Congratulations Don!

Way to go John...That is a nice piece.

Mike

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Victory through superior firepower!

Thanks for all the nice words, guys. Looks like I will get the rifle sometime after Jan 1. You can bet I will be at the range the next Saturday!

I will be sure to post the results!

Don

I only have 4 words to say, Don....Can I shoot her? Can I shoot her? Can I shoot her? Huh? Huh? Can I shoot her?????

Seriously, that is a beaut of a rifle! Mr Ricks obviously did a very nice job. My rifles will be ashamed to show themselves if yours is out of its case.

I am excited for you. Make sure to post the results of your load development.

Canuck

Don, what a beautiful rifle, I'm envious.

John, terrific looking work, well done.

Range report from John Ricks:

Was shooting your 416 today: Your R-P cases, all with CCI 250 primers. No changes to scope settings between rounds. Three shot groups. All rounds fed from the magazine. Scope on 6 power. Off sandbags for a front rest, and a leather rabbit ears under the rear of the stock. Recoil is very manageable, in fact, I was shooting a 7-1/4 pound 358 Norma also, the 358 Norma has a higher recoil than your 416. The weight for your 416 with the scope is 10-1/2 pounds.

400 gr Hornady RN, IMR 4064, 75 grains, 3.560" COL. One inch high at 100 yards, 1-1/4 inch group.

350 gr. Speer Mag Tip, IMR 4320, 80 grains, 3.590" COL. Three inches high at 100 yards, 1 inch group.

380 gr. GS Custom, FN, IMR 4320, 80 grains, 3.590" COL. Two and one half inches high at 100 yards. 3/4 inch group.

Looks like you have a shooter. Everything was consistent, no flyers.

The only change I would make to the rifle is the use of good QD mounts such as the Leupold QRW or Warne Maxima.

Somebody is shooting my rifle! Not bad for first groups. Must have been snowing - no velocities reported. I have to agree on the rings, but will have to wait for better financial weather!

Don

Boy, just load up a bunch of those GS Custom's and your good to go to Africa! Bet your itchin to play with your new toy.

Canuck

Canuck,

I am dithering about like a kid at Christmas! I have cast the same lead into bullets half a dozen times, "getting ready" some practice bullets. I even cleaned up my reloading room!

Don

Don,
You cleaned up your loading room???!!! How are you going to find stuff now??????

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Gerard Schultz
GS Custom Bullets

I am curious about the GS Bullet velocities??
Any chrono info??

Mike

Mike,

I got up to 2600 fps with the 380 gr FN in this rifle with teh previous barrel, but dropped back to 2450 for accuracy and hot weather pressure margin.

No velocities from John.

I should get the rifle sometime after New Years. Will keep you posted on the HVs.

Don

Thanks Don!

Mike

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Victory through superior firepower!

Well the flippin' rifle has made it to Illinois on its trip from Washington to Ohio. Talk about taking a slow freight!

I don't think it's moving at all. It's all a cruel joke!

Don

Yahoooo! It's here!

I went down to the UPS center at closing time and sweet-talked the lady into pulling it off the truck (it came to the house while I was at work.)

Now I can fondle it tonight!

It looks great. The new barrel is a little heavier, which makes it just the right amount of front heavy for good off-hand shooting.

The once-fired brass seems to be perfectly round, and the chamber is good and tight. The crown is recessed a goodly distance, just right for a working rifle.

The sights are all centered and look to be very professionally installed. There is not an extra mark or rounded corner anywhere on the rifle.

I will be trying dummy rounds to check the minimum seating depth for all the various bullets I have in the house.

I hope to be at the range Saturday or Sunday, will be giving reports until you are sick of 'em!

Don

Right on Don! Congratulations.

I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when you opened up your parcel. Bet that thing was ripped open in the blink of an eye!

Canuck

I'm griining like a kid at Christmas, and the wrapping is still all over the living room floor!

Don

Don,

I just can't help but picture Peter Billingsly in "A Christmas Story" when he finally gets his Daisy Red Rider BB gun!!

Just make sure to keep a nice coat of oil on that beauty so she doesn't tarnish from all the fondling!

Canuck

[This message has been edited by Canuck (edited 01-10-2002).]

I just came back from the rifle range.

No velocities (hopefully) due to a dead battery.

Disappointing and consistent results for three shot groups:

350 Gr. Speer, 80 gr H380, GM215M, 2.471 inches, cold clean barrel, immediate copper racing stripes

350 Gr. Speer, 78 gr IMR4895, WLR, 2.571 inches, warm, fouled barrel, added copper evident.

330 gr GS Custom HV, 80 gr H380, GM215M, 2.337 inches, cold clean barrel. Light copper fouling.

All groups essentially triangular, average horizontal spread 1.6 inches, average vertical spread 1.9 inches. The 350Speer/H380 was consistently sub MOA in the old barrel.

The scope mounts are tight. The crown looks perfect (as does all the metal work.) I have not checked the scope to see where it is in the adjustment range. I will do that tonight.

I'm not sure what to do next, but I'm leaning towards rebedding the action. I don't use the barrel clamps that John Ricks showed in his pictures - but then I do it on the dining room table at 70F.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Don

Something is certainly fishy...

I doubt there is anything wrong with the bedding. I would throw out all the data and recipes that may have worked with the old barrel. With the work done to it, it wouldn't be likely to work with the "new" gun.

I'd try 80-81 grains of Reloader 15 and the Speer 350 grain bullet. It works great in my gun. Really, Reloader 15 and IMR-4064 are generally considered to be "the powders" for the 416 Rem.

As far as the copper fouling, until it hurts accuracy, I wouldn't care.

Could the scope have gotten hurt in transit?

JMHO, Joe.

JMac,

It could be anything right now, that's the problem!

I did not want to touch anything until I tried it out exactly as John sent it.

I recognize that recipes from the old barrel will not necessarily be the best loads for this barrel, but the components are all proven, which removes some of the variables. I'd expect a cut-rifled barrel on a trued action to shoot 1.5 MOA or better with any well-constructed load.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I paid to have the action trued, barrel installed, and the express sights and barrel band mounted. John threw in the bedding job so that he could test fire it with out destroying the stock, and the bluing because he couldn't stand the thought of me Oxpho bluing this fine piece!

I've got the action out of the stock, now. It is easy to see that the front(barrel)recoil lug was taking all the thrust. John had simply milled out the old bedding from the action forward and attempted to re-use my action bedding. (Remember I wasn't paying for the bedding job.) The barrel lug has set back its bedding to a couple of different depths from three different vertical positions. In other words the recoil lug was not returning to the bottom of the well every time adn was hammering the face backwards. I will re-bed the entire action and barrel, and put a very slight radius on the bottom rear edge of the recoil lug so that it won't dig into or shave the surface as it vibrates. I suspect and hope this will fix the problem.

Tune in next week!

Don

Well, it was two weeks instead of one. Turned out I had to order the steel-bed and the spray-can of release agent made them ship it surface!

I bedded the rifle last weekend, have had it curing in a heating pad since. The steel-bed is hard as woodpecker lips. I made a case-hardened steel widget for the barrel lug to recoil against, and bedded that in there first go.

Went to the range today and the results are much more encouraging. All groups are three shots at 100 yards.

350 Speer, 80 gr H380, Fed215, 1.66 inches

GS Custom 330 HV, 80 gr H380, Fed215, .736 inches

GS Custom 330 HV, 75 gr Varget, Fed210,.757 inches

GS Custom 330 HV, 77 gr Varget, Fed210, .870 inches

RCBS 368 grain hardcast, 72 gr. IMR4985, 1.56 inches (four shot group)

There was a dramatic zero change of 8 inches from the old bedding, so I did not get to test the cold zero characteristics. I saw no sign of walking with heat during shooting and cleaning at the range, but next trip should tell the tale for sure.

A very nice characteristic was that the centers of all groups were within about an inch of each other!

Don

Excellent Don!

Not bad for your first real set of test loads. I bet there were teeth showin' on the way home from the range.

Canuck

Well, there have been some changes on the Cutrifle Express. The rifle would not reliably group well except with Gerard's GS Custom 330 gr. HVs and FNs. It tended to copper foul raggedly and then throw fliers. The bore looked like it still had all the tooling marks in it. Upon questioning it turned out that John Ricks had not lapped it (as recommended by Dan Pedersen of Cutrifle), as he was afraid the bore was already too large. John said he had to use a .4102 pilot on his chamber reamer, when the bore should nominally be .408, and was reluctant to open it up even the half-thousandth that lapping might produce.

I slugged the bore and got .410+ at the throat and .409+ at the muzzle. I emailed Bill Tompkins for advice on whether to lap the bore or not. He said not to lap it, but to send it in to Dan Pedersen at Cutrifle. I reminded him that he had GIVEN me the barrel to begin with, but Bill had talked it over with Dan and pretty much insisted I let them look it over.

My Africa hunt was looming, so it was with some trepidation that I shipped off the rifle. I do not know exactly what Dan found wrong with the bore, but after looking carefully at the rest of the batch made with that tooling he found three others the same way.

What Dan did next has made me a fan for life. He asked me for the part numbers of all the sights and furniture. I told him that I am not particular about looks, and that he should feel free to re-use the parts, but he ordered all new parts, and installed them on a new barrel. He then refinished the rifle and shipped it back to me. He got it back to me within a month, even though SCI fell within that span. I have not had the rifle apart, but he was extremely thorough in that he bead blasted everything and refinished even the bolt knob that still had the shiny factory bluing on it. (Remember that John had thrown in the bluing job that he did, so that I wouldn't do it myself with Oxpho blue. I can't help it that I'm a barbarian!)

I shot the new barrel for the first time today. I started to break in the barrel, but after three shots I couldn't stand it any more. I shot a .544 FIVE shot group with the 330 gr. HVs. Wanting to know if that was a fluke, I cleaned the barrel, then followed up with a .603 seven shot group . I was then out of loaded HV rounds, and shot a .733 five shot group using the cheap 350 grain Speers that I'd loaded up for the break-in process.

The once-fired cases had less than .0005 runout .5 inches above the belt (probably due to uneven springback in the thicker metal), and no measurable runout at the shoulder or neck. These two chambers cut by John Ricks and then by Dan Pedersen are the most concentric I've ever had the pleasure to own.

In the letter that accompanied the rifle, Dan apologized for my trouble(!), and hoped that I (and John Ricks), would give him another chance in spite of this episode.

I can't speak for John, but there's no doubt that I am a well satisfied customer!

The CUTRIFLE EXPRESS RULES! (Now I have to do my part!)

Don

That's great!! You can tell the true professionals who want to do everything right from the sharks everytime....hats of to them..

mike

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Victory through superior firepower!

Congrats Don! I am very happy for you that this long sordid tale has a great ending. Well, I guess a pic of it leaning against a big kudu with you grinning in the background will be the happiest of endings for this story. Lets make it happen! Can't wait to see it (and you of course) in RSA in 42 days! If I ask REAL nice, will you let me try it?

Canuck

Canuck,

I think that rifle was snake bit.

I can't praise John Ricks, Dan Pedersen and Bill Tompkins enough. They are all true gun-nuts, and professional as well.

I'm still finding little tweaks Dan did to the rifle. He didn't just screw a barrel on it. The extractor has been worked on as well. It seems every time I look at a part he has been there. It's hard to believe he was doing all that "under warranty" much less that he was doing it for a barrel his buddy (Bill) gave away.

I guess it's true that no good deed goes unpunished!

Don