/IMG-2576.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/prTpmX8d/IMG-2575.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/KzQ1cg1V/IMG-2577.jpg

These took a while to do today. There’s only 85 rounds. And 40 of the cases were from the other day’s range pick-ups.

I decided to use the same procedures as I do with my match ammo. Which meant my margin for error was .0005” on every measurable process. From sizing, to trimming, to seating. And the powder charge was within .01 of a grain. My shoulder bump was .0005”. While not a firm bolt close on a sized case, it had just a little resistance. Runout is pretty much nonexistent.

The only thing that isn’t the same as my match ammo are the five different case head stamps. Hey…it’s free range once fired. I did vet the cases and excluded about a half a dozen for various reasons.

I have not been very active in the past year, so this was nice to get back into. Some relearning was involved. Checking my notes for head spacing, trimming, seating depth, charge weight, etc.. The only process I omitted was annealing. Just too many head stamps and nonexistent AMP settings to bother with once fired cases. And I didn’t much feel like using the Aztec mode and sacrificing cases just to get an annealing setting.

Rifle: Bergara B14 HMR chambered in 6.5CM (22” 1:8” twist)
Brass: various
Primer: CCI BR2 LRP
Powder: Varget 42.0gr
Bullet: Nosler Varmageddon 90gr
Performance: 3170fps (+18c) 1990 FT-LBS energy

https://i.postimg.cc/VvnRT6fr/IMG_2560.jpg

(btw, the rifle package is finally finished with the addition of the MDT GRND-POD bipod)

Loading .223 95 grain Match Kings for a 900 meter TR match on the 20th, and some 88 ELDM's to practise with in the meantime :sHa_shakeshout:
Cat

Well its getting close to that time of year again , Prepping brass and loading 105 Berger Hybrids and 109 LRHT for 6 Dasher. Next is .223 with Matchkings for light gun.
Off to the Rocky shoot May 18th.

Whipped up some .308 rounds using Barnes 175 grain LRXhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...3fac9602d3.jpg


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