bikemutt
Member
I've been working with a Howa 1500 mini-action chambered for 6.5 Grendel. Here's what I've done so far:
I sent the rifled action to Long Rifles, Inc. where they threaded the barrel.
It's mounted in an MDT LSS chassis with a fully adjustable MDT skeleton stock.
The shooter gets to squeeze on a Timney trigger set to 1.5 lbs.
It wears a Sightron III scope sitting in Burris 30mm rings on Leupold split bases.
The muzzle ends in an APA Little Bastard 6.5mm brake.
I'm handloading Hornady brass with Hornady 120 grain Amax projectiles under 28.9 grains of Varget ignited by CCI BR-4 primers. Chrony says these are running at 2460 fps, 20 fps slower than Hornady Match factory runs.
Anyway, after shooting a few hundred rounds with this rifle something has made itself very clear to me; group size is closely related to shoulder contact. If I can stay almost solely focused on keeping consistent shoulder contact, the rifle will shoot sub-MOA. If I don't, I'm looking at 2-MOA. Accuracy deviations are almost entirely vertical.
I went to the range to try out a few more things yesterday and came away a bit perplexed. I removed the brake and noted the rifle shot 4 MOA low from POA to POI. Then I screwed on my YHM 30 cal suppressor; the rifle shot 6 MOA high POA to POI. I put the brake back on and it shot to POA.
I've never owned a rifle that shifted POI to this degree depending on what's bolted up to the muzzle, especially not a suppressor. An inch here and there yes, 6 inches at 100 yards , no. Similarly, I own a few rifles that need to be handled "a certain way" for them to shoot nice, this one seems especially finicky to me, after all, I'm flesh and bone, not a lead sled.
I really like this rifle for a host of reasons but I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of ideas to have it be a steady-Eddie sort of shooter for me.
Figured it couldn't hurt to ask the team here at THR for some more ideas, or maybe some pointers as to what I may be doing wrong.
Thanks.
I sent the rifled action to Long Rifles, Inc. where they threaded the barrel.
It's mounted in an MDT LSS chassis with a fully adjustable MDT skeleton stock.
The shooter gets to squeeze on a Timney trigger set to 1.5 lbs.
It wears a Sightron III scope sitting in Burris 30mm rings on Leupold split bases.
The muzzle ends in an APA Little Bastard 6.5mm brake.
I'm handloading Hornady brass with Hornady 120 grain Amax projectiles under 28.9 grains of Varget ignited by CCI BR-4 primers. Chrony says these are running at 2460 fps, 20 fps slower than Hornady Match factory runs.
Anyway, after shooting a few hundred rounds with this rifle something has made itself very clear to me; group size is closely related to shoulder contact. If I can stay almost solely focused on keeping consistent shoulder contact, the rifle will shoot sub-MOA. If I don't, I'm looking at 2-MOA. Accuracy deviations are almost entirely vertical.
I went to the range to try out a few more things yesterday and came away a bit perplexed. I removed the brake and noted the rifle shot 4 MOA low from POA to POI. Then I screwed on my YHM 30 cal suppressor; the rifle shot 6 MOA high POA to POI. I put the brake back on and it shot to POA.
I've never owned a rifle that shifted POI to this degree depending on what's bolted up to the muzzle, especially not a suppressor. An inch here and there yes, 6 inches at 100 yards , no. Similarly, I own a few rifles that need to be handled "a certain way" for them to shoot nice, this one seems especially finicky to me, after all, I'm flesh and bone, not a lead sled.
I really like this rifle for a host of reasons but I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of ideas to have it be a steady-Eddie sort of shooter for me.
Figured it couldn't hurt to ask the team here at THR for some more ideas, or maybe some pointers as to what I may be doing wrong.
Thanks.