L Cazador

If you have a comparator for your caliper? You need to check your bullets from bullet base to ogive. I'll bet your bullets are off. They can vary anywhere from .002-009 easily.

I shoot my 6BR with 95g bullets and my 22BR w/80g bullets for 600-700 yds P-D shooting. I've been doing these two calibers with great success for about 40 years on PD's. The problem with lighter bullets in the 224 diameter is that it is very difficult to spot your own shots. Not because of recoil but because of the very small dust signature from the lighter bullets. And if the wind gets to blowing ( when isn't it blowing) it blows the dust signature right off. I've tried different calibers and yes I still shoot the 222 and the 221 Fireball but for closer distances like 350 and under. Once you get out to 600 yards you lose a lot of velocity with the lighter low coefficient bullets. My recommendation is go with a Stiller action, a laminate stock for extra weight, and a heavy varmint contour barrel with 8 twist, and a Nightforce benchrest scope(1/8 minute clicks). This will give you about an 18 pound rifle with easy to spot shots and low recoil. I still have trouble spotting shots with my 222 varmint weight barrel when I go to shooting the 55g bullets(12 twist is essential for this weight). Another thing you will find is that the image dissolves quickly at 700 yds in the cheaper scopes like Vortex, Burris, Sightron, and Nikon. A Leupold in 6.5/20X50 would be my absolute bottom line recommendation. When you get your barrel chambered be sure to specify extra freebore for the long bullets. I use a .120-.140 freebore so my bullets in these two calibers are seated well ahead of the shoulder neck junction. And yes I neck turn my brass for best results. By the way I shoot 221, 222, 20 Vartarg, and 223 out to 400 yds. Then for my in between rifles 400-700yds I shoot 22BR and 6BR.. For long range 700-1500 yards I shoot 6/284 and 6.5/284 these rifles have Vais muzzle brakes. One note is that on wet days nothing but the great big rifles leave a shot signature in the mud! I use a fully adjustable front rest with a heavy rear bag and I shoot off a 360 rotating bench. On a windy day you're not going to make those long shots off a bipod or by using Kentucky windage!!

Like someone else mentioned, a lead sled introduces human error because it leaves positioning of the rifle in the sled to the operator and it must be repositioned exactly for each and every shot. A bipod and even sand bags will also do the same although with much less variations. The key to consistent groups is eliminating the human error factor by having a rest that will let the crosshairs settle perfectly on the aim point without any introduction of force from the shooter. Any force that is introduced regardless of how small or light will change the group size. This is why the sled doesn't work as well as you have to force the crosshairs into shooting position to shoot the groups. I use wind flags everytime I shoot for group so that I'm again eliminating as much human error as possible. I also use a front rest with windage and elevation adjustments and a 30# rear bag so it doesn't move with high recoil. And then I also use an adjustable stool so that my body is in exactly the same place for every shot. Some tips on getting the best possible groups regardless of what equipment is available are: 1. try to shoot the same wind condition if possible, note the wind direction and intensity when you shoot that first shot and then try to shoot that same condition throughout the group. 2. Try to position the rifle in the same exact position as when you fired the first shot. In other words make sure the fore end and butt is supported in exactly the same place as when the first shot is fired. Also try to use the same amount of grip and cheek pressure on each and every shot. 3. Use wind flags and check the wind condition. 4. shoot one fouling shot before shooting your first group. 5. Another thing to note is barrel temp. A hotter barrel can increase pressure, change velocity, and may introduce larger groups. So try to shoot with a good cooling period between groups.The right load should shoot well regardless of barrel temp, well to a certain extent anyway. Each and every rifle is different! After you find the best load, I recommend doing some long range shooting with wind flags and a wind meter so you can have an idea of what certain wind conditions will do.

High brass or 1oz loads in the 20ga are a good reason to handload. You can load your favorite load into a high brass or low brass empties, and you can also load special loads like #4 buck for predators. For waterfowl you can also do tungsten or bismuth shot at a heck of a price!

I've been reloading shot shells for about 45 yrs. I reload 12,16,20,28, and 410. The subguages are where you really save money. Also if you want ultimate performance, you'll save even more. All of my loads move at about 1300fps with all the different gauges, I standardized on this velocity for all my shotgun shooting. So buying the same load in a factory offering, if I can find it, costs extra. I shot sporting clays, trap and skeet over the years. So that's another plus. If you're doing any kind of volume shooting you'll save exponentially!

That looks like a case of over tightening the rings. Anything more than 20 inch pounds will affect the adjustments and damage the scope tube! You're lucky if they make that good.

I've had great results with 4831SC in the 300 Win Mag and 180g bullets. One powder I would recommend is RL22 which a double base powder. It gave better results in ballistics overall. If you're at max cartridge length with your load try seating bullets in .020" less increments all the way back to .080". I would try the 73g load as it seems to be good in vertical dispersion. That horizontal stringing could be due to wind, did you have any wind when you were shooting? A 3 or 9 o'clock wind could drift shots a half inch easy.

Did you check Sportsmans? I bought one there a few years ago. Cabela's and Bass Pro should also have them.

Hornady brass is very inconsistent not only in the dimensions of the primer pocket but all over. I inherited some Hornady brass in 22/250 and it required turning the necks, uniforming the primer pockets, and trimming to a uniform length to get the brass in line for my specs!

I had a Leup on my 300 and 338 Rums and they beat it to death in 200 rounds, everything was loose inside. I've used a Nightforce NXS now for several years now with no problems. Like I said on my previous post, on a high recoil rifle a scope really takes a beating and the lighter the rifle the worst the recoil.

It's simple you don't have to take your scope off. Shoot a square. You zero at a hundred then shoot two shots on new target with the original zero, now move the windage adjustment 4 moa to the right and shoot one shot, it should move four inches to the right. Next move the elevation adjustment 4 moa down and shoot one shot, it should move 4 inches down from the last shot. Now move the windage adjustment four moa to the left and shoot one shot, it should move 4 inches to the left. Then shoot your last shot by moving the elevation adjustment up 4 moa, it should place your shot back in the original group where you zeroed in at. You should have a square formed by the six shots. You didn't mention what caliber you're shooting but it isn't unusual for a scope to fail after a couple of hundred rounds in a hard recoil caliber. Most of the rifles I work on because of loss of accuracy are usually badly fouled or have loose scope mounts! Very rarely is it the scope.

Case length has nothing to do with bumping the shoulder. Are you using a RCBS shell holder with your RCBS die? Like I said you may need to make your own shell holder height for this rifle.

Measure your current shellholder height and then go to Sportsmans and see if they have a competitive brand shellholder that is thinner so you can get the desired bump. If you can't find a thinner shellholder, you may have to make your own, by filing or grinding off a thousands or two at time till you get the desired bump of .001-.002". Measure from the bottom of the shell holder to the top of the shell holder. The top part meets the die and the bottom part meets the ram..

A rifle shoots better fouled than a clean barrel ! Well if that were case I'd be buying those factory barrels that I use for tomato stakes rather than spending all that money on these nice smooth custom barrels that I own that take a lot of shooting before they foul. Well what fits one shooter as "still shooting good" can definitely be garbage for another. I have owned a borescope for some 25 years now and the one thing I learned with it is how clean is a clean barrel. Fouling deposits in layers and just because you don't see blue on the patch doesn't mean it's clean. It's probably not blue because you just penetrated the first layer. More work will probably reveal even more fouling. As this fouling accumulates it will build layer on layer even faster because copper adheres to copper easier and because carbon deposits will also deposit it will keep building and hiding the copper underneath. Nothing wrong with shooting a fouler before you shoot for record. I shoot benchrest matches and I clean every ten shots, some guys clean every five and that's a custom barrel that fouls very little. I use custom barrels on my hunting guns as well and I clean every 20 shots. I use Sweets first as that product provides lubricity for my cleaning brush and then I use Bore Shine on a phosphor bronze brush. I also clean the chamber ring after each cleaning which will also affect accuracy. I always use a bore guide and dry patch the chamber as well as the bore. Watch the video that Viper posted and you will get an idea how to properly clean a bore. There were some things I disagreed with on the video, don't put your patches in a jar, use a plastic solvent bottle for dispensing your solvent onto the patch or brush. Sweets comes in a bottle with a drip top so you can dispense on to a patch. Another thing the guy did was not wear gloves, use some type of rubber glove like nitrile gloves so the solvent doesn't come in contact with your skin. Cleaning is not a race to get it done as fast as possible, although I wish that were possible, so don't run the rod back and forth like in some kind of race. Use a slow stroke so the patch or brush does not skate over the rifleing. Always cover your scope lens as solvents will destroy the lens coatings and can etch the surface as well. You'd be surprised as to the amount of solvent that sprays out as you clean so clean in a well vented area.

A lot of interesting suggestions here! Long action Remy and you want to work the cartridge through the magazine I assume. Since you have a 7mm mag the 280AI is basically it's twin without a belt, so that's out(one of my favorites btw). I'd go 6.5/284 and if you reload I'd do a 6.5/285 Shehane, 100fps faster with the 140's and you don't have to stand on the brass. However you want to do factory, hmm custom rifle but still factory. But if factory is the way you want to go, then so be it and get a good custom barrel in an 8 twist that will shoot those 140-145 bullets perfectly. Be sure to get a custom reamer made with the proper freebore so you can shoot the factory stuff which has the bullets sunk down to zero freebore levels as well!

Brass has become pretty inconsistent in neck thickness as of late. Not that it's ever been consistent, but it's gotten worse. Even Lapua has become pretty inconsistent where there is a difference of 2-3 thousands in neck thickness. What this means is the bullet tension is going to vary by 2-3 thousands! At long range this can make a huge difference in point of impact. Recently I had to neck turn my Hornady 22/250 brass, because it varied as much as 5 thousands between cases and bullet tension was all over. There was a huge difference in point of impact and group size because of this. Turning the case necks, not only improved the runnout but also rendered much more consistent bullet tension. Consistent .400" groups with 53g V-Max are now run of the mill with this Savage 10 rifle, excellent shooting for a factory rifle! While it did shoot half inch before, groups were not consistent with some running 3/4 inch with point of impact changes. I use a standard full length die for these reloads and bump the shoulder .002". You don't need a bushing die for neck turning, you just need to watch that you don't turn too much off the neck as the standard die will only size to a certain neck diameter. Usually neck turning up to.004" off(depending on neck thickness) will not have any effect on a standard sizing die. In my humble opinion, there's no cartridge that will not benefit from neck turning. I use a Nielson Punkin turner and it makes simple work out of neck turning!

Dave, I'll take both boxes in trade for 2 lbs, 7828SSC per phone call. Thanks, Butch

Man I haven't seen this kind of stuff since the early 70's, I grew up with it. Great quality stuff back then but todays modern reloading equipment is far ahead. I'd say if someone offers $200 for the lot sell it, otherwise piece it out. The Ohaus scales are nice, probably about $30 a piece. The Mayville shotgun loader about $60, maybe.

You have an issue that should be handled by Remington. Call them and get instructions on what to do. Unless it's a factory authorized repair, I wouldn't mess with it. If those measurements are of the cartridge head, that is a lot of expansion. That would be a chamber dimension issue best addressed by Remington.

Remove the trigger if you're doing the entire action and fill the trigger hanger holes with modeling clay. Use extra grease on the action screws and tighten the screws to about 10 inch pounds. You don't want to completely tighten the action as you will introduce added torque or stress to the action, which is what you're trying to eliminate. I've been using marine epoxy, which is what I have found best.

I'll take the Berger 6.5 bullets.

I've been using bushing style dies for many shooting applications including AR platforms. The bushing size you will need will be determined by the loaded cartridge neck diameter and the shooting application. Start by measuring your loaded cartridge neck diameter with the brand of brass that you will be using and subtract .003" to determine bushing diameter. This is a starting point and whether or not this will produce the desired neck tension for your shooting application is a matter of trial and error. Another fact to consider in choosing bushing size, is whether you use the expander button or not. I prefer to not use the expander button to eliminate any distortion or neck run out. For AR applications increased neck tension is sometimes desirable to produce a round that will retain the original seating depth, as too light bullet tension will result in the bullet driven deeper into the case during cartridge feed from the magazine. Bushing full length dies will bump the shoulder and the amount of bump should be measured with a headspace guage to determine what headspace dimensions will work best with your rifle. FYI I use bushing dies for both my hunting firearms and competitive firearms.

Go to Gunbroker.com , go to "find a dealer", insert your zip code and you'll have a list of ffl's near you.

Nightforce is the only way to go unless you can go the extra for a Schmitt and Bender or an Ior Valdada. If you're shooting 800-1000 yards nothing with less than 32 power on the high end. The other thing to consider is zero stop and at least a 56mm objective. And one last thing is don't cheat on the rings and base. Get a solid platform you can count on. Spend at least $200 on a set of rings and bases.