I guess it would be in the unlimited class but has it ever been tried using something resembling a universal receiver?? And would it be legal to use??

You know a huge square or round block of steel with an oversized barrel attached to it. No bolt just a huge breach block. kinda like a miniature howitzer. All these threads on action building and stuff got me thinking

If you go to www.benchrest.com the home page has the IBS and NBRSA logos. If you click on the logo it will take you to their home page, where the rules are available.

I live pretty close to the Original 1,000 Yard Benchrest Club in Bodines, PA.

I have seen rail guns etc, that are more or less what you describe.

KC,
You can go to http://www.benchshot.com/ and go through the photos and see several.
Butch

Thanks guys that's what I was looking for

kcstott : You know you've got a winner when your able to place a play card out there on edge cut it in two across axis !.

I did that ONCE with a BP .36 caliber ball from a pistol at 25 yd. and Never duplicated it with ANYTHING SINCE !!!.

Are you thinking something like a cannon breech?

Rich

Yep that's what I'm getting at. A canon breach, artillery, piece howitzer.

We've had multiple discussions on Blueprinting rifles and extracting the upmost accuracy from them. How the bolt needs to lock up square with the lugs and how the concentricity of the barrel, action, chamber, and bolt need to be as near perfect as possible.

Well what if you removed two of the four above mention variables. what If all you had was a very heavy barrel and a precise chamber with nothing more then a large breach block to lock the cartridge in place.

Kinda just thinking out loud. I know someone at some point in time n=must have tried something like this in bench rest or just to see what it would do.

New ideas and "out of the box thinking" is always good and bring things forward!

Benchrest is not just extreme accuracy, it inwolves a lot more! It´s easy to get lost in the "super accurate rifle" when benchrest is mentioned. Of corse the rifle have to be deadly accurate, don´t get me wrong here But there´s a lot of other factors that needs to be considered when trying to win a benchrest match. The rifle have to be easy to work during reloading. It´s often important to be able to get shots of fast when a window opens in the contitions and the rig have to be easy to reload and don´t move around the the rests in the process. Rong range BR and UNL is a bit less sesitive about this but most shooters pick a easy and fast handling action in all diciplines.

Just a few thougths from a benchrester to shed some light on a few things that makes a benchrest rifle a bit more useful on a BR match.

quote:

Originally posted by kcstott:
Well what if you removed two of the four above mention variables. what If all you had was a very heavy barrel and a precise chamber with nothing more then a large breach block to lock the cartridge in place.

Dr. Franklin Mann, author of the book "The Bullet's Flight" tried something like you describe over 100 years ago.

He used a heavy barrel, mounted on vee rails fastened to what he called his "Rock of Gibralter", a massive concrete pedestal, and for an action used what he called a Mann round action, which looked more or less like a knurled loading die. It was fastened to the breech of the barrel with conventional threads, and contained a firing pin, spring, and retaining device, which allowed him to place the barrel in the vee rest, insert a cartridge in the chamber, screw on the "round action", cock the firing pin and release it. The barrel recoiled freely in the vee blocks and had to be repositioned after each shot.

This arrangement allowed Dr. Mann to rotate the barrel between shots, to determine the effect of canting or rotation on the groups fired. Dr. Mann was an original thinker and well in advance of his time.

The "Mann barrel" was used to test ammunition in government facilities for years. Examples are occasionally sold by the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Rather than using the Mann action, the government barrels were fitted to ordinary Springfield actions.