Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have started on this project. Basically what we are trying to find out is the effects of what damaged crowns might have on the accuracy of a rifle.

We have a Sako S491, whose owner wanted to have re-barreled to a 223 Ackley. I asked him if he would mind us messing up his factory barrel, as he had no use for it, and he kindly agreed.

His only condition is that the new barrel I put on for him shoots better than his original one.

Well, from these results, I don't think I would have too much of a problem meeting his specs.

I shot a few loads in this rifle, and the best one was with 26 grains of Alliant Reloader 15.

I am going to use this load throughout our tests.

We are going to use two bullets, one is a flat base and one is a boat tail, just to make the test interesting.

The bullets are a 52 grain Bench Rest bullet made by Bill Brawand, and the boat tail is the Sierra 52 grain Match King.

This is the factory crown.

This is our target with one of the control groups. They were 0.728, 0.732, 0.263, 0.599 and 0.937.

These are loads with the Sierra 52 MKBT, ready to be fired.

I started off with a clean barrel, fired 2 fouling shots, and 5, 5 shot groups.

I will clean the barrel after each lot of 5, 5 shot groups, just to make things more consistent.

I will keep you up to date with what damage we - sorry, I mean Walter - inflicts on this barrel. I will take photos and post them too.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

This is going to be interesting!!

Stefan.

Waiting for "The Rest of the Story".

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NRA Life member

Thank You!! CAN'T WAIT!!!
Have fun

I don't think it will take much to significantly affect the accuracy. That's the last thing the bullet touches, and has tremendous infuence on the flight of the bullet. I would expect similar results for FB and BT, both are still cylinders where they contact the barrel.

Have fun!,

Bill

Interesting,have fun;is it the same Walter concerning powder/bullet weight...

Saeed,

After Walter has is way, are you also planning on trying the 11 degree and 90 degree re-cut crowns to see how they shoot?

Hello Saeed--Did you ever determine what test's you are going to do?? I know you got one heck of alot of ideas on a former post.

I would sure like it if you'd have Walter bang on the crown with a cleaning rod and see if that does anything. Other than that (or dropping the rifle onto rocks, sand or mud) I can't think of something anyone would do in the normal course of field work that would come up.

Thanks for you time and effort!!!! Don Kraky

Looking forward to the results! Saeed, what's the plan for the destruction?

Gentlemen,

I have spoken to my friend Dwight Scott, who is a great bench rest shooter and gunsmith.

Because of the rifle we are using for our test, we did not think we would get any sort of meaningful results by having different crowns.

The rifle is simply not accurate enough to be used for such tests.

Our main concern will be what sort "wear and tear" damage might affect the accuracy of the rifle.

This includes things like dropping the rifle muzzle first onto some loose small rocks, hitting the muzzle gainst something hard so that slight damage is caused to it.

After this we thought of taking the barrel off and just squaring it, then put some wet sea sand into the last 1/2 inch and leave it for a few days, so it caused some rust.

We might save the different crowns test for another time in the future, by using a more accurate rifle for it.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

Gentlemen,

Walter is back with us, and when we asked him to do some damage to the muzzle, the smile on his face was priceless!

We had to calm him down and explain to him that the first part of thsi test calls for a small amount of damage, and that we will let him do more as we go along.

He got a drill bit, and whacked it into the muzzle, at about 5 o'ck position.

I looked at the damage with a magnifying glass, and it does show a small ridge prodroding into the barrel.

I will let you know how this works out.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

I had crown damage in an old o6 I used to have. It shot pretty nice before the damage, and would print shotgun patterns after. When I had it recrowned, it was back to the same old, same old.

Turok

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Make it idiot proof, and some one will make a better idiot

I've got a 7mm-08, that has a large gouge into one of the lands at the crown, it was like that when I got it new. It's a Magnum research 14" pistol, I thought it wouldn't be able to shoot, but I mounted a 2x Nikon, and bore sighted it, then went to the range, the trigger's are awefull on these, but with just a 2x scope, it would put 3 Rem 140 factory loads into 3/4" at 100yds.

Gentlemen,

A progress report on this test can be found

http://www.accuratereloading.com/223crn.html

After the next stage of damage, we plan on really messing up the crown, and see what that does.

After that we intend to cut off the damaged part, and cut the crown at a slight angle, and see how that works out.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

Saeed--thanks for your time and efforts. It's really educational for us guys that aren't getting to the range like we should!!

I HAVE TO MAKE ONE MORE COMMENT--I sure like group #3 from the undamaged barrell. I always love it when people are posting that their gun will shoot "an honest" 1.5" group at 300 yds "all day long" etc etc etc. That group is PROOF that it can be done right!!!??? Ya right then you look at the others and realize all day long is one lucky group of 5.

Don,

It gets quite funny sometimes here in our lab.

I remember a friend asking me to load him some 243 ammo, for a friend of his who has a rifle but no ammo.

I loaded a couple of boxes for him with a load that has given us reasonable accuracy in several rifles.

A few days later, he called and said the ammo I gave him was not as accurate as the factory ammo his friend shoots in his rifle.

I asked him to bring his friend along, together with some ammo that shoots well in his rifle.

They both arrived here with a Winchester Featherlight 243 rifle, and half a box of Federal 100 grain factory loads.

Me:"How good does this Federal ammo shoots in your rifle?"

Him:"They all go into the same hole. Very accurate. I would like you to load me ammo just like them."

Me:"I do not think your rifle is capable of one hole groups, but if you would like to shoot me a group with it, I will make sure I load you ammo that shoots just as good."

He fired a 3 shot group, which was about 3 inches! I could see from the way he was shooting that there was no way in hell he would EVER shoot a one hole group!

I kept quiet, took his rifle from him, and fired a group with my reloads. They were about half the size of his group.

He did not seem too upset when he left.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

Saeed -

This is a serious question. Is shooting, working with guns, hunting, etc.., all you do? Please don't say yes, or my miserable life will have even less meaning .

R-WEST

Saeed, are you a Gunsmith? Or is this just a hobby? Also, I made over 250 post's, do I get my hunting video CD?

Saeed,

Thanks to share your experiences with us. Have you tetsed the same thing with others large cartridges?

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BER007
Keep the faith in any circumstances
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BBER007@HOTMAIL.COM

R-West,

We generally gather here in our workshop most afternoons. It is a sort of a "meeting" place for those who cannot seem to find anything better to do

A couple of year ago, I did manage to go hunting twice in one year. Other than that, I am afraid I only get the chance once a year. That includes putting up with Walter's behavious as well!

GSF1200,

No sir I am not a gunsmith. In fact we do not have a gunsmith amongst us at all.

You might like to check out the humor section, there are a couple of stories which you might find interesting.

BER007,

No sir we have not. This is the first test of its kind that we have done.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

I will be very interested in seeing the results of the tests.
Thanks for a great site.

Saeed -

Haven't seen anything for a while. How goes the project?

R-WEST

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"it is up to God to judge these terrorists; it is up to us to arrange their meeting" Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf

R-West,

I have not had the chance to do any more shooting, I am doing a bit of computer updating.

I should be able to start off again this weekend.

Sorry about the delay.

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saeed@ emirates.net.ae

www.accuratereloading.com

I had yet to stumble upon this thread until today but it struck a cord with me based on the following.

I was in BS'g with my gunsmith back when I still lived in North Dakota and a guy came in with an old rifle of some sort that just wasn't shooting very well. He was within one week of leaving for Colorado for some elk hunting. My gunsmith took the rifle to his bench and shot a group with it that truly sucked. He looked at it some and found that the crown area was just beat to hell. This is when it gets funny as he tends to cuss people out, no matter who they may be, when they do something stupid or when they do something wasteful, etc. Anyway, after discovering this damage he kind of went into a rant "you guys go out west hunting and stick your rifles in scabbords full of mud, snow, sticks, and sh*t then take them out and fire them, etc., etc., and then come in here wondering why they don't shoot straight..." (it was a longer rant than that suffice it to say) and finally the poor guy got a word in edge-wise to say that this was his spare "meat" rifle and it's been that way for years...it didn't matter as it got my gunsmith all worked up which is actually both entertaining and educational to witness. What I learned that day came after he took the barrel off, turned off about 1/2 an inch, crowned it, put it back together and damned if it didn't shoot quite well. After the poor guy left the discussion went on with topics such as putting a piece of tape on the crown to protect it from damage while hunting (gas in front of the bullet blows the tape off so there's no overpressure problems), etc. His moral of the story was pretty much already said in an earlier post that the muzzle's damned important as it's the last thing on the rifle the bullet touches.

Anyway, I thought a few folks might be interested.

Reed