My SST arrived yesterday just when I was getting ready to take the grand kids to mtns 4 wheeling so I took the opportunity to quickly convert some brass and load up a box of 20 to fire form and break her in a little. This case is REALLY easy to form as it is pretty much a shortened SAUM with the taper blown out when formed.
I decided to try some 147 ELDM's for the trip and loaded them behind 57 grains of H1000 at a coal of 2.795". That was about to the lands (I was hurrying)
That is a LONG bullet so just about anything you would want to shoot will fit in a std. magazine (Remington SA mag is about 2.825")
Rhian must have done a bang up machining job, and very consistent with the last barrel, because the first shot out of the new barrel struck within 2" of where the old was sighted in at (6.5SS) and the next 2 rounds were touching only 1 inch from former zero. This was with no bore sighting or anything. He just reattached the scope
I ran 10 rounds through it cleaning it 3 times and then fired a fouler and took the magneto speed bayo off. The MV with that low pressure load was 2903'. I then fired a 3 shot group with a slight scope adjustment while lying prone in an abandoned logging road. The target was a Home Depot moving box (don't want to talk about that)
, with a felt marker bullseye. The 3 shots went into about .3 moa which is typical of Rhian built rifle. The cases only shrink about .002" when fire forming this round, so they were still about .003" OVER chamber length. Looks like some serious accuracy potential as well as good velocity. I should be able to shoot at least 60 grains with this combo. I plan to test some new powders and do some load developement after the G-kids leave. Pretty sure i can make 3150' or so with the 147's with RL26.
These pics are all I took and are not the best quality with my flip top, but you get the idea............Rich
Oh ya, the 3 port Little beast brake is new for me on a 6.5 but it is REALLY fun to shoot. Spotting long range shots will be a breeze!
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