Got out for a practice today, but first we had to chase one of our cows a couple kilometers after she decided to go looking for a bull this morning
We found her in a neighbour's property hanging with a young bull and a mumma cow, and a fox. The rest of his herd was up over the hill but this pair were on their own. I discovered the mumma's baby dead, very recently, probably this morning. Looks like she'd gotten under a single hot wire around some sheds yesterday or the day before, couldn't get back out, and died. The fox was just getting stuck into her lips when we showed up looking for our girl. I'd like to get out there at dawn to see if the foxes come back to her (a fox took two of our chickens and two from a neighbour this week). We walked our girl all the way back to her own gang, through the bush. When we came out of the bush she spotted her mates 700m away and set off at a trot leaving us way behind. Rose followed her to let her through the gate while I set up the Figure 11 at 180m for some .303 practice.
I made up fifteen dummies this week to practice dry-fire rapid and reloads, which have been running just fine. Except that every single time (no exceptions) I strip the rounds into the magazine the top round gets rim-locked, whether I strip in one charger or two. I also discovered the mag holds, and feeds perfectly, eleven rounds - maybe it's not entirely "as issued"? I tried loading the chargers sloped rather than staggered and so far they load just fine, zero rim locks. I used Federal brass for the dummies as I only have about 50 pieces. It's possible it's just this brass as the PPU seems to work fine, or it might be a nasty result of stripping the rifle last week. I've been videoing myself running the dummies. Just running 10rds through the action in my lap without pulling the trigger takes about seven seconds. From prone, running the mag through the rifle, including getting a rough sight picture (on a tree at 50m) and dry-firing each time is about 28 seconds. It then takes about five seconds to grab another round, toss it in, close the bolt, get a sight picture, fire, and open the bolt ready for the next round. From prone this is significantly quicker than trying to strip a charger into the magazine and reacquiring the target. I'm sure it's quicker to run five singles than to strip a charger in, then fire five rounds - from prone it's fairly awkward stripping a charger into the magazine and requires some positional changes. Grabbing loose rounds from the ground and tossing them in is smooth and very easy with no change of position - five singles loaded, aimed, and fired is only 25 seconds. From offhand and kneeling a charger is quicker.
I did a dry-fire rapid practice today as a warm-up and found that acquiring a good sight picture on the Figure 11 at 180m slowed me down to around 40 seconds. I was going to do a few live-fire rapid practices to see whether recoil recovery increases it but didn't bother. My shooting today was absolutely atrocious. Last week, just shooting across the back of the ute my 180m groups were 450mm and well centred on the target. Today's efforts gave me 50% on the board (1200x600mm), with the "group" almost the height of the 1200mm board. Looking at the impacts in the dirt behind the target, the width was probably not as bad but still well wider than the 600mm board. I did have a terrible sight picture, with the "W" rear notch and no visible front sight, as usual, but this was ridiculous
Oh well, I knew my eye issue would be a problem.
So I tried the Eyepal aperture again. It does do an amazing job of defining the sights, but I really hate using the thing. It is never in the same position after each shot so you have to adjust your glasses and twist your head around to get the aperture to align somewhere in front of your eye that also lets you see the sights and the target, very, very annoying. I can usually manage to see through it but I'm basically trying to peer around one of the edges of the circle rather than having it centred - which can't be good for precision. I'm sure for Benchrest, sitting at a bench with ten-minutes to take each shot it's a godsend, but for field shooting I would have to say it's hopeless. I've tried it on five different pairs of glasses and none of them work any better than the rest. Perhaps with goggles strapped around my head the thing might stay in position - I have just such goggles coming to test that out
I tried a second 10rd group with the EyePal and it was as dismal as the first. And two shots managed to hit the 6mm steel rod around the target frame, the first bending it, the second blowing it apart. I really did think having the frame 600mm wide would make it impossible to inadvertently hit it
I fired the case-life test rounds and packed it in for today. I'll have to get out and shoot some groups off the bench tomorrow at 50m to determine whether today's result was due to my eyesight or whether the rifle simply no longer groups after disassembly. Hopefully not the latter.
I measured the case life brass. Despite bumping the shoulders .007" last time, one firing has them up .005"-.006" already at the shoulder. I can only guess that all the brass I've trimmed off the mouths is coming from the shoulder area, making it thinner. One more firing will almost certainly require bumping them again. Case lengths have stretched .008" before sizing so I expect to trim these at least .010" after neck-sizing.
From new, this PPU stretched fairly consistently for the first five firings, then I needed to start bumping them. The first firing after bumping gives a significant lengthening, the second firing stretches very little. Clearly this variation in case volume is not conducive to consistency. I'm inclined to think you would be better off simply bumping the shoulder every time. You'd likely also have to trim them about .005" every time, but as I'm having to trim them every time even neck-sizing that's no loss, so really you're just adding having to lube the brass every time. After ten firings you'd likely have trimmed about the same off them as I have with seven neck-sizes and three shoulder bumps. The case volume would be more consistent for every loading though. My new PPU brass has the shoulder .033" short for my chamber, which is huge. If I were trying to build a precision load for this rifle I would fire-form all the brass with a fairly warm load to push the shoulder as far forward as possible, and then bump the shoulder every time .003" to .005" from then on. I might even try a batch this way and see if I have a measurable difference, but I'd have to re-scope the rifle for that.