YAY! math ;D

I was bored and honestly getting kinda disappointed in my Stevens 200 target rig I guess for no other reason than shooting great groups had gotten to be routine. So what I did was to take my target binder out and average up my 100yd 5 shot group sizes by bullet. The numbers I came up with were quite a bit better than I had expected and honestly have me fired up on this rifle again.

I guess the disappointment just came from only focusing on the bad groups and not giving myself and the rifle enough credit for the good ones. Anyways here's my numbers so far going back to where a started keeping targets just over a year ago

The rifle is a stevens 200 fitted with a Shilen bull bbl originaly chambered for 7.62x39mm and now chambered for an improved version, The stock is a choate "ultimate" varmint, the trigger is a rifle basix SAV1 and the scope is a Leupold 36x

125 grain Speer TNT HP

20 groups total---largest 1.12"------smallest .258" ----avg group size .597"


110 grain Hornady V-Max

8 groups total----Largest 0.832"------smallest .411"---avg group size .632"


110 grain Berger Match HP

4 groups total----Largest .760"----smallest .340---avg group size .511"


100 grain Lapua "cutting edge" HP

4 groups total----Largest .692"----smallest .532"---avg group size .613"

150 grain Speer SP

4 groups total----Largest 1.46"----smallest .930"---avg group size 1.138"


125 grain Sierra Gameking

2 groups total----Largest .882----smallest .750"---avg group size .816"

123grain Monarch (barnual) FMJ factory load

6 groups total----Largest 1.37"----smallest .666" avg group size 1.060"

What does this all tell me???? Heck I don't know other than it's a good thing I bought 1000 of those TNT's and that steel cased ammo is only half as accurate as my handloads.......which is honestly disappointing and welcome at the same time. Either way I thought I'd share these results and maybe have a discussion throwing about Ideas of where to go from here to shrink these averages even further.

If you don't know where you've been, you can't tell where you're going. I'm a strong advocate of having a folder on each rifle and saving ALL your targets. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

If you're loading for several rifles, over time, you can forget what all you've tried and you can read an article or hear about something in cyberspacace and when you check your notes, say, "oh yeah, been there, done that." and save yourself some trouble. Or offer some fact based advise to someone else.

Personally I'd start playing with the TNTs and the Bergers and search for the right powders and charges.I'm sure you are doing this. Some suggestions would be ac2200, ac 2015 or perhaps ac 5744.

quote:

Originally posted by bartsche:
Personally I'd start playing with the TNTs and the Bergers and search for the right powders and charges.I'm sure you are doing this. Some suggestions would be ac2200, ac 2015 or perhaps ac 5744.

well to be honest I haven't done much development in the propellant department. Those TNT's rely on H335 and the others on n120, right now I'm in the process of finding the optimal bullet seating depth. So far it appears ad though .005" out to right at the rifling is gonna yeild the best results.

H 4198 is my go to 7.62x39.

Pretty impressive for a $300 rifle.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikelravy:
Pretty impressive for a $300 rifle.

Actually it's a $300 action, everything else has been upgraded

your annealing looks perfect! roger

Hey Krochus, Nice looking rig. It appears you did a good bit of thinking about what you wanted prior to having it all changed around. And the results speak well for everything you did as well as your shooting.

Will you be doing any Hunting with it?

Krochus
I guess my point was that the Stevens platform can perform as weel as or better than a lot of more expensive ones. Few people use them for custom rifles, probably because of doubts about resale value or ignorance.

Hey! That's pretty neat! How about a complete blueprint, so we know exactly what all you did?

quote:

Originally posted by Bug:
Hey! That's pretty neat! How about a complete blueprint, so we know exactly what all you did?

Really simple,

I just installed a .300" pilot on a 6mm PPC reamer I rented and ran it .060" "too far" into a 7.62x39mm chamber. I then reinstalled my barrel appx .005" in against the neck shoulder junction on FL or new 7.62x39mm brass. The brass is neck sized only using a Lee 7.62x39mm collet die.