lancetkenyon

I Hunt 7W for elk, a lot. Never for my own tag, but all of my lucky family members. For those that say if you find bulls now through May, they won't be there in December, I beg to differ. We have watched specific bulls from Mid-April to December in the exact same places. Pressure is what scatters them. Unfortunately, a lot of tags come before your hunt. But get up there and scout. You will find honey holes if you hike. There are elk scattered all across the unit, pretty much year round except the highest elevations mid-winter. Look for a blue Tacoma x-tra cab and silver 4 door JK in December. That will be us chasing bulls for my son-in-law, his buddy, and my cousin.

Good price on a good platform. Great shooting factory rifles. Great cartridge too.

Starting load development on a Christensen Arms rifle. Last year, I cleaned it thoroughly and mounted a scope on it. It was having issues with a flier or two out of every 5 shots. It went back to Christensen Arms and a new barrel was spun on, and a test target was returned with the rifle giving it a clean bill of health. Fast forward a couple months, and shot some rounds getting it re-sighted in. It is still sub-par for accuracy, and also has a mean cold bore deviation. So before it gets wrapped around a tree or run over with a truck, I figured I could work up a load for it and see what it can do. I have always wanted to get behind a Christensen Arms rifle, and this thing is a beauty. 8lbs 8oz. including mount and scope. It would be a dream to carry around the elk canyons. With the brake, I am hoping it does not kick like a mule. I cleaned it and stripped the barrel completely. tore it apart and reassembled torqueing everything to spec. I was given about 100 pieces of once fired brass. 50+ of HSM headstamp, and 40+ Winchester headstamp. I weighed the brass, and found a 20+ grain difference in brass weight. HSM was 262.6 to 265.5. Winchester was 241.8 to 244.7. So I won't be using all of the brass due to the big variation. I also have 20 unfired HSM rounds with 185 HVLDs, and 8 Winchester rounds with the same bullet. I will use them as foulers and sighters. I also noted the HSM had signs of pressure with flattened and cratered primers. The Winchester did not show quite the same pressure signs, but still a bit. Upon checking the loaded virgin rounds and once fired brass, I found a bid discrepancy in headsapcing, which can cause pressure. Winchester factory loaded rounds, most within .003". HSM factory loaded rounds, most within .002". Once fired brass before resizing. And resized with .003" bump. Owner wants to shoot 185-190 Berger HVLD, so I went and grabbed a box for load development Checking the chamber and throat depth, the 190 Bergers are touching the lands at 2.8725" CBTO & 3.555" COAL. I resized and bumped shoulders back .0025", and tumbled them. I trimmed them all to minimum length of 2.610" Chamfered inside and out Uniformed the primer pockets and deburred the flash holes (which I didn't show) Then annealed the whole batch (I slightly over annealed that one as you can see with the orange flame change, but my camera was being slow.) Sorted them into the two headstamps for loading

Double post

I think the MOAK reticle comes in the Gen 3. You will love it. I have the SKMR in my Gen 3. It is probably my favorite scope I own. CA is a bit more, and Color is not quite on par with my S&Bs, but everything else is right there, and the reticle is my favorite of all I have ever seen. You will not be sorry.

1. Kahles K624i Gen 3 2. Swarovski X5 3.5-18 3. Kahles K624i Gen 2 But everything else on the Kahles K624i Gen 2 kills the Swaro X5. Glass is very close on the Kahles Gen 2 & Swaro X5. The Kahles Gen 3 beats the Swaro X5 in every field except CA.

Still here.

I added 69desertdog, colthutton, and sandman to the list. All met and paid for some spare rims/tires. No issues, no drama. Just a smooth transaction.

Funny you should bring this back up. The Swarovski X5 3.5-18x50 is a very clear scope. Good glass, good color, hardly any CA. Turrets are OK, not great, but not bad either. It seems to track well also. I have taken it from 100 to 952 yards, and while I have not confirmed it returned to zero from the longer ranges this weekend, it seemed to track where I needed it to go between 100, 200, 100, 600 (dead on), 802 (just a touch low impact center of group), and 952 (just a touch high impact center of group). It is not an illuminated reticle, which I prefer for a hunting scope. But it has a decent reticle in the BRM variety. It is still a BDC type, and not a true MOA type reticle, but if you know your drops, and verify, it should work fine. It is also a SFP scope, so the reticle stays consistent at various magnifications. Over the last 2 weeks, I have also finished my testing. I do not have a ton of photos of the seating depth testing, but I did see a difference in the group sizes. This rifle seems to like a lot of shooter input as well. I think being so light, you need to really get behind it and pre-load the bi-pod consistently to manage recoil. I tested at 200 yards, and the best seating depth was 2.783" CBTO. It shot just about .75 MOA. I could not recreate the .3MOA that I got at 100 yards during charge weight testing with any seating depth at 200. I also got out this weekend to verify at some longer ranges. I was quite pissed off at myself for the first 4 rounds. I thought I had a good shooting lane picked out at 600, and dialed for elevation, held for a 2.2mph L-R wind and allowed for a bit of spin drift. First shot was about 2' high and 2' right......WTF? Second shot was low and left....WTF????? Third shot was low and 3' right.....WTFFF?????? I decided to break out one of my proven rifles and let a few fly.....my 7RM pushing my known 180 Hybrid load was about 2' right and a foot high........AARGH! Tried 2 more shots, with crazy results. High left, high right. I was fuming at this point. I had my son-in-law take a shot while I watched through the spotter this time...... right by about 2'. But, I found the issue. When he shot, I was watching the vapor trail and saw a piece of desert shrubbery fall about 150 yards out. I had been hitting a bush I thought we would clear and deflecting bullets all over the place. About a 4-5' difference in POI just because of a few tiny branches and leaves. I walked out and trimmed them off, and shot for confirmation with the .300WM. Boom...clang! Better, much better. The wind was picking up, so I had some horizontal dispersion, but not terrible for 600 yards. Thank goodness we had a truck to run back and mark the groups. Moved back to 802 and the winds lessened for a while, allowing me to shoot this group. Moved back to 952 and the winds picked up again, and the shooting conditions were not the greatest. Holding for windage, I had a few just off the right side, but I did not want to change wind holds to see how the rifle was doing. Since I can't plot the misses for POI, I am going to hope it was about MOA? Probably slightly more. After I finished confirmation, the winds really picked up and it actually started spitting rain, so we packed it up and headed home. I was hoping to shoot a ladder test on a new 168 SMK load I have been toying with, but did not get the chance. Look for that thread to follow soon. All in all, I am fairly happy with the rifle and load. Final load will be a 190 Berger HVLD @ 3070fps under MOA in an 8#+ rifle. I think it is a great mid range light carry mountain elk rifle option.

One of those days you start out at 2° in the dark, expecting to summit a glassing spot at sunup....that actually took 3 hours to get there instead of 1. Then it warms up to 50° while you are glassing, and have to shed about 3 layers for the pack back to the truck.

I have one too. Carries a big butt 100# elk rear quarter easily. Or a crap ton of gear. Good price for a great pack.

^ This. We use him, both for personal, and for business.

If you like bluegrass type music, try Cadillac Sky. I really like them.

Bulls should be bugling. Buy a cow call to help locate them. Lucky draw, have fun.

Have you let someone else shoot it and they get the same results? To me, there are very few reasons why you could get consistent 1/2" groups @ 300, and then completely go to heck @ 400. And we don't know what types of groups you are talking about at 400, since you have given us so little information. Most guesses of the cause lead back to shooter input or lack thereof. Nothing to be ashamed of. 400 yards is not as easy as people think. Heck, I am pretty hard pressed to shoot 1/2" groups at 300 with my rifles and hand loads.

Complete the information requests below, and prior.... Factory barrel? Length? Contour? Model? Twist rate? Stock? Pillars? Bedding? Action screw torque? Clean bore? Oiled bore? Cold bore? Fouled bore? Over fouled bore? Factory ammo, Hornady Superformance w. 180 SST. Shot over a crono to check velocity/SD/ES? Checked CBTO to verify consistent seating depth? Scope base/rings? Torque of base screws? Loctite? Bedded base? Ring brand? Ring height? Ring screws torqued to spec? Scope level/anticant device? Reticle level? Scope tracking tests completed? Tracking true and level? Parallax adjusted correctly? Yardage verified? Drops verified? Mirage? Cheek weld consistent? Solid front rest? Good rear rest? Consistent trigger pull? Consistent grip? Preloading Bipod? Checking for rifle level? Proper form? Consistent recoil management? Shooting position? 1/2" to 3/4" groups consistently at 300, every time? Or once or twice? Try 5 to 10 shot groups at same yardage? Wind variations? Mirage? Temp swings? To shoot a completely factory rifle with factory ammo into a 1/2" group at 300 is very good and very lucky . Count your blessings. I am beginning to think this is possibly a troll thread...

Sold

Both alloy rims/Toyos are sold. Had an "I'll take it" on the steel, but haven't heard back yet.

Sandman, steel wheel and spare is yours if you want it. Still have one alloy and Toyo left. Hunting season is just around the corner. A second spare is always a good thing to have.

Bump

All targets are out. None returned yet. Get to shooting guys and gals.

Athlon high end scopes are a great alternative to the $2K+ optics, in their Cronus BTR, and some of the less expensive lines are great bang for the buck optics. And the pricing that you can get here is fantastic.

In all honesty, with the zero information you have given, here are my initial thoughts on why a rifle could shoot 1/2" groups at 300 yards, but completely open up (since you haven't given a definition of what that is) at 400+. 1. Bullet instability 2. Parallax issue with scope 3. Poor consistency of ammunition 4. Shooter induced error Like the famous quote from Jerry McGuire says, "Help me help you." Give us details for an educated & informed answer. There are a ton of guys on here with a lot of shooting experience. All they need is data to help solve the mystery.

Complete rifle info? Complete load info? Complete set up info? Complete environmental/shooting conditions info? Complete shooter experience info? And I mean complete.

If you drew a unit 10 tag, get the Big Bo pass. That way you are not limited to 40% of the unit you drew.