azsugarbear

Any trades you are looking for?

My load is the Berger 230 gr. OTM over 94.0 grains of RL-33. Velocity is right at 3,000 fps out of a 28" barrel. Slight pressure signs on primers but not on case head. But the load is right near the top of the pressure curve. Got a sticky bolt and flatted primer at 95 grains.

To my mind, the Nosler offerings didn't add anything new or different in terms of ballistics to the already saturated 28, 30 & 33 calibers. What they did bring is credible support. Remington introduced the RUM series (hugely popular) and then failed to support them with different types of ammo and reloading brass. Even today, Remington RUM brass costs way more than it should - and it is still scarce. I have no experience with Nosler brass, but I do know you can easily find it on the shelves. Is it worth the higher price? I can't say. It depends on how many firings you get out of each piece. I own a 300 RUM and I can only get 3 firings out of a Rem case before it begins to show signs of case head separation. I just bought some Norma 300 RUM brass - expensive, but I have hopes it will last much longer than three firings. Most of my other rifles are chambered in rounds that are supported by Lapua brass. It's expensive, but it is high quality and lasts forever. I get at least a dozen firings out of my 338 Allen Express (improved 338 Lapua). Knowing what I know now - I would choose the Nosler 30 over the 300 RUM just because of components and quality.

Lilja is a quality barrel maker. I have owned several center fire rifles with Lilja barrels. I do know that fewer lands/grooves can spell trouble for longer bullets with more bearing surface. A rare problem - so I wouldn't worry about it for your 7mm-08 project. In general, they are easier to clean than the higher-count land & groove barrels.

weekend bump - still hoping

Looking for an EDC and want to try one. The UTX-70 seems to fit the bill, but dealers want way too much for their new stuff. If you have one you aren't using anymore, send me a PM and let me know what you have (blade style, color, condition, etc) and how much you want for it.

Great story. Great history. Another Great AZ family.

I currently have a Gen II G7 BR2. It's a great unit and was/is a great leap forward. The Kilo 2400 is the closest competitor that the BR2 has. The 2400 does some things better. The BR2 has some features that the 2400 does not. Pluses and minuses for each. Your choice should come down to personal preference. I like the smaller beam divergence of the 2400, but I have found that the small, vertically held 2400 is harder to hold steady at targets a long ways off. The bigger BR2 unit seems to ride more stable in my hand. The good news is: there is no bad decision here. Some guys are selling to their BR2 units at a price point under the new 2400. maybe a deal to be had there?

In the past, I have ordered two reamers and 'no go' gauges from PTG. The first order went fine. The second order took three times longer than promised. That was before some changes in personnel. Quality Control and Customer Service have been in the toilet ever since. It was a great company - and could be again. But I will not be ordering anything else from them until they get their stuff pulled together. Three years and counting so far........

Aero site still shows they are out of nearly half the stuff they produce. Has been that way for more than two years now.

Cactusjack just bought some dies from me. It was my second sale to him. Easy to deal with and shows up when he says he will. Gold Star.

Dies are now SPF.

Up for sale is a near-new RCBS (#31301) die set in 270 WSM. The set includes a full length resizing die and a bullet seating die. $25 firm. I also have 30 pieces of new, unfired Winchester brass. $20 If interested, post here or call/text me at 602-361-7191.

They are yours. PM sent.

weekend bump

Up for sale are 50 pieces of once-fired Nosler 300 WSM brass. Comes with new MTM Case Guard ammo box. $90 If interested, post here or call/text me at 602-361-7191

weekend bump

Every gun is different. But each of my rifles go several hundred rounds before I need to clean them. I do, however, pull a dry boresnake through them every fifty rounds or so.

Brass id SPF. Dies are still available.

Good glass is always a major consideration. But as some have suggested, repeatability should also be right up there. If you dial up and then dial back down because you did not take or make the shot, future shot placement may be in the toilet if your scope did not return you to your initial point of impact. There have been several great write-ups about the various scopes and the functions. Look at a couple of episodes in the Sniper101 series on youtube.com. Another great source of how scopes stack up against each other can be found on snipershide.com. Good luck in your search.

+1

In order to understand the effects that a clean barrel has on changes in velocity and point of impact, the Sniper 101 series on youtube.com is a great place to start. In a nutshell, a clean barrel has no place in any accuracy test. As you shoot a clean barrel, it will begin to build up copper and carbon. As this occurs, the velocity of the same load will steadily increase until the barrel reaches 'stabilization. The velocity hits a plateau - usually anywhere from 25 to 40 rounds into a cleaned barrel. This stabilization could continue from 250 to 400+ rounds before you will begin to see a spike in pressure. Then it is time to strip it all out and start over. Each barrel is different. Some foul quickly (think custom barrels) while others take longer. Most can go several hundred round before cleaning is required. Your mileage will vary, so go slow and record your shots. You will see your velocity curve develop as you go. Going up 0.3 grains for your incremental increases works well with the smaller calibers, but once you get up to the larger magnums using 70 to 100 grains of powder, I tend to use 0.7 to 1.0 grains of increase with each load when looking for nodes. If you are shooting long, heavy-for-caliber bullets, they may not even begin to stabilize until 300 yards down range. I have some first hand experience where my 338 shot smaller groups at 300 than it did at 200 yards. A longer distance can also open the group up more so it is easier to see the 'nodes'.

LR hunting/shooting isn't an inexpensive sport. Most people forget to include a top-of-the-line rangefinder in their budget. You can't shoot it, if you don't know the range. You can get an inexpensive rangefinder to get the job done during normal conditions, but sooner or later it will disappoint you at a critical moment. If you have to skimp on something, buy the rifle last. Get your rangefinder first, then your scope. No need to spend $1500 on a scope at this point, but the $500 scopes will disappoint in short order. Buy your rifle with whatever is left over. Savage has some inexpensive models that shoot well right out of the box. Best of luck to you.

I guess I'm one of those guys that sold my Nightforce and replaced it with a Sightron SIII 6-24x50. The Sightron sits on my custom 6.5-06 AI. It wasn't that the Nightforce NXS was bad at all, it just didn't fit this rifle. My 300 RUM stills wears a Nightforce NXS and my 338 Lapua Imp. wears a Nightforce ATACR. So obviously, I love Nightforce - but they are not necessarily a good fit for every rifle. For me, the weight of the rifle can have a big impact on my choice. The 300 and the 338 weigh between 12-13 lbs each, so a 2 lb scope feels like nothing at all. The 6.5-06 rifle weighs about 8 lbs. The 2 lb Nighforce NXS just made the rifle a little too 'top heavy' for my taste. A rifle needs to feel balanced in the hand. For this particular gun, I needed a lighter scope. It came down to Leupold, Vortex or Sightron. I have owned several of each (higher end models) For me, theSightron was the best moderate weight scope for the money in terms of glass, and repeatability when dialing up & down. Six years later, the Sightron is still on rifle with zero complaints from me. 50% off is a great deal. Buy it and try it. You could always sell it used for what you paid for it at some later date.

Much of my hunting heritage comes from my Grandpa. In those rare moments as a young boy when I would sit still and listen, he would try to teach me as much as he could about hunting in Arizona. My Grandpa was born in 1904 in Woodruff, AZ. By the time he was 14, there wasn't much he hadn't hunted on foot or horseback. In his early years, he was befriended by Aldo Leopold, a government contractor who was tasked with the extirpation of wolves from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. My Great Grandfather (also a native Arizonan born in 1881 in Woodruff, AZ) was serving as the Forest Ranger in Heber District at the time. In later years, while hauling heavy equipment for several mining concerns in central and southern AZ, Grandpa was befriended by another like-minded hunter by the name of Jack O'Connor. I still have the custom .270 rifle Grandpa had built according to O'Connor's specs. The picture below was taken in 1917 at the Ranger Station in Pinetop, AZ. My Great Grandfather is behind the wheel and my Grandpa (age 14) is in the Tom Mix cowboy hat. My Grandpa taught me the importance of how to think like the game I was hunting. He was also careful in his teaching to include hunting ethics and conservation. In spite of his prowess as a hunter, he would never turn down a chance to improve his luck. I remember on one deer hunt outside of Prescott, we came across an old, discarded horseshoe. He picked it up and then turned it up and set it against a pine tree. With a quick wink he said, "We need all the luck we can get. Don't we"? Later that day we came back with a nice buck and some bragging rights. Fast forward to this year's hunt. I was fortunate enough to pick up a leftover tag for the early November Coues deer hunt in unit 36A. I had never hunted this unit before. Due to time constraints, I would not be able to do any scouting prior to the hunt. The first morning of the hunt, I stayed low and glassed over a trick tank that had lots of sign around it. Unfortunately, it was all due to mule deer activity. I pulled up stakes at mid-day and drove a lot of back roads trying to get higher and yet still be away from the crowds. I finally found a spot near the 4,300 elevation mark and set up camp. Late afternoon, I climbed a fairly steep mountain to glass into some canyons on the north and west sides of the mountain. While I did not see any deer, I did come across a high saddle hidden from the road below that had quite a few tracks running across the mountain and down into the canyons. I decided that this is where I wanted to be Saturday morning. The alarm went off at 4 AM and by 4:30 I was slowly climbing my way up the steep side of the mountain. On my way through the fence gate, I spied an old used horseshoe in the light of my headlamp, but took little notice of it. It was another four or five steps before I thought of my Grandpa's lesson on luck. I turned around, found that horseshoe and turned it up against a rock. I shook my head and let out a small chuckle before starting up the mountain again. At the time, I had no idea just how important that act would be to my hunt. Pictured below is the horseshoe I found on my pack out - just as I had left it. I couldn't get the picture to rotate, but it is turned up. By 5:30 AM I was in place above the saddle. At 6:10 I was treated to a magnificent sunrise. I sat under my tree and glassed for the first couple of hours. Seeing nothing, I began to still hunt and glass my way slowly around the north and west side of the mountain. Being on top gives a hunter a great advantage. Although I had a great seat to the show, I saw nothing. I continued working around the top of the mountain. On the southwest side of the mountain, I nearly stepped on a doe - busting her out of her bed. I circled around the southern end of the mountain top. I spent a lot of time glassing some big country. I saw a bunch of different hunting groups below me, but did not find a single deer. By 10:30 AM it was getting very warm, so I began working back east to the saddle. I immediately busted some javelina that were snoozing under an oak tree. I must have played hide-n-seek with them for ten minutes before resuming my hunt. It was now hot and I had so enjoyed the encounter with the pigs, that I was no longer being careful. One minute I was looking for a foothold to place my boot, the next I was flat on my stomach trying to see the deer that had just snorted and bounded down the mountain. I found him ten seconds and 150 yards later standing dead still below me in the ocotillo. He was a small buck with three points on one side. I decided to let him go. I made it back over to the oak tree I had sat under during the sunrise earlier that day. The heat wasn't so bad in the shade. Granda, like nearly all hunters of his generation, was a meat hunter first and a trophy hunter a distant second. Any game animal you brought down honestly with hard work was a trophy. As I took a drink, I began to second guess myself. Not having seen anything but one doe and one buck in two days of hunting, I began to doubt my decision to let the buck go. Another one of Grandpa's lessons popped into my mind: deer and elk will often return to their bed later in the day when they are unsure of what spooked them. When I busted that buck out of his bed, he had heard me rather than seen me. I was in full camo and laying flat when the deer stopped to look back at what had spooked him. I was fairly certain he had not identified me as a human, so I decided to set up shop under the tree and wait. It was now close to 10:30 AM. I was not expecting any traffic through the area until after 4 PM when the shadow of the mountain top began to provide some shade down below. There was a slight breeze to provide some comfort, so I set the rifle on my pack and used both as a blind. I opened up the latest Jack Reacher novel and began to read. Every so often I would watch the saddle down below me. Every so often, I would catch myself dozing off. Then suddenly, I became aware of a peculiar sound off to my left. I looked over just in time to see this huge green and yellow snake head looking at me from three feet away! I scared it as much as it scared me. With a zip he was gone. I think it might have been a coachwhip. He left me standing about ten feet outside my blind (apparently I can still move fast when the occasion arises) with an elevated heart rate. I gingerly made my way back into my make-shift blind once I was certain he was no longer around. I settled back down and started to flip back through my book trying to find the place where I had left off. I had only been reading for about five minutes when something told me to lift my eyes off the page and scour the saddle below me. I caught some movement going behind a mesquite tree far below. I put my bino's on the area, but nothing moved. I watched for another few minutes. I finally figured the grey that I had seen moving around was one of those huge jack rabbits that inhabit the 36 units. Just as I was about to put the bino's down, I saw a buck come around the other side of the tree. Talk about a cautious animal! I remember thinking, what is this guy doing walking around at 1:30 in the afternoon? A quick second look let me know this was not the same buck I had busted out three hours earlier. He had four points on each side and double eyeguards. Although he was not the trophy I was looking for, I couldn't help but feel he was a gift. I sat and watched him through the scope for the longest time. I had already decide to take him, but I wanted to watch him and learn what I could until the shot could no longer be delayed. I lost him in the recoil of the rifle, but I knew he was down. After tagging and admiring the magnificent specimen, I trekked down the mountain to refuel my body and to get the pack frame. It was 3:45 before I made it back up the mountain to my buck. By 5 PM I was all packed up and coming down off the mountain with a heavy load. I made it back out to the gate by 5:45, just as the sun was starting to sink. My mind was on a thousand different things: packing up camp; getting the meat on ice; the difficult four wheel drive out on the old mining road; a nice dinner in Tucson; and sleeping in my own bed later that night. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw that old horseshoe propped upright against the rock. My thoughts quickly ran to my Grandpa and a smile came to my face. That old horseshoe had brought me luck. It was every bit as much a trophy as my buck. I picked it up and took it home with me. When my mount is complete, the horseshoe will hang there just below my antlered trophy suggesting to all who see it that there is a story to be told with this deer.