Missouri Mid Range Championship

[Barman54]

Missouri Mid Range Championship Held in Marshall, Mo. at Bucksnort Rifle Club. on October 1st and 2nd.

Match Day, Dark Overcast Chilly in the Morning, Warmed up a wee bit, made shooting enjoyable, but stayed Dark all day.

Match #1 176-6X, with a Crossfire 9 on my 3rd shot, and a 6, #%@!
Match #2 191-4X
Match #3 190-6X
Match #4 189-3X
AGG 746-19X

This being Shot with my SM M1A, with 6,662 Rounds through her.

I'm in Marksman Class, Lost my Expert Card with the Mid Range Redo awhile back. Do not shoot many Mid Range Matches as I used to.
That being said, got beat by a AR with one of them "Evil" scopes. he had a
785-34X, was dropping 3-5-8 points a Match.

Next day, Team Match, 2- 20 Rounds with Sightseers.
Same Cloudy Dark Day

Match #1 187-3X, All shots below the Fold, failed to move the sights, 8's or better, 96-2, 91-1X.
Match #2 192-3X, Came up 2 Clks, 95-2, 97-1X, pretty Centered Group.

Note, I did not clean the Barrel from Sat to Sunday, I wiped down the F/H, Q-Tipped the Op Rod w/Hoppes 9, Cleaned the Breech, Breech Face, and Bolt face.
The Barrel is a SAK Heavy, Wish I would have bought 2 of these back in the 90's.
This Winter for sure she will get a new Tube, a Satern 5R Stainless.

My load I was shooting, Sierra, 175 a top 43.0/4064 OAL 2.950
I have done this load on the Original Barrel, when it was on it's last leg. Normally I shoot 42.5/4064 and chase the Throat, but she was getting hard to find the lands.
Just a gentile nudge when she goes off, felt good.

Enough of my Early Morning Ramblings.

Barman54
Out

 

[Bart B.]

That's good shooting for a 308 barrel with over 6000 rounds through it. 3000 to 3500 rounds is max for best accuracy with the 308 Win. You'll get better accuracy with new cases; none of any M1, M14 or M1A rifles I know of have their bolt faces squared up. New cases have their heads flattened out of square when first fired and will slam against the bolt face at different places each time they're reloaded and fired. That degrades accuracy half a MOA or more.

And your load is as good as they get. I'd load them to magazine length and don't chase the lands. Rifling erodes forward about .001" for every 35 to 40 shots. I never chased the lands on all thr 7.62 Garand barrels I wore out winning my share of the matches. Used the same loads in all barrels.